The summer so far...

Hey! Welcome to my non-classroom blog on all the random thoughts and experiences I have as a beginning teacher!!!

In May I finished my first full year of teaching. It was a year full of trying to do all the things, blogging all the lesson plans (my baby/first blog is here), letting myself (sometimes accidentally) fail (First Attempt In Learning) and reflect, and benefiting from the support of the AMAZING faculty and administration I work with at Lee Early College in Sanford, NC. It was truly a year of wonderful opportunities - I attended NC New Schools New Teacher Institute, AVID Path Training, and Scaling STEM. I led clubs and became a PLC leader. SO, it was a whirlwind which was well-celebrated with an awesome brownie on the last day of school before I headed out to the mountains to take Climate Change Ecology at Highlands Biological Station.

Local strawberries + coconut ice cream + chocolate +
the coolest candle on Earth =
Best celebration ever 

Hunting for moths which are a proxy for air pollution.
We didn't have many moths at this point :-).

Two days after the school year ended, I drove up to Highlands, NC where I was fortunate to take Climate Change Ecology with professors who let me turn my papers into blog posts I could use in my classroom. I got to be engaged in real scientific research that will provide baseline data as scientists study how climate is changing and the role humans play in these changes.

After finishing the course, I slept for a week (and ate chocolate from the French Broad Chocolate Lounge which is DEFINITELY relevant to resilience as a teacher... and went to LOTS of yoga classes). Then, I worked with Elizabeth Wiggs and a bunch of other great teachers from our district to train teachers in Understanding by Design. I led a session on Essential Questions and another on how to use UbD posters in the classroom (#transparency). It was reengerizing to work with teachers who were SO excited to enhance their classroom teaching! I learned a lot from working with them!!! Lee County Schools rocks!

Then, I went to the AVID Summer Institute at Dallas with the best team of teachers ever! Despite thunderstorms, no Wifi (whattt????), and the constant battle with summer burnout, we got SO much done! We are well on our way to implementing AVID with fidelity at LEC! #truthisnotanattitude #theCornellway

A major take away from conferences and professional development so far is that we teachers love stickers and coloring and toffee...

Practicing our Cornell notetaking...