Showing posts with label brain breaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain breaks. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2016

Watch Me Grow


Things I've learned about myself lately:
1. I'm a scaffolding queen. I like to support people until they feel comfortable. I sometimes still find the balance to let them feel little uneasy and I have been known to kick them out of the nest sometimes before they think they're ready but never before I think they are ready.  I think that's important for a tech coach but I also think I need to learn how to create a "catch and release" scenario sometimes. Teachers need opportunities to fail forward without my assistance so readily available. I think with many of the teachers I support it would cause us both to grow.
2. I find unknowns both exciting and overwhelming. Fortunately most of the time the exciting aspect of new endeavors that might benefit our students wins over the fact that I don't always feel equipped with time and talents before the fun begins. The perfectionist in me is learning to just move forward and grow. It seems this post is a self-assessment of my growth potential!
3. A full day of learning something new is overwhelmingly tiring, yet we expect the same attention to detail at 2:30 PM from our students as we do at 9 AM. The last two days I've learned new concepts regarding project-based learning and by the end of the day my brain was toast. I hope that I can remember that next year as I work with students. Brain breaks are important, movement is important, time to absorb new information, and opportunities to shut down and relax is important. There is no way I could have left those sessions and done any homework. Granted I have some pain issues going on but many of our students daily have outside issues going on as well. New concepts drain the brain, as teachers we need to be collaborating with each other to make sure we are not overwhelming our students each day with too many new concepts in multiple disciplines.
4. Learning is fun for me.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

All Things EduTechie- The Best of 2015




As 2015 comes to a close, I look back over All Things Edutechie and give you the top 10 most read posts this year. I am not one of those "blog once a week" educators. I am more "blog when the spirit hits you." Sometimes that is 3 times a week, sometimes that is every two weeks, but regardless I try to transparently share what has touched my heart, rattled my brain, or caused me to say "aha...this" on a regular basis.

I would be remiss without thanking each of you for taking the time to read my blog posts and giving me feedback on them. What an honor it was to be recognized by EdTech Magazine as one of the top 50 k-12 I.T. blogs. Professionally speaking, I know this year will be remembered for that achievement. I'm still blown away with seeing my name listed with so many of my eduheros. 

Without further ado, here is my 2015 top 10 blogposts. If you missed some of them- here is your chance to catch up!

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Are Brain Breaks All They Are Cracked Up To Be?




As I discuss in the video in this post, after attending multiple days of learning at ISTE 2015 I realized it was impossible for me to go from one session to the next for three consecutive days and get the most out of my ISTE experience. My brain was exhausted by the plethora of new information in a short amount of time. As one person on Twitter said, "it's like learning by firehose" and I would totally agree with that analogy.

This post is in direct response to my experience. How often are we, as educators, guilty of not letting our students have brain breaks? Sometimes our students need different things from a break: energized, calmed, or just focused. The video below will give you some real world solutions to help add brain breaks in your classroom no matter what age group you teach!