When we got the news (broken so softly) that NCCAT would not be a reality for us, I was very sad.\u00a0 I have had previous experiences at NCCAT and was so looking forward to the isolation from distractions, the comradery built with new educators like myself and the food I did not have to cook. When we were told it was going to be virtual there was most certainly a heavy eye roll.\u00a0 After months online with only a handfull of students who seemed to care so very little about my class, this was doomed to be another hit from 2020.\u00a0 My expectations were not high.\u00a0 How could they deliver the same as in person?\u00a0 How could I connect with others without those unexpected conversations at the dinner table, at the snack table, at the table we would have shared in the conference room?\u00a0 How could a bright screen with a Brady Bunch of people I did not know be the same?\u00a0 The same it was not, but I did get some unexpected conversations, some unexpected fun and some unexpected comradery.\u00a0 From the Flipgrid “get to knows” to the Quizzzes that let us know who really watched them and who was a good test taker, the journey began.\u00a0 I even caught some of the instructors in a game of two truths and a lie when I used one of the interesting things about me from those Flipgrid introductions as a truth and they guessed that as the lie (not enough time in our days to do it all as a teacher, so no worries).<\/p>\n
We struggeld with some technology and pushed our way through. The Scavenger Hunt was the highlight of my week as that was the first time I had some quality interactions with my new fellows.\u00a0 We worked up to the last minute and thought we had done well until we found out the three other teams in front of us must have done ALL of the challenges to collect 9K points plus.\u00a0 I did feel bad when I submitted the picture of my name built with household items (I knew someone called it).\u00a0 It was not done yet and we were running out of time.\u00a0 When she showed me later what she had done I wanted her to delete mine and use hers.\u00a0 It was so thoughtout and not rushed.\u00a0 It took so much creativity and TIME.\u00a0 I learned much about my colleague in that moment.\u00a0 She was creative, thoughtful, detailed and an artist.\u00a0 She cared more about the quality of the product than the race.\u00a0 She was someone I would ask to have on my team from now on. I also learned from that scavenger hunt that sometimes focusing on one piece of tech at a time could keep my students from feeling the frustration of learning several pieces of technology at a time that could keep them from the actual concept in which the use of the tech was just a tool.<\/p>\n
Though I was overwhelmed with information (like most PD), I found nuggets I plan to use in my classroom.\u00a0 Flipgrid will make a great icebreaker whether we are face to face or virtual in the fall.\u00a0 Goosechase will make a great PBL structure base for many a scavenger hunt lesson plans on the chemistry around us.\u00a0 My wheels have been turning since our Hunt as to how I will use this new app in my classroom.\u00a0 I may even invest some time in creating some HyperDocs for my assignments to keep everything in one place for my students to teach them the concepts as well as model organization skills they need for their next journey in education.<\/p>\n
Lastly, I have always been a welcome beacon for any and all in my classroom.\u00a0 I have always thought myself to be open-minded, but as this year has made many of us question much about our true hearts, I know I have more growing to do.\u00a0 I have more to learn about those around me, about my students – their cultures and their voices.\u00a0 I want to be better for them, for their futures and ours.\u00a0 Thank you Kenan Fellows for selecting me to take this journey with you.\u00a0 May we all continue to grow with our students and our schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When we got the news (broken so softly) that NCCAT would not be a reality for us, I was very sad.\u00a0 I have had previous experiences at NCCAT and was so looking forward to the isolation from distractions, the comradery built with new educators like myself and the food I did not have to cook. When we were told it… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2021-lrhinehart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}