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.
This week a team of teachers from my school presented at the Convening on Personalized Learning. Our presentation was on UDL (Universal Design for Learning) strategies and tools we use in the classroom. The format of our presentation was inspired by something we saw at ISTE 18 called Get Goog-Smacked: An Epic Smackdown of G Suite Tools and Teaching Tips which was presented by Kasey Bell, Eric Curtis, Matt Miller, and Vicky Davis. The Smackdown structure was high energy and introduced a lot of different resources in a limited amount of time. So, we appropriated the Smackdown structure for our presentation All Means All: An Epic Smackdown of Tools to Increase Equity for All Learners. The team included Special Education teacher and department head Andelee Espinosa , english teacher Shannon Maki , special education teacher Stephanie Radomski, special education teacher Ryan Milbrath, associate principal Matt Schroeder , and myself. In organizing our presentation we categorized our t...