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 ...
In 2019, I had big plans of working on my National Boards. I began researching and determining exactly what the process entailed. I put together documentation of what goes in each part of the portfolio. I mapped out important deadlines. But then, 2020 happened and everything got put on hold. About a month ago as summer was approaching, I decided that the timing would be right to start again pick up where I left off, which was at the beginning. So, this is the one professional related task I will be working on over the summer. As I go through the process, I hope to use this blog as a place to reflect and share my progress in the process. So this is not so much of a blog post as it is a way to hold myself accountable to truly start the process and post updates to the blog. So, here we go...