Final thoughts, but really just the beginning.

It’s over already!?

Hard to believe the Cohort 21 experience is coming to an end.  Through cohort 21, I have explored, reflected, redesigned, and pushed myself to think outside the box in my classroom.  There is no doubt in my mind, that Cohort 21 has been the greatest professional development opportunity I have had so far.

My Action Plan – Exploring the SAMR model through a dissection and the ThingLink tool.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcloV4TF-FY[/youtube]

Below is an embedded ThingLink photo describing some thoughts on my Action Plan (Included in the video above).

The Cohort 21 Experience: (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lPZOt7aLjSpmTAPjCEloUvClHhcaonSseqUT16HQjI0/edit?usp=sharing)

Community:

  • Like-minded individuals who value education, learning, and teaching.  
  • The Cohort 21 professional learning community is an invaluable resource for conversion, reflection, new ideas, and motivation
  • Our Face-2-Face sessions were inspiring and enjoyable.  

Reflection:

  • The blogging format forces you to reflect on your practices, start conversations, and share ideas in a public format.
  • Reflection has pushed me to ask the right questions to analyze my teaching. 

Challenges:

  • As per many endeavours, time is the ultimate challenge.  With family, work, and other life events, it was difficult to properly carve the time out of your schedule to blog/reflect/share regularly.  
  • I found it difficult to always be critical of my own ideas.  Sometimes it took conversations with others to really get down to the root of problems that arose throughout the action planning process.

Final Thoughts:

One of the most important take aways of Cohort 21 is the amazing group of people that are now part of your learning community.  Through this process I have become a more reflective and collaborative teacher.  Though overwhelming at first, Cohort 21 pushes you out of your comfort zone and opens your mind to lifelong learning. I look forward to further conversation with the individuals who value education and learning within this community.

 

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11 Responses to Final thoughts, but really just the beginning.

  1. mikefarley says:

    Tim, fantastic work! Great video and embedded Thinglink photo. Really enjoyed this.

  2. Tim,

    Great final reflection! I shared your Thinglink with my entire science department

  3. Tim,
    Congrats on an excellent YouTube summary of your Action Plan. And a big THANK-YOU to taking ThingLInk and really running with it. You should be really proud of this work, as I am sure that others are learning, or WILL LEARN, tons from this as it makes its way into the edu-sphere! Thanks for pushing my learning of what this tool is capable of. Like Justin, I am sharing this with my Science Dep’t too.

    It’d be great for you to grab some anecdotal feedback from your students on this as well!

    I’m looking forward to seeing you on Friday and hearing more about it.

    • Thank you Garth. It was an adventure in itself to make the youtube video today. I haven’t played too much with the screen capturing and iMovie programs. Cohort has pushed me to learn right to the end! I will look to seek some more feedback from the students as well.

  4. Dave Krocker says:

    My take – away from you Tim is the intentional reflection required by professional practitioners. My mind spins thinking about how we as a profession encourage and support (demand???) reflection time for all learners – students, teachers, staff – on a regular basis. Should we make the reflection visible, as a part of our learning community? Big questions and I know your growth was tied to Cohort 21 this year but as a passionate life long learner you naturally strive to seek, question and examine your practice. Well done!

    • Thank you Dave! I do believe that our learning community should be using reflection as a source of growth, but don’t always believe that it has to be publicly visible. If I was completely open with my reflections online, I think there is potential to be criticized (or crucified) in a non constructive way. I like to use it as a sounding board, and to hear feedback from the learning community I build. It’s certainly a powerful tool and has helped me grow as a educator.

  5. Tim, this was such an inspiring consolidation of your learning. I’m so looking forward to hearing more about your adventures with ThingLink on Friday!

    I am specifically really connecting to what you said when you wrote, “I found it difficult to always be critical of my own ideas. Sometimes it took conversations with others to really get down to the root of problems that arose throughout the action planning process.”

    This is needed to share our work to really “see” ourselves is so essential and also SO challenging. What were your strategies for getting others to read your work and give you that different perspective to push forward your thinking.

    I’m also going to flip this final post over to two of my favourite science teachers in the BSS Middle School…you are getting some great airtime with this work, friend!

  6. Adam Caplan says:

    Way to go, Tim! Your embedded ThingLink makes me want to try them out with my Grade 8’s. Nice sell on the discovery learning, too. I think you’ve done well to integrate SAMR into your action plan along side ThinkLink itself.

    Also, I tried to make my wrapup video intro by a beautiful lake … but I couldn’t find one. Nice hook!

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