Tuesday 22 January 2013

These Are Exciting Times


As we count down the remaining days of our Christmas holidays I have found myself collecting my thoughts and experiencing many pangs of enthusiasm and ideas for the new school year.  Whilst it is a little daunting going back to teach a new year level (Yr4) for the third year in a row, I am looking forward to the challenge of teaching a grade that I last taught in 1998.

When people say to me that they could never be a teacher I find myself replying that it is an exciting time to be a teacher at the moment what with the fast rate of change and challenges in education.  Some of these include the explosion of technology, a move to collaborative teaching and learning methods at our school, personalising learning for all students and developing our PLT.

Some of the things I am excited about for this new school year and have set goals around for these exciting times include (in no particular order):

  • starting my own blog (tick)
  • sharing our work and learning with my teaching partner and with our PLT
  • continuing to build my PLN
  • getting our students blogging and making writing fun
  • using Edmodo with our students
  • incorporating The Daily 5 and The Daily Cafe into our literacy blocks
  • personalising learning for all students
  • introducing BYOT in Stage 2
  • inquiry learning
  • Maths 300
  • having our students share their learning and make global connections via our class twitter account

No doubt this list will grow and change as the year progresses and I am looking forward to ruminating(hence the blog title) on our experiences through this blog.  For  those still on holidays, enjoy it while it lasts.  Eight days and counting down...