Ah, the myth of having summers off. Those outside the teaching profession tend to become filled with jealousy every year about this time because they’re stuck at work and teachers are stuck…doing absolutely nothing. Or so that’s what they think. The fact is that, especially today, teachers cannot afford to take summers completely off.
You may remember a few months back we were excited to announce we had been approved as a registered provider of PD. Well, we finally got our PD feet wet last week and led our first hands-on teacher workshop event in collaboration with our friends from the Genesee Valley BOCES located in Le Roy, New York with about 35 people in attendance.
At Eduporium, we all know what it takes to provide an enriched, authentic, and inclusive 21st century education that will truly prepare today’s kids for real-world challenges. We also know this isn’t easy for principals and their teachers to attain. There are burdens to innovating in education, including, most notably, high costs of modern learning tools.
If you follow us closely, you know March was a super busy month for us. Well, we’re happy to say that April looks to be just about full as well! We regularly get questions about where people can find us, so we thought we’d give you a few options for this month and publicize some of the cool upcoming events we’re taking part in at the same time.
As Tom Brady looks to win his fifth Super Bowl ring on Sunday in Houston (and who doesn’t want that?), it’s one of the biggest weekends of the year for sports fans. Not to diminish the rest of the calendar, but it’s also big for 21st century education fans. As schools near their 100th day celebrations, we’re also looking towards next year as well and planning STEM projects.
Okay, it isn’t exactly the same as it always has been, but is today’s teacher PD keeping up with the times, especially when it comes to technology? We expect educators today to be willing to use tech tools to reach and engage each of their students, but how can they do that if they don’t know how to use the tools, themselves? So, finding time for PD is often really important.
Since most kids think of the summertime as a chance to get away from learning, school and pretty much all academic-related activities, it’s sometimes tough to make sure that the months before school starts back up are meaningful. Sure, teachers can assign summer reading or projects, but there’s no way to be certain that students will really engage.
Kids need project-based stimulation during the hot summer months to ensure that they do not slip into a beach-and-pool kind of lull. While it’s not essential that it’s rigorous and demanding, as it’s okay for kids to get a bit of a break, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with keeping them fresh until they start back to school in September.
The theme for MassCUE’s recently held 2015 summer workshop for STEM and tech educators was ‘Better Together—Working with Your Librarian and ITS to Design Great Projects.’ After all, education isn’t any different; plenty of truly innovative and revolutionary results often stem from collaboration among groups of students using technology in the classroom.
