MARSHA
RATZEL
Diary #13
Small Victories Pile Up!
Since I am
a teacher, I find encouragement in small victories. These are the bread
and butter of my job. Which, I guess, means I am quite content to conquer
the world one person at a time. That's a good thing to know about yourself.
Especially if you're working at the district office trying to effect change
on a districtwide basis. So I've concluded that my longevity formula needs
to include those small victories. My litany of this week's small victories
follows.
Small victory number two. A seventh grade social studies teacher who has been a reluctant adopter of technology finally gave into all my badgering. I've pleaded with her just to try one small thing to test technology again. Well, she did this week. She called and asked me how to use "the computer" for a History Alive activity. You need to know right off the bat; I'm not for using technology just for technology's sake. Technology should be used when it would magnify the lesson objective.
So I looked over what she was doing, talked with her about how her lessons were going, and pointed her towards Inspiration. Her students' interest lagged in using the graphic organizers that summarize the lesson's objectives -- Inspiration solved that issue. They attacked the task with enthusiasm and went into lots of details. I think she can see, at least in this case, how technology can help her continue being an effective teacher.
Small victory number three---Well, almost. Next week a team across the hall from the social studies teacher invites me to model-teach Inspiration lessons with their classes. How sweet it is, as Jackie Gleason said. I have basked in the fuzzy satisfaction that I can help. It is the most effective antidote I have for the discouragement I feel after spending hours in meetings. I don't mind the meetings where we work on team building or working to improve the learning environment. It's the political meetings where I listen to doublespeak and become totally aware of my pawn status. So I'll take my small victories as simple and pure as they are. Colleagues on the Internet have always been more than willing to help and are a wonderful source of encouragement. This week was no different. I check the San Diego City Schools professional development page pretty frequently because they teach similar topics as my district. I contacted their Inspiration course instructor for help in putting together a new class. She quickly sent me all her notes, the class agenda, and several links that they used. How cool is that? Just wide-open sharing because I asked. That part of the Internet is so rarely reported but is typical of the people I have encountered over and over. Small victory number four. The district's science-coordinating teacher asked me to help collaborate in designing the Earth Science middle school teacher's professional development. As we looked over last spring's Earth Science state assessment scores, constructed a matrix in Word, identified gaps in what students were to learn in each grade 3-7 and pinpointed the areas where student performance was low. Red flags went up in several areas. We ended up designing a series of inquiry-based lessons that will be presented in a simple two-page format and created a pre-assessment so the 7th grade teacher can figure out what students already know before they begin. We decided to post these on our server and link them back to the science curriculum page so teachers can have immediate access. I'm busy working on finding or creating tech tools to model of some of the difficult stuff --- demonstrating the Earth's liquid layer. I think StarLogo or MicroWorlds might be a way to do this. I'm fiddling with those application programs although I'm not a programmer by a long shot. If I wasn't so chicken, I could contact someone at either place and ask. So I'm resolved to that on Monday morning. I was also able to show them how we could use our SmartBoards to simplify how we teach a mapping activity. We plotted out recent volcanic activity. Instead of ordering expensive maps and Mylar, we can use the map online. It won't cost us anything and it should be much easier for students to accomplish the learning task. Then we realized those maps can be saved and re-used year after year. Building longitudinal data that resembles what real-world scientists do. I considered this a victory for two reasons. First we are moving more sophisticated analysis tools into science -- fading the technology away while maximizing the student's opportunity to analyze. And because I'm becoming a part of the team. The curriculum gurus are actively asking me to participate in their planning which means technology can be infused from the beginning. Teachers will be learning technology in context. Students will be learning technology in context. Maybe this is the district office counterpart to small victories. And that realization evokes a long sigh of relief that I can do this job and that I can be content. Dare I call this "Variation on Small Victories" number one?
