After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content. The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them. I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
As I start looking forward to the 2015-16 school year, it's time to start upgrading. The first tool I’ll be gearing up is Canvas. Canvas is the powerful learning management system created by Instructure that my district has been using for the past two school years. I am very happy with the abilities and functionality it provides. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface in what the system has to offer. The first year I used Canvas, it was part of a pilot program in the district. The district rolled it out to a number of different teachers and hosted its own version at the district level. I spent that summer learning all about it via YouTube tutorials and was ready to use some of the basic elements. That year, I used it only in one class. I set up each unit as a module, created online quizzes for problem sets, created assignments students could submit online, and also had students create ePortfolios. Last school year, Canvas was rolled out district wide...