Summer Professional Learning Activities

Thank you for all the sacrifices you’ve made and the commitment you’ve shown to your students during another difficult year. You made it! Summer’s here and it’s time to rest and recharge. I hope your first priority is time with family and friends. At some point, it will be time to think about next year and how you want to grow as a teacher. Here are three activities to consider:

1) Build a collection of context resources for your classroom. You may find applications of the math you teach in summer projects around the house or in your neighborhood. Document these with a photo or video from your phone and use them to answer the age-old question, “When am I ever going to have to use this?” Depending on the math you teach, you might gather video clips or still photos of sporting events, recipes for dishes from a variety of cultures, photos of artwork, or charts and graphs about community resources or events. This will help you make mathematics more personally meaningful and relevant for your students. When planning, you can dip into this collection rather than starting from scratch.

2) Learn something new. Maybe you want to build a collection of rich tasks to use in your classroom. Maybe you want to learn more about incorporating social/emotional learning in your instruction. Maybe you want to identify new strategies for supporting the English Learners in your classroom. Maybe you want to understand some of the math you teach more deeply. Take time to read a book or some articles. Participate in a virtual workshop or online math chat.

3) Expand your professional circle. If you’ve read a good book or article, find and follow the author(s) on social media. Identify hashtags or groups which will help you see content of interest easily. Stop following people whose work is no longer of interest to you. Of course, we hope you’ll choose to follow ORIGO as you update and curate your list. If you can, identify a conference you’d like to attend this year and start your planning. Even if you can’t attend (or for a conference you missed), look at the program and follow speakers who presented sessions of interest to you.

Remember, your first priority is to return to the new school year recharged and ready. As flight attendants remind us, put your own oxygen mask on first. After you’re rejuvenated, I hope these ideas will help you try something new this summer.