{"id":49,"date":"2016-11-10T01:31:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T01:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/?p=49"},"modified":"2016-11-11T05:04:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T05:04:45","slug":"49","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/2016\/11\/10\/49\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bulletin Board Made Me Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the opposite wall from the whiteboard in room 201 is a nicely decorated bulletin board, carefully constructed by my awesome colleague to catch the attention of our students. \u00a0Its aim is to promote a growth mindset in our students. Instead of thinking, \u201cI am terrible at this\u201d the board encourages them to think, \u201cI am working on getting better at this.\u201d <\/span>Change Your Words; Change Your Mindset. <\/span><\/i>It\u2019s catchy. It\u2019s cute. And it has been staring me down every day since our first Cohort21 Face-to-Face. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"img_1309\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s like it knew I <\/span>had<\/span><\/i> to start blogging. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yep, that\u2019s right. Had to start blogging. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cue indication that I am a prime candidate for changing their words and in turn their mindset.<\/span><\/p>\n

This past summer, I hiked the John Muir Trail with my friend, Hannah. While finding something to talk about beyond, “Wow, this is so beautiful”, I told Hannah about the PD I was going to be doing this year and how I was excited about it. The thing that worried me the most about it, I explained to her, was having to write a blog. While I believe in the importance of reflection, and I understand that blogging gives you an authentic audience (hey, don\u2019t we want those for our students?), builds community and dialogue, it still made me nervous. “Who is going to read my work? I have nothing valuable to add, I am not an expert teacher, I’ll have to tweet it out? That will be so awkward and embarrassing,” I told Hannah. I truly felt intimidated by making my thoughts available to a wide audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I got back from our first F2F, I realized my first step in blogging was to change my language and thoughts around blogging. I am actually looking forward to the process and I see the benefit, but having the voice inside my head say, \u201cI have to start blogging\u201d isn\u2019t helping to get me going. These past two weeks (it\u2019s been that long since I started this post!) I found myself thinking, \u201cI have to finish that blog post\u201d every night and never did. Today I thought, \u201cI am going to work on my blog tonight,\u201d and well, here I am. Changing the way I approached sitting down to write\u00a0really did help.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am committed to embracing the opportunity to think, reflect, and share my learning this year, even if it is a little intimidating. Since our F2F, ideas have been floating around in my head about what I might like to explore this year. I am a huge fan of collaboration and co-teaching. I am fortunate to be in a position where I am doing both this year with two different teachers. I\u2019d like to look at how I can harness the power of collaboration to enhance and elevate my teaching. Another thought is to look at the structure of my grade 9 Geography class. I am struggling with the physical space of the classroom, the large desks, and lack of natural light. I question how physical space impacts student learning and collaboration, and how to get around the limitations of the classroom. In addition, I find I am at the front of the class too much. It\u2019s not how I like to teach and while planning for the year I pictured a much different type of learning\/teaching to be occurring. I\u2019d like to reflect on what is working and begin\u00a0to take steps towards incorporating project-based learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

To start thinking and reflecting in earnest, and so that I can receive\u00a0feedback on my questions and frustrations, I am taking the advice from the bulletin board. I am removing blogging from my\u00a0\u201chave to do\u201d list and adding it to my \u201cget to do\u201d list, as clich\u00e9 as it sounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So here goes – bring on this new and engaging world of blogging. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the opposite wall from the whiteboard in room 201 is a nicely decorated bulletin board, carefully constructed by my awesome colleague to catch the attention of our students. \u00a0Its aim is to promote a growth mindset in our students. Instead of thinking, \u201cI am terrible at this\u201d the board encourages them to think, \u201cI … Continue reading “The Bulletin Board Made Me Do It”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/nicholabendle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}