Amy’s Reflections

  As the end of March nears and testing season is upon us, I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to talk about ways to demonstrate student learning beyond tests. Little (if any) research shows that the only way to prepare students for tests is by giving tests, yet this is a default many educators use. I find myself frequently engaged in discussions about this with our teachers.  The questions, I ponder with them: what are we trying to measure? What are the different ways we can measure this? What are the advantages and disadvantages to each approach?  Using this graphic as a guide may be helpful in the future. George Couros recently shared it in his weekly e-mail and it provides options that should be considered for all students.  Some of you know, I’m a firm believer in providing students options to best demonstrate their learning but I also believe it’s part of every teachers job to guide students to selecting how they can best demonstrate their learn...

 So it’s the end of another month and I had vowed to write monthly posts again this year about important topics in education to continue to support educators during this challenging year in education. I am in awe every time I set foot in a classroom in my school this year at what I see.  I see teachers that love their craft and love their students. Most especially the challenging kiddos and when they have to figure out how to teach content in new ways because of learning gaps that occurred over the last two years. I see teachers that are committed to the work and highly reflective of their practice. Between January and February, I was fortunate to get in classrooms a lot as I did 6 units of study and several other teacher observations. This is by far the part of my job that I LOVE the most, being in classrooms where the true magic happens everyday in our schools.  Across these units of study and other observations I have done, I have watched teachers push their practice a...

 One of the most important things we do as leaders is provide feedback to help people grow. We have to consider our audience and build relationships with those that we are providing feedback to in order to know how to best motivate them and ensure continuous growth in our organizations. We have a responsibility to consider both the individuals goals and the organizations goals.   If you have read any of my prior blog posts, you likely know that during the pandemic I have doubled down on reading and joined the Pop Sugar reading challenge last year. One of the reasons that I love to read is so that I can learn more about different perspectives and how to best support these perspectives that differ from my own. As a leader in education right now, I am faced daily with people, both staff and students that have widely different views on the same topic. Masks versus unmasking kids, distancing in classrooms versus the concerns that we have significantly emotionally damaged our c...

  What is the right way to do the capstone project? This is a question that we have been considering for a few years now since the state of Connecticut put this requirement in place beginning with the Class of 2023. A small group of my colleagues and I started this when we were fortunate enough to be part of a pilot program when we first began having every student in our class have a device. Now it is hard, if not impossible, to imagine a high school classroom without devices. It also happened to be my last year in the classroom.      Our team, that was made up of a group of core subject area teachers for the ninth grade and myself as the computer class teacher and technology instructional leader that co-taught with our Library Media Specialist (LMS). We piloted, as part of the pilot program, a student portfolio system where we provided students with the choice of developing their own Google site or using a template that we developed and shared with students using a...

 I realized I am in need of some reflection and professional growth as I am feeling a bit static amid all the craziness of this school year where we brought all students back full time after 18 months of inconsistency in our school.  As I often do, I turned to my education spirit animal, George Couros for some inspiration. I purchased his newest book “Because of a Teacher” not just for myself but also for all of our new teachers in our building and our admin team. While I wish I could have suggested a book group for us, I try to still be mindful of the craziness of your first year teaching. I recently reminded our new teachers in our bi-monthly meeting about the book and that it’s a great place to turn for inspiration after a challenging day and provides questions that allow us to think deeper about our why or compelling reason.  I joined a Facebook group that George created as a book study and to connect with other educators. This weeks prompt after reading the first few...

 It’s been a really challenging year! I made it through 2020 in a good headspace, I really did despite all the challenges but this year, I have struggled immensely. I know this sometimes happens and I have to pick myself up and accept this and move on. I have been trying like crazy to do that, to decide that this year isn’t all lost. I know that your greatest growth often comes from the most challenging times. I’m trying to get there and understand where this is all taking me. I’ve spent the summer thus far, taking a personal inventory of where I was, where I am today and where I want to go. To determine a path forward. I’ve been honest with the people who have cared enough to ask about this and sought advice and counsel from close friends and colleagues that I respect a lot. I know how fortunate that I have been in my life. I frequently still reflect on my trip to Africa and how it changed my life and perspective on this forever. So I feel bad, feeling badly too! I know I still ha...

 I took a bit of a hiatus from writing in my monthly blogs. 2021 has continued the challenges of last year, though hope is upon us with the vaccine. I had my first one nearly a month ago, and this Thursday get my second dose! While I felt the excitement after getting my first, I can't say that I am anywhere near ready to return to the way things were. I am less hopeful now about us learning and progressing from the pandemic sadly and see that we are already slipping into being angry for having to be apart for so long and longing for the way things were traditionally. The conversation at work, which I am happy to be taking a break from this week, is all about learning loss. It's not at all about learning gains in resilience and more important skills than what was taught in a traditional reading, writing and math curriculum. The focus of our instructional leadership team has most recently been about how we get kids to step-up because the teachers feel they have been giving in to ...