America Achieves, CCSS, and The HOLIDAYS

So I took a brief hiatus form the blogosphere...but, now I am back. 

First let me say that I applied for and was accepted as a fellow for the Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship underneath the umbrella of America Achieves a NPO based out of Washington D.C. 

In any profession it is paramount that opportunities are offered to the workforce in order to help them learn, grow in their roles, and foster innovation. Teachers nationwide are constantly looking for innovative things to incorporate in their classroom, often using the internet to learn from and share with others, but never actually meeting their peers face to face.

As a 3rd year teacher, the America Achieves Fellowship is my first professional experience with teachers outside my district. The Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship is a great avenue for me to build relationships with peers and to see how some teaching strategies in other buildings, cultures, and geographical regions can and will impact my best practices within my own room.

The America Achieves Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship offers teachers and administrators from across the state the opportunity to collaborate and on how to better educate Michigan’s students. Learning about Common Core State Standards and how to implement them in the classroom was one way we accomplished this.  My main focus at the Fellowship’s launch convening in Lansing was to try and listen to as many people as possible and take as many notes as possible on ideas I could implement into my classroom.

Over the course of the two-day convening in Lansing, many of the sessions focused on training the members of the Fellowship to make their voices heard regarding the future of education in Michigan. We unpacked what the Common Core State Standards mean for educators, parents, and students. We also learned how to properly teach the skills demanded by the Common Core and communicate these skills to outside-school audiences. With the Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship, I am sure that the people impacted most by the Common Core – educators, parents, and students – will gain a seat at the table.

The Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship is the kind of opportunity and network that I hope all my peers get to experience. It affords me as an educator the opportunity to listen to a diverse range of people in order to learn how to educate my students for the future. Within this network, there isn't a question or situation that I know one of my colleagues hasn't gone through themselves. It is reassuring to sit among educators and know that their sole goal is the same as my own: to educate the students of our state to make them college and career ready. Any group that can rest on that is sure to be a successful one. 

On a more personal note, the holidays are here. It's always refreshing and reassuring to share this time of year with students. 

In the 11th grade we are finishing a mini-unit on Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It's a great segue to our Non-Fiction unit coming soon. The culmination of the unit is an essay about the theme/central idea/author's intent of the piece. The students FLEW through the book and really enjoyed it. 

In the 12th grade we are still working on our Holocaust unit. The students have finished the book Night by Elie Wiesel and will begin their Multi-Genre Research Project Monday.
It will be an exciting couple weeks for sure.