Trying to Put the "Public" in Public School Teacher

How have I grown at being public as a teacher this quarter?  Well, I am teaching more, often in front of not only my CT but also IAs and parents, so that feels a lot more public.  Also, I have been more transparent in sharing my teaching experiences on my blog, thus being more public with my cohort peers (and beyond, if anyone is looking).  I did change the settings on my blog this quarter so that it is more accessible to the general blog-reading public, though I haven’t gone out of my way to “advertise” my presence anywhere other than the time I left a link with a post on an outsider’s blog (and I did get a comment back -- more on that in a minute).  I simply didn’t have the luxury of time to purposefully do more of this type of commenting and linking.  

This has been a very challenging quarter in terms of balancing student teaching with course requirements.  I really enjoy exploring the blogs of my cohort-mates and professional educators, however there just has not been the time to read them except for the few required for class each week.  I believe that blogging is a valuable practice and hope to have the time to explore and share more in the future.  Even if I don’t have time to keep up my own blog in the near term, I now know what a valuable resource the blogospere is for teachers. 

The only successful blog “conversation” (outside of the cohort) that I have had this quarter was with Jenny Orr around her blog post Terms I Hate: Classroom Management and her comment back to me on my post Management vs. Leadership.  It was exciting to get that feedback and I look forward to exploring these avenues of online conversation further as I begin my own teaching career next year. 

A big change I noticed this quarter within our own cohort blogs was that the writing and commenting were more authentic.  Even though many were blogging only because it was a requirement, we were all teaching more and therefore had more authentic experiences to share and genuine questions to pose.  Two examples of constructive comments I made to others are: this one on a post entitled Observe and Report (again on the topic of classroom management -- not surprisingly, this was a hot topic this quarter as we all took on more teaching responsibility) and this one on a post entitled Communicating With Parents.

The most meaningful posts that I made this quarter in terms of being public with my own teaching practice (and also starting a meaningful conversation with others) were my posts on classroom management:  Management vs Leadership and Promoting Self Management.  I was transparent about difficulties I had while subbing and created a space for others to share similar situations (both online and in class) so we could all brainstorm solutions together.

Lastly, regarding other online PLC opportunities besides blogging, I have found Diigo and Pinterest (our cohort postings in particular) to be a very valuable resource this quarter as well.  These are sites where I have found connections to a multitude of teachers and other educational resources this quarter and I know that I will continue to use them regularly in the future.