Should I Start Up Again? Or I Need More Personalized PD

It has been a very long time since I posted my last blog, and recently I realized I’ve been missing the deep reflection it provided.  Starting up again has been a constant brain-tickle, but WOW what a time commitment!!

Then, just this morning while on Twitter, @druinok was also lamenting the loss of connection that blogging gives.  She shared that she had just made a post (and then another in the same day) at her site: http://statteacher.blogspot.com/  Check it out because she is an amazing teacher and virtual colleague!!  She even put out 4 ideas that I want to share (is that proper etiquette?) because they reflect where I have been these last few months.

• Engage in Twitter at least once per week.
• Read more blog posts.
• Blog.  I need to be vulnerable and allow myself to share those same days.
• Read professionally.

That was the push I needed.  Maybe I won’t do the daily posting (I tend to write too much and so spend too much time “perfecting” my grammar and prose…I guess that comes with being a math teacher rather than a language arts teacher: I lack the natural verbose style!  So some thoughts around these 4 goals:

1. About a month ago, I hit the Twitter app button on my phone after not having looked at it for 6 months – does time fly or what?!  I felt like a small rowboat afloat in the Pacific ocean with no land in sight.  I had no idea what anyone was talking about, what the current big issues in math education were, and felt like no one would remember who I was….not that they knew before, but at least I felt a part of the twitter community.  I was embarrassed and flummoxed about what to share…did I really have anything worthwhile?  But over the course of a few week, I followed treads, I “liked”  and then began to “responded.”  I even got a small back-and-forth with the Dan Meyer, can you believe it?!  So I’m back at being addicted in a good way.  I particularly like to follow @druinok, @mathequalslove, @gwaddellnvhs, @bobloch ‏and #mtbos
2. Again, about a 6 weeks ago (oh was that midwinter break?! when I had time to reflect and hunger for new ideas), I went to my blogroll and began clicking.  I was saddened by how many were gone or hadn’t posted in a long while…but of course I hadn’t either, so look who’s talking?  But it was great to even go back and reread posts and through each blogger’s personal sharing I found I was craving more.  I really like to go to blogs because ideas are delved into more deeply, the activity is explained in more detail and often there are resources shared.  It would be great to have a connection between the short “teasers” of Twitter coupled with the “deep dive” of blogs.  These are some of my regular go to blogs: statsteacher, mathcoachblog, mathequalslove, Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere, M^3(Making Math Meaningful) and
3. Begin blogging…well, there’s no better time than the present!
4. There are so many books I want to read, but the summer is filled with my non-school hobbies as well as reading for pleasure.  I have a few professional tomes I’ve already bought and are sitting in my Kindle reader. Here are ones I hope to dive into: Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart, Creating Cultures of Thinking by Ron Ritchhart and finish Make It Stick by Peter Brown and Instant Relevance by Denis Sheeran.  What are you planning to read this summer?

Quite a list, quite a manifesto, right?!  I hope you will join me in adding depth to your professional development. Help me to stick to it!  Add comments, tell me how you have engaged in social media, what new approach will you take to your own professional growth?  We all need inspiration and comradery…join in the fun!  Let the blogging begin!