Early in my teaching career I would sit up late at night trolling the internet for all types of teaching resources. I would watch countless videos of all of the new teaching strategies that were sure to yield better outcomes in student engagement. I would treat each one of these videos as a golden nugget of information that I was fortunate enough to stumble across. I would fall in love with everything I found and try to implement all of these new found strategies into my teaching. These days I am more selective. I understand that everyone with a YouTube channel or blog is entitled to an opinion, but that doesn’t mean that each one of those opinions desires my full attention.
So, how do you find trusted information? BUILD A PLN! This is one thing that I neglected to do early on in my teaching career and it cost me a lot of wasted time. I use to think that I could do it all on my own and would fail to lean on my PLN for the proper support. By building a network of trusted professionals that have already crossed the bridges that you are currently trying to cross you can save yourself tons of time.
In closing, don’t believe the hype.
Mr. McClung
As an upcoming student teacher, I sometimes feel so overwhelmed with the teaching strategies that are being thrown my way. I try to keep notes and links of the ones I would really like to try for my own classroom, but they seem to be never ending. After reading your post, I feel more relaxed in realizing just because they exist doesn’t mean I have to try them all.