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Showing posts with label PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT / CLASS PREP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT / CLASS PREP. Show all posts

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Personal Reflections On My 2020 Professional Experiences | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Personal Reflections On My 2020 Professional Experiences | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON MY 2020 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES




I thought some readers might find it interesting, and I thought it would be a useful reflection exercise for me, if I reflected on my work around education over the past twelve months AND my hopes and concerns for 2021 (those 2021 thoughts will appear in a future post)

I’ve already done a more “big picture” review in my annual Washington Post piece, The positively worst and best education news of 2020 — as viewed by a teacher, and expect equally “big picture” predictions in a column that should be published there this week.

On a personal level, my family and I have weathered 2020 well, and we expect to do the same next year. I’ll save that commentary for the annual New Year’s letter we send out šŸ™‚

REFLECTIONS ON 2020

The year began pretty smoothly.  Classes were going well and, then, in late February I read something about some schools in Asia  closing down physically and moving to remote instruction because of some kind of virus.

No way that could that happen here, I figured, but I thought some readers around the world might find it helpful if I began to collect distance learning resources.

Then, in early March, I was still thinking it was unlikely to affect us in Sacramento, but I also figured it couldn’t CONTINUE READING: Personal Reflections On My 2020 Professional Experiences | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Mitchell Robinson: A Teacher's Summer (Off) Story… | Eclectablog

A Teacher's Summer (Off) Story… | Eclectablog

A Teacher’s Summer (Off) Story…



I got an email from our school’s business manager on Friday at 5:11pm with an “emergency request” to complete a new required training module. The deadline for completing this module? The following Monday morning.
As usual, the “system” didn’t allow me to even start the training module–some sort of IT glitch I assume–so I called the business manager, who was still at her desk on Friday at 5:20pm. She told me she couldn’t fix the problem, but would call the IT department to “look into it.” When I reminded her that this delay meant it was pretty unlikely that I’d be able to complete the training module before the Monday morning deadline, she assured me it “was no big deal,” and “not to worry about it.”
So, I wasted 30 minutes trying to responsibly complete an “emergency request” that couldn’t be completed due to tech problems–on a Friday after the close of the work day, during the first summer I haven’t worked as a teacher since the mid-1980s.
Like me, most of these teachers have not been getting paid this summer–but they have been expected to…
  • be available for countless Zoom and Google Hangout meetings, often with only a few minutes advance notice
  • respond to an endless string of “reply all” email messages with requests for immediate CONTINUE READING: A Teacher's Summer (Off) Story… | Eclectablog