A Post About the Small Things

This post corresponds to day #9 of the +TeachThought 30-day blogging challenge, focused on reflective teaching through blogging.  Interested in joining the challenge?  It's not too late! 

Small accomplishments make a difference...

even if few people know that they were actually accomplishments.

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When was the last time you reflected on small accomplishments that you've achieved recently in your teaching?

This blog post inspired me to celebrate a few small things from this fall:

1. Recently, a few teachers have told me that they appreciate the way I manage tech trouble-shooting because I'm approachable, I validate the things they've tried, and I break the steps down so they're easy to understand.  I work with a talented group of teachers, and I try to be very intentional and collaborative about the way I approach trouble-shooting. I guess it all goes back to my belief that failure is really just a first attempt in learning, as in sometimes tech fails us, and sometimes we fail at tech, but there's always something to learn from the situation.  I want teachers to become more and more confident and comfortable integrating various forms of technology into their classrooms, and I think getting staff involved with their own trouble-shooting is a step in the right direction.  So glad they're appreciating the effort I'm making in that area!
2. I held drop-in Techie Tuesday sessions twice a month all year last year at my school and encouraged any staff member who was interested to attend.  I had a good number of teachers stop by, but had very few ESPs (paraprofessionals) - in fact, I think my tech ESP may have been the only one to attend.  This year, I have had two ESPs already ask me when the first Techie Tuesday will be held because they'd really like to come.  Woohoo!  Now I'd like to get their input on what they'd like to learn about...
3. Every year, we do staff hopes and dreams and post them in our school.  It is an awesome thing for families and students to see right when they walk in the building because it demonstrates our excitement and vision for the school year.  One of my goals was to make our hopes and dreams as paperless as possible.  This fall, we digitized our hopes and dreams using the PicCollage and ShadowPuppetEDU iPad apps.  The videos turned out great!  Instead of posting our hopes and dreams in paper form this year, we are going to display them on a monitor that's located in the front hallway of our school.  Looking forward to going paperless with our hopes and dreams - hope we can continue the trend next year!
4. A 6th grade student's parents introduced themselves to me at our open house and told me that their son's best memory from 5th grade was being on my student tech (Students Working to Advance Technology) team.  It was awesome!!

What are some small accomplishments you've achieved so far this fall?  

This year, I'd like to be intentional about continuing to reflect upon and celebrate my small accomplishments - it helps keep things in perspective!