First of all, I want to apologize for not posting on time. I'm currently on maternity leave with my son and I thought I'd have all the time in the world to take two different courses. I've been able to keep up with the coursework mostly but completely forgot to create new blog posts and I can't believe how fast the weeks have been flying. So, my goal is to make a better attempt at writing and posting to this blog on going basis.
So that brings me to this- a new direction to this blog. At first, I was going to write about 21st century learning in the elementary classroom. While I think that's still important, I find the scope overwhelming and to be honest, my mind is in baby mode these days- not elementary teaching mode. So, I'm going to change what I'm writing about. I'm going to write about being a mom and the changes to the way that we teach babies these days. How many times do I hear my mother or mother-in-law say "When you were young, we didn't do <<insert new way of raising a child>> and you turned out just fine." Well, this blog will give me a chance to write down the research that I'm already doing about how babies learn to sleep, eat, and develop in the modern age. It will also give me a chance to possibly vent about motherhood too! My question is: "How have parenting techniques changed and evolved over the past 40 years and how have innovative ideas changed the way that we parent?"
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I'll start off this post with a bit of background but feel free to read my story here if you want to learn more. I’m currently an elemenatry teacher on maternity leave. My previous teaching assignment was grade 4 at a private school in Oakville, Ontario. When I go back to work in six months, it will be in Hong Kong, where I am returning to teach third grade at the Hong Kong International School.
I’m looking forward to returning to my position in Hong Kong but I’m a little bit nervous too. The school that I’m returning to is fast paced and at the cutting edge of new ideas. I will have been gone four years, and I don’t want to return feeling unprepared. Innovation is something that international schools seem to implement very well. There are so many professional development workshops related to 21c learning, there are Professional Learning Communities (PLC) dedicated to innovation, and time is given for teachers to experiment with and implement new ideas. I feel a little behind the eight ball because the school I was teaching at was much more hesitant to embrace new ideas and although my husband (who’s also a teacher at that school) and I tried to form an innovation committee and introduce PD to the school, the initiatives fell flat. So, my goal for this class is to really take the time to unpack the 21st century learning competencies (learning skills as they seem to be called outside of Canada) and see how I can authentically integrate them into the 3rd grade curriculum at HKIS. Because I’ll be teaching in Hong Kong, I am going to try to use a variety of resources. Some from Ontario, as well as some from the United States as my school in HK has recently adopted the Common Core standards. I’ll also be using various PLCs that I’m part of already as resources. Here are a few resources I’ve found so far to help me with this journey: Resources:
PLCs that I’m currently a part of: I find Facebook a wonderful way to connect with different communities. I’m currently a part of the following online PLCs:
I also find Twitter is a great PLC. I follow many educators passionate about innovation in education. Although I’m more of a watcher on Twitter, perhaps this course will force me to actively participate in exchanges. My Twitter handle is @alittleteacher1 |
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