Declare victory! (and send a colleague where he/she belongs)
Teachers don’t brag. In fact, most teachers usually minimize their accomplishments by pointing out the shortcomings. When complimented on a really cool lesson or activity, the first thing they usually tell you is what went wrong or took too long or didn’t come out exactly as planned. After that, they tell you about the one student who didn’t finish or the parent who complained. If none of these problems occurred, the teacher will surely tell you what he/she needs to do to make it better next time or that it wasn’t really his/her idea in the first place. He/she saw it on… (TeachersFirst… or Pinterest?)
Declare victory! Share your student’s successes, however small they might seem to an outsider, via “What is your #eduwin?” I have written about #eduwin before, but it bears repeating. And now there is even more reason to report an #eduwin.
If you have seen an #eduwin occur in a colleague’s (or your own child’s) classroom, now you have a chance to highlight that success and send that teacher where he/she belongs. You can nominate someone for an #eduwin award — a chance for that teacher to share the #eduwin at the Annual CUE conference in March, 2014 in Palm Springs, CA. (CUE is the California group of Computer-Using Educators, a strong and creative edtech bunch made up of teachers and edtech users/coaches like you.) You can declare the learning victory of students who “get it,” of a culminating or motivator project that sings, or of a small win over confusion… even something as small as kids who finally use there, their, and they’re correctly!
As October spins headlong toward Thanksgiving, help the rest of the world know,”There are amazing things happening in education every minute.” As the #eduwin site asks, “What did you see?”
You could be sending a very deserving (and self-effacing) teacher on a professional trip that will be his/her personal learning #eduwin! At the very least, you tried.
