How have connections with other professionals improved your practice? Today's entry is from Melissa Griffen, Math Teacher at Carmel Valley Middle School:
Teaching-a profession where we are constantly learning, growing, laughing and being inspired.
My fellow teachers are my extended family, whose advice, wisdom and support are invaluable and have helped me become the teacher I am today.
“Foxy Fraction”,“Quadrilateral Family Tree”, “Tushy-face” , “ZAGA” are just a few crazy “Griffisms” that have been created over the years by learning and listening from colleagues and students.
It’s my colleagues and students that inspired me to apply to LearnZillion last March, giving me the opportunity to attend Learnzillion’s TeachFest conference in San Francisco. I attended a three day training, learning and networking from over 200 teachers across the country about Common Core Standards and spent the summer researching, creating and publishing video lessons for their website. My research group consisted of teachers from Washington, D.C., Indiana and a math coach from Georgia (how cool is that?) I am now Facebook friends with over 100 math teachers across the country. Without a doubt, it was the most amazing, unforgettable, professional experience of my career (and the free hotel room was pretty nice too!) If you get a chance, check out their website at learnzillion.com for free video lessons based on common core standards for English and Math.
With each year of teaching comes the opportunity to learn new things. My learning goals this year:
- implement common core lessons in the classroom
- create more flipped lessons with Terrascore
- “ToSA-ing”
- win the Bobcat 500
I’m lucky to be a middle school teacher. I get to laugh and learn everyday!
