I'm back!

I imagine most of you will no longer be reading my posts, either because you have finally finished this class, or are leaving for the summer and don't want to associate with anything school related, or simply because reading my blog was perhaps the worst thing ever. In any case if you do happen to come across my blog I want to thank each of you for a great semester, and although a little scattered and confusing at times, I feel we made a lot of progress.

I hope you come away from this class feeling somewhat empowered, knowing that you can now infuse your teaching pedagogy with technology, making it that much more effective, dynamic, and interesting. I also hope you come away feeling that reflection is a key to success as a teacher. Just this past week before leaving for Vancouver I had an interesting experience at school (MRJH). I have been participating in a teacher reflection group once a month, where we as teachers at MRJH meet in groups of 6 and discuss current teaching practices, class success and failures. Ideally it is a great idea, however, it seems (from my perspective) that most teachers are very cynical about the experience and typically give terrible feedback, either because they don't want to hurt the feelings of another teacher, or simply because they want to get out of the meeting as quickly as possible. In either case this results in a waste of time. I have tried to mix things up a little by promoting, albeit sometimes strange or innovative ideas, challenging current pedagogy etc. This has not been met with much receptiveness. In fact it turns out that one of the teachers in my group was really bothered about some of the ideas. She expressed the concern that the classroom was her domain and that she likes the freedom and autonomy to do as she pleases and didn't appreciate random ideas concerning rubric adjustments, or technology infusion ideas being promoted. Obviously, I may have over stepped my welcome and apologized for any wasteful propaganda that I had shared, and decided to work on my delivery in future meetings. I did learn something important from this incident that I wanted to share with you, which I have decided must become an important characteristic of any teacher: the ability and desire to "critically reflect." What I mean by critically reflect is the personal belief that there exists a need to continually develop in skill, practice and knowledge. This might come in the form of a professional development seminar, a meeting with coworkers, from reading professional journals, idle chat in the lunch room, etc. Whatever it is, as teachers we need to be able to take an analytical view and really think about what we do, have done, and will do as teachers. Currently the educational system is not perfect, and I am betting if teachers don't continue to critically reflect on their teaching practices and possible new ideas (even if they don’t agree with them) then the system will stagnate. If you want to be the best at what you do, you are going to have to critically reflect. Sometimes it might be eye-opening, especially when you discover you might have been implementing an ineffective methodology, but hopefully the process of reflection will lead you to continual professional growth and help you develop an effective pedagogy which empowers learners, and those with whom you associate.

Thanks again for being a kind, listening, patient audience, and for providing me grounds upon which to critically reflect and therefore grow!