Creating Space for New Teaching and Learning as a Veteran Teacher
Remaining Relevant as an Educator
Inside my mind is 20 years of teaching memories. 20 years of adapting to new curriculum, new strategies, and different students. My mind holds past failures to learn from and past successes to push forward from. As I prepare to start year 21 of teaching, all these thoughts muddle around in my brain making me the teacher I will be this year.
But have a left any room for self learning? Am I so far established in the ways I teach that I no longer look for ways to change? Am I closed off to new efficiencies, new strategies, or new curriculum? My willingness, or lack of willingness, at becoming a lifelong learner greatly impacts how my students view me. Do I model being a reflective, responsive, and open-minded learner to my students?
What areas of my teaching and learning could use a reboot? Where could I spend some time researching best practice for the 21st century classroom? How will my classroom practices look different from those of last year? Am I willing to try new things? Do I even know what those new things are?
This will be year five of me teaching at the university level. I feel confident with my edtech subject matter. I feel confident with the value of my assignments in helping my students understand what good technology integration looks like. But how can I adjust my delivery to introduce students to tools and strategies that meet student needs in ways they may not yet be familiar with?
As I teach preservice teachers this year, that is my goal. How do I slowly show them what personalized learning can look like? How do I introduce them to tools that have the ability to inform instruction? How might I use technology in ways that gives them agency in their learning paths? How can a create a culture of community in my classroom that allows them to want to be on task while we are learning together?
I don’t know the answers to all these questions, but I do know that I am not satisfied in teaching future teachers how to teach like they have always been taught. It’s time to broaden their classroom technology integration experiences so that they might be more likely to do the same in their future classrooms.
