“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.” Neil Gaiman
I am inspired by the above quote by Neil Gaiman for the year 2017. It captures the message of mindset that we in the Teaching and Learning Department at ESU 10 believe is critical to teaching in the 21st Century! Are you willing to take risks, try new things, and possibly even fail once in awhile? Then you have a “Growth Mindset!”
This mindset is critical for transforming classrooms and instruction from a “teacher-centered” environment to a “student-centered” environment. One way to make this happen is to implement blended learning, and the Teaching and Learning coordinators will continue to offer support, resources and training for blended learning in 2017. It looks like an exciting spring of workshops at ESU 10!
January 10 was the fourth day of the New Teacher Academy, which featured breakout sessions in technology, classroom management and more. We invited our NeBlendED Pilot teachers back on February 2 for networking and support. February15 is the “Career and Technical Education Collaboration Day” focusing on multiple breakout sessions led by T&L Coordinators. We also plan on another “Digital EDge Customized For You” workshop on February 21, followed by our Regional Collaboration Days for Academic Literacy Project (ALP) alumni on March 7 and 8. We are super excited to have national presenter, teacher and author Catlin Tucker here on June 8, for a full day of blending traditional teaching with technology.
We look forward to working with all of our ESU 10 teachers and administrators in the year 2017! Happy New Year!