On Twitter I follow @WonderTeach , @JasonPtrDavies and

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@JasonPtrDavies ‏ and @WonderTeach  are high school teachers who teach social studies classes. They are active on twitter with current events, policies, news and inspiration. I have actually had the pleasure of hearing Cara who is @WonderTeach speak on a few occasions about her tips and tricks in te classroom and about why she teaches.

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YouTube channels I subscribe to are TED and Crash Course.

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TED is channel full of short talks spreading powerful ideas in short talks. I have watched so many ted videos in an effort to get glimpses of other perspectives, and ideas from professionals that I had never considered. I saw one about a girl who had autism but her school system didn't diagnose and support her tuntil she was 16 because no teacher cared enough. Another one was about how schools kill creativity and both of these made such an impact on me and the way I want to teach and interact with students.

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Crash Course is more of a tool, but I use it to scaffold content presented in class and to help refresh myself on content before I present it. They cover content in all of the Social Studies with short, funny videos.

One of the most influential professional development opportunities I went to was a seminar with Dr. Jay Marks. He opened by eyes to cultural proficiency and what it looks like. Because of Dr. Marks, I feel that my cultural proficiency has grown significantly since first meeting him at Oxford High School. 

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One of my biggest takeaways from interacting with him is having a cultural awareness of those around me and an open mind that seeks to understand others. When we proactively look to understand those around us, it prevents damaging misconceptions and reactionary policies. I also learned that everyone has a different culture than I do because each person is incredibly more unique than I had originally realized. Dr. Marks had us pair up with someone we had not really interacted with. I paired up with a pretty, young, white woman. I thought we had much in common based on my perception of her alone, but during the exercise Dr. Marks had us ask really personal questions about our identities, and I realized that my perception of my partner was only a small sliver into who she was as a person. This experience opened up my eyes to how different people are from people who share cultural and ethnic identities, even my own. I use this knowledge in the classroom as I treat every student as a unique individual as I try to connect and understand them wholly.

I had the opportunity of going to a Co-Teaching seminar with my Co-Teacher in World History and Civics. I have a much better understanding of the effectiveness of a co-taught classroom in reaching supported students. In addition to this, I have learned a lot this year about the variety of differentiation methods for high and low achieving learners through my partnership with my Co-Teacher Mr. Petersimes. The seminar prepared me for working with a large number of students with different support requirements and how to utilize the collaboration with a special education professional in reaching these students.

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I look forward to being able to demonstrate what I have learned in future classrooms as I feel that Co-Teaching is a necessary tool to helping every student achieve personal growth and success.

I also went to multiple training sessions, professional development seminars and meetings about the IB program at Oxford High School. I helped curate the criteria for IB rubrics, administered and graded IB projects. I have a decent understanding in how the program works, it's strengths, weaknesses and it's goals. 

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I like the premise that students have agency in showing what they know and are not restricted by the mind-numbing practice in the regurgitation of facts. I like project based summative assessments. I still see an importance in testing students, but in some cases a project or a discussion is much more effective in showing what a student understands than a multiple choice test. 

Podcasts I listen to are Talks with Teachers and Cult of Pedagogy.

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Talks with teachers is ran by Brian Sztabnik, a high school English teacher who interviews people like the national teacher of the year and other great educators on their best practices, advice and strategies. His goal is to help educators become better, his podcasts are really informative and helpful for beginning teachers like myself. I especially liked his podcast called "The Antidote to Burnout Teachers."

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Blogs I read are by Cult of Pedagogy and Innovative Educator.

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Cult of Pedagogy is curated by Barbara Paciotti who is a retired Social Studies Teacher and Jessica Gonzalez who taught middle school English and now teaches pre-service teachers at her local university. They cover a wide variety of topics including advice for first year teachers, classroom management, learning theory and more. They also have podcasts, a YouTube channel and a Pinterest page.

 

The Innovative Educator is blog about the use of technology in the classroom by award winning Lisa Nielson. She covers topics like technology in the classroom, screen time, media literacy and basic 'how to' use technology walkthroughs. Her blog also covers technology reviews which is helpful as someone with limited income to 'try' tech to see what I like best.