Summer Reading Challenge

Want to read more books this summer? Brightly just made it easier.  They created a checklist of 20 interactive challenges for reading books!

Summer Reading Challenge from Brightly

Become a More Productive Learner

Matt Plummer wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review (6-5-18) that has great resonance at this time of year when we reflect on learning.

The trend is to have much more learning from online workshops and courses making more information accessible to more people at all times.  Scary? He claims that we are "consuming more but not learning more."

His advice:

1. Focus the majority of your information on a single topic for several months.
2. Put what you're learning into frameworks.
3. Regularly synthesize what you have learned.
4. Cycle between information feasting and information fasting. 

How Did the Year Go for You?

As an English teacher, I always like to look back at the school year and evaluate how it went.  Too much of this? Not enough of that? How do I feel about the year?

It isn't a question of "did I do well?" or "did I do enough?"
The question is "how can I readjust my teaching to meet the needs that I didn't seem able to address?" What areas need attention? Am I missing the big picture of it?

The end of the year gives me a pause to reflect.  Also, an opportunity to come around to some broad stroke realizations about my work.  How many kids did I reach?  How much of what I do is really just getting them to see things, realize things and experience things they had never thought of before? 

Step back and ponder. Be grateful for an opportunity to grow. Maybe next year I should...