Lesson One – Reflection

I have been pretty much a ghost on my own blog for about 3 years now. When I was in the classroom blogging was so easy because I had so much to write about that was interesting. My blog served as documentation as to what my student’s were learning and experiencing each day…the material basically wrote itself. The change in my blogging habits over the past three years has been due to my career change to administration. Before, I was able to write about my everyday experiences. If I were to do that now, I’m afraid it would make for some rather dull reading material.

Lesson Two – PARCC Planning is Hard

PARCC planning was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long time in this profession. It has been 3-4 months solid of eating, living, and breathing PARCC testing here at this school. That amount of time doesn’t even take into consideration the amount of time that was required to prepare for the assessment earlier in the year. The logistics alone were unreal. We had the task of administering 12 tests in a time frame of 3 months that included the shuffling of a 50+ person staff and 750+ student body. As for the actual test itself, it all went as smooth as anything with technology can be expected to go. There were glitches and hiccups along the way, but I think everyone was pleasantly surprised how smooth it went.

With that in mind, next year will hopefully be much easier when it comes to planning. Pearson and the “PARCC States” are already on the move to shorten and simplify the testing window.

Lesson Three – Don’t Stunt Your Growth

This has been a very important lesson for me to learn this school year. To be honest, I have become stagnate in my professional growth process. Since I have went into administration, I have developed a bad habit of just trying to put out fires on a daily basis. I haven’t been active in trying to find materials that will help develop myself as a professional. For all purposes, I have removed myself form social media, blogging, and any type of PLC that I has apart of 3 years ago.

We all can get so bogged down that we focus on what is in front of us and become singularly focused on trying to complete “our job”. I want to continue grow professionally, but that means I have to do my part and be an active member in social media, blogging, and PLC’s. So, what does all this mean? It means that this is me making the effort to get out there and become an online participant again.

Mr. McClung