In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
So I've been writing this blog for about 13 months now. Just wanted to take the time to reflect on why I started and where it has taken me. There were two main reasons I started blogging. The first was to force myself to reflect on my practice. I am very good about thinking random thoughts about why I do what I do and how I feel the day went. But these thoughts never make it to the concrete or conclusion level. They are left as disconnected or half thought ideas floating around in my head. Strands that may never be tied together and I'll have to start anew because I never took the time to take them down. The process of writing or planning a post forces me to communicate these thoughts in a way that may not make sense to the world, but at the very least make sense to me and can be picked up by me to carry a little bit further. The other main reason I ended up starting this blog process was to keep track of my evidence and create arguments aro...