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.
Well this week was my 2nd time attending the ISTE conference. This year I was able to attend a bunch of wonderful sessions. I even presented. I’d like to that the time to share out the resources from my sessions and the sessions I attended. I’d like to thank the people who were most directly responsible for me attending ISTE. Barbara Bray for inviting me to present as a part of her sessions. Dana Monogue the director of teaching and learning in my district when the opportunity arose for finding resources to support my journey. Dana is now the superintendent of another great Wisconsin school district. Finally, the innovative work done in my classroom is done in partnership with my co-teacher Andelee Espinosa . Learner Agency Learner Voice and Learner Choice are two major components to providing Learner Agency in the classroom. Too often, voice and choice are seen as a single aspect. In our session, Barbara Bray, Kerry Gallagher, and I teased out key aspects of and examples fo...