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, reflect, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School, as expressed 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'll soak this one in.
It's been a while sine this original post about my favorite educational podcasts was posted. Epiphany Learning | Why Podcasts are My Primary Source of Professional Development for Personalized Learning and EdTech It's usually best practice to address the why first, but before we do that we need to be clear on what a podcast is. In the simplest terms, it is an audio program (or it could be video) that is available to download (or stream) to an portable audio player or computer to replay at your convenience. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to update my list of go to podcasts to stay informed. There are a few new ones and some others that are still going strong. I'll let the podcasts speak for themselves. With spring break a week away for us, I'll be catching up on a lot of episodes as I do some spring cleaning in and out of the house. I look forward to catching up with members of my PLN who don't necessarily know me, yet.