September 2020
Sharing Knowledge
I have become a Teacher of Teachers (well, kind of). Teaching other teachers is something I have never considered. One of my main reasons for deciding to become a teacher is because of the limited interactions with adults – or so I thought. If you only knew how difficult the last two years of working in Corporate America had become for me, you would understand. Some of the most challenging experiences were, but not limited to, being verbally bullied by a fellow coworker, undervalued by a manager (at the time), and overlooked by many on the management team. In my heart of hearts, I knew it was time to leave. However, corporate America had become my haven. I traveled, had an office with a window, earned bonuses, had great benefits and I pretty much set my own schedule (unless it was month-end reporting). Nevertheless, I knew God had something different for my future. The writing was on the wall. I left and embraced a desire that had been buried inside of me for many years. A desire to become a teacher.
So, here we are - it is my 2nd year teaching and I must say that the ride has been exhilarating. I have enjoyed every moment of teaching so far and I honestly cannot imagine doing anything else at this time in my life. I adore my students and only want the absolute best for each of them. I do my best to help them learn how to navigate life after graduation as many of my students are from low socio-economic communities. I teach technology and skills for life.
As I stated earlier, when I began teaching, I had no idea or desire that I would be interacting with adults as much as I am currently. But the COVID-19 Pandemic happened and as a result, we began teaching our students virtually. While this was fairly easy for me to switch over and do; many of the teachers in my school struggled with our new onslaught of technology use. For many of the teachers, using technology 100% of the time while teaching is a daunting task.
The district has been amazing with providing training for all of the new platforms we are using. From online training to virtual professional development sessions, to faculty meetings and professional learning communities, we have access to hundreds, if not thousands of guides to help us become highly effective teachers during this pandemic. Unfortunately, that has not been enough for many teachers. All of the training, PDs, etc have been overwhelming for many teachers, especially new ones to the district as well as to teaching.
During the course of all that has been taking place, I decided it would be a good idea to record some instructions for my students and place in on my personal school site. In haste, I sent the videos to my CTE department and included my principal. After the second video I sent to her, she replied back and asked me to send this information to the entire faculty since everyone can benefit from it. I did. I started with very simple tasks such as “How to open an Excel document” and How to save a bookmark in Google Chrome”. The videos (sixteen in total, so far) have not increased in complexity and contain tips on “How to download a roster”, “How to insert links in a Word document” and “How to use Microsoft Office with Pear Deck”.
The responses from the teachers have been overwhelmingly positive with many teachers emailing and asking for advice regarding technology. I have been invited by my school administration team to write a guide regarding virtual discipline using our synchronous learning system as well as invited by the CTE department in our district to host my own PD for other teachers. However, the most respected honor was having an instructional technology specialist ask to use a technology guide I created with the assistance of my school's IT department as a handbook for multiple schools in the district.
Overall, I have come to realize that working with adults is not so bad, I guess it depends on the type of adults I am working with. At the moment I do not have any major goals to go along with my instructional tips, I just love the art of teaching and have come to appreciate those who are using my knowledge to their benefit.
Comments