Hopdina Cohort Reflection
Week 1: Impact on my Professional Learning
I think the biggest thing here is that my bubble has
grown. While before I felt limited to
the professional development offered by Edina and my own research, I now have a
connected web of educators that are all working and learning toward being
better teachers. We can all bounce ideas
off of each other in the cloud. This
network is invaluable. It’s like a huge
online PLC!
Week 2: Impact on my Students
This has been huge. I
can think of two major impacts on my students.
The first is the use of screencasts.
I feel like I missed the big tech wave when I should have been making a
bunch of screencasts of all my lessons and I’m really jealous of the teachers
that have done so. I’m slowly building
my library though, mostly days when I’m gone.
Screencasts have totally changed the sub game. It’s almost like I’m there now, the students
just learn from me via the screen instead of having me at the board. The second is Desmos. Wow!
What a great tool. This allows my
students to not only have a great graphing tool but to create art and make
videos through graphing. I’ve noticed
that students have increasingly struggled graphically over the last few years
and this is bringing it all back. I use
Desmos at least weekly and probably more often in my room and there is still so
much to uncover. It’s incredible!
Week 3: Impact on my Teaching
The biggest impact the cohort has had on my teaching is that
it has simply made me think more about my teaching practices and it has made me
more open to trying new things. I have
so many more options and methods for accomplishing teaching and learning goals
now and know I can be more creative in my delivery and in student presentation
of knowledge. My classroom has become
more of a place for demonstration of creativity and expression of learning than
it ever was before and I have so many tools at my fingertips that make it
possible every day. I love the
flexibility I have to create new learning opportunities!
Week 4: How to Stay Current
I love attending conferences. It becomes a problem every spring, which
seems to be when all the exciting math and leadership conferences are
happening. I miss a lot of school. But I learn so many great things! I love networking, interacting with other
exciting and engaging teachers, and swapping ideas. It’s the best, and I know I can stay current by
continuing to engage in this way. I’m
also excited to continue using Twitter which was new to me in this cohort. I stayed away from it before but now I see
how I can essentially network and share ideas every day of the year. What a cool way to stay educationally
relevant! I’m also thinking about
revamping my blog and using it for educational purposes. I have a lot of travel stories that need to
get on there too!
Week 5: Overall Cohort Experience
I can’t believe we’re almost done! This experience has been great for so many
reasons. I now have this excellent
toolbox full of great and innovative ways to enhance the teaching and learning
experience. I know that every student I
teach for the rest of my career will benefit from what I’ve learned over the
last year. My biggest takeaway from the
cohort is how much there is out there in terms of networking and sharing
ideas. I figured this would just add
some tech tricks to my repertoire but now I have this network that will
continue feeding my hunger for great stuff.
Any teacher that feels like they’re in a rut or being left behind should
definitely do Hopdina. Especially with
the exciting changes and additions that are coming in the next cohort, anyone
can do it and definitely should. What a
great way to become a better educator!
