Thing 29 - Professional Development in Your PJs

Let me begin by saying that I really enjoyed spending time on the K12 Online Conference site.  It was fun to browse the site, and see the variety of presentations from teachers and other professionals in education that are out there.  I think that this is a great site, that I will go back to this year when I'm looking for some fresh ideas to bring to my classroom!  I will definitely re-watch the presentations that I watched.

The first sessions that I watched was by a middle school visual arts teacher.  The presentation is called 'Beyond Teaching & Learning:  Leaving a Legacy'.  The teacher inspired me to think about how to get my students thinking from the first couple days of school of the impact that they can leave on Greeley School.  In teaching 4th grade, the last year of elementary school in our district, I put a lot of responsibility on my students to be leaders in our building.  I want them to take pride in themselves, and let them know what they do on a daily basis matters.  This video shared great project ideas of how students can make an impact or legacy through a couple of neat and 'simple' project ideas.  One of the ideas was a project called 'Empty Bowls', which is having your students make a clay bowl on the first day of school, and then give it to someone as part of a community food drive so their bowl can 'be filled' by someone else.  Another idea which I loved was to read the book The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds.  After reading the book you have your students start with a blank canvas and make their 'mark', and then have their classmates add to it by rotating around the room.  The finished work can then be displayed somewhere in the school.  The finished paintings become 'Legacy Paintings'.  I think I'm going to try this idea to start my school year!!

The second video presentation that I watched was 'Merry Makers' by Steve Sherman from Cape Town, South Africa.  The focus of the presentation was pushing the STEAM/STEM movement in formal school environments.  Steve, who is the head of the Imagination Chapter in Cape Town, has been working with students in this capacity for over 20 years.  The presentation was fantastic!!    It is awesome to see that people are doing things around the world in the same ways that we want to integrate them in our own wonderful district.  After watching Steve's presentation it made me think that we NEED to find time to give our students the TIME and OPPORTUNITIES to create with each other by using their creativity and imaginations.  I love that the projects stress teamwork!! There are lots of great project ideas on this video.  One of the ideas was using Little Bits, which my students had the opportunity to use toward the end of this past school year (they loved it).  I hope that you take the time to check it out.  I know that I want to have my colleagues check out this video so we can try some of these ideas out at Greeley!