What I love about being a part of the NC New Schools community is the value put into networking and professional learning.
I am a first year teacher and the only foreign language teacher at my school, which makes it challenging to come up with ways to incorporate the instructional alignment strategies in a manner that works for my subject area. Thankfully, my school principal encourages all teachers to better ourselves through professional development and I was granted the opportunity to attend the FLANC (Foreign Language Association of NC) Spring Conference.
The conference sessions gave me insight into what other teachers, who teach my subject area, are doing to encourage Read, Write, Speak, and Think in the target language in sessions like “Art as a Part of Articulation.” Additionally, I learned how to use technology to my advantage. I attended sessions titled “Social Networking: Who to Follow for the Best World Language and Technology Teaching Tips” and “Tech Lessons That Don’t Take All Day.” However, one of the best parts about this conference was getting to hear Carmen Scoggins, the key note speaker.
Student engagement leads to learning
Scoggins’ message was entitled “Sustainable Teaching for Language Learning Endurance,” although the ideas can apply to many subject areas. Sustainable teaching is the concept that teachers should strive to make learning engaging and interesting so that students will want to pass on what they’ve learned to someone else which, in turn, creates a legacy of learning that is sustained throughout a lifetime. This encourages students to make connections from what they learn in the classroom to what they do outside of school and their future careers! As part of this cycle of sustainable learning, teachers can help students discover how they learn best so they can learn better.
Learn like a co-op
Another takeaway from Scoggins was the analogy that collaborative group work should be run like a co-operative business. A group, or even within the relationship between the students and the teacher, has to rely on each other and equally participate in order to truly learn whatever concept is being covered.
The main parts of a co-operative according to Scoggins were: common purpose, shared investment, interconnectedness, and mutual benefits. When everyone works toward a common SMART goal, for example, the responsibility of meeting that goal is shared equally between the group members. By working together, the group can be successful and could then receive the benefit of getting a good grade on the assignment.
Build your network
The best advice I can give to my fellow first year teachers is to really listen and seek out help from top notch teachers because they’ve been where you are and can help you improve. After this conference, I went and followed great teachers (and of course, @ncnewschools) on social networking sites like Twitter and TeachersPayTeachers so that I can begin creating my own network of teaching ideas and resources.
One great teacher I found was Liz Bucrek who works with Carolina Navigators who create FREE culture kits from countries all over the world that teachers can use in their classrooms. I cannot wait to go to my next teaching conference and I would encourage teachers at any level to continue learning through professional development. Set your students up for a future of learning by first learning from other teachers!
