BLOGGING for EDUCATORS

I realized that the time I take to sit down and reflect on what I do, what I read, or what I observe has really helped my own path as an educator.  By doing this, I can continuously work  to improve. Blogging is a  transparent way of learning and is something that I believe can not only improve the teaching profession as a whole , but is also something that could really improve learning for our students.

Dean Shareski talked about this in his article entitled,  "How to Make Better Teachers"', and the one word he used for his answer was “blogging”.  Dean pushes this concept and shares how blogging mirrors some of the same objectives of Professional Learning Communities:

I’ve yet to hear anyone who has stuck with blogging suggest it’s been anything less than essential to their growth and improvement. I’ve no “data” to prove this but I’m willing to bet my golf clubs that teachers who blog are our best teachers. If you look at the promise of Professional Learning Communities that our schools have invested thousands, more likely millions to achieve, blogs accomplish much of the same things. The basic idea of the PLC is to have teachers share practice/data and work in teams to make improvements. A good blog does this and more.

 Whether you have been teaching one year, or 30, there is so much we can learn from everyone.
Although Dean's post was entitled, "How to Make Better Teachers", from what I am seeing, it could have been easily entitled, “How to Make Better Schools”.  There is so much we can learn from one another.  We need to continuously work to create the culture and environment where sharing is the norm and learning is transparent.

Calendar Ideas

By increasing parental involvement in turn our school climate will be more welcoming.  At the beginning of this school year our PTA is changing to a PTO.  I have several ideas for increasing parental involvement throughout the year.  I am going to make a calendar of events to have available at our “Meet The Teacher Day”.  Some items to be included on the calendar are fundraisers, monthly meetings, school wide events, incentives, parenting classes, homework sessions, and coffee with the principal.  We are both very excited about embarking on this adventure.  Actually I am even excited about becoming an active member of the PTO to make this a success for everyone.

Action Research and How leaders Can Use It Successfully

Administrative inquiry also known as action research is the process of one engaging in systematic, intentional study of their own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what they have learned as a result of the inquiry (Dana, 2009, p.2).  This simply means an administrator seeks out something that needs improvement, reflects on it, gains insight by different means, analyzing their findings and develops and implements a plan of action.  Action research is different than traditional educational research in the fact that action research is performed by someone directly involved in education, whereas, traditional educational research is usually performed by an outside researcher.  Outside research is often performed by university researchers who are far removed from the classroom and education.  This research is then presented to the administrators as a new approach that should be implemented.  This type of research is usually based on the connection between theory and practice.  We as administrators/educators tend to frown on this type of research because it was not based on actual research performed by a practicing educator.  Action research or administrative inquiry has many benefits such as collaboration among educators, an “educator” approach, and more meaningful which in turn results a positive acceptance and implementation of the plan

The benefits of conducting action research are endless. First, action research allows individuals to identify problems they consider important rather than addressing issues others outside the system deem as important. Therefore, because of its nature, several different types of action research can occur in a school simultaneously.
Action research is a process that allows educators to experience problem solving and model it to their students and colleagues. Moreover, action research can revitalize the entire learning and professional community. Very practical and ongoing, action research can be used in an educator’s everyday experiences while on-the-job.