Goals for the New Year



I know most people make New Year’s resolutions or set goals on January 1st, but if you’re a teacher, the new year REALLY starts on the first day of school.  As I prepare to head back to the classroom next week, I’m taking note of my personal goals for the upcoming school year.  I have some small tweaks in mind for lessons that didn’t work as well as hoped last year, but overall there are three areas I would like to focus on this year. In no particular order, they are:


  1. Experiment more with Arts Integration


Personally, I have always been interested in arts and design.  My first post secondary studies were in fine arts and art history, and even now my husband owns a contemporary art gallery and does community art projects in collaboration with the local government.  Art is, and will always be, very much a part of my personal life and I would love to utilize my expertise in this area to support my work in the classroom. 


As mentioned in previous posts, I am currently an elementary EAL teacher in an American international school and I support my students with both push-in and pull-out classes across all subject areas. While studying for my education degree I completed a literature review on the benefits of arts integration for multilingual learners and my findings were quite conclusive.  The literature clearly stated that incorporating the arts into content subjects can have beneficial results for EAL students both academically and socially.  I have experimented with arts integration on a small scale in my lessons, but this year I really want to take a deep dive into this area of pedagogy. 


I have been exploring a few resources this summer to help prepare myself and I would like to share what I have put together so far, for anyone else may be interested.  The first one is the Kennedy Centre for the Arts (https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/lessons-and-activities/ApplyFilter/?page=0&sortColumn=Date&sortDirection=Descending), they have some amazing, free for download lesson plans that are common core aligned, and cross multiple content areas.  Im really looking forward to trying out a couple of their lessons plans this year.  Ill be sure to share how it goes in a future post.  The second resource is a book that I ordered called, You are an Artist, (http://www.theartassignment.com/book) it includes many short, easy to introduce creative projects created by contemporary, professional artists.  The also book highlights works from art history that have informed the artists and their projects, and why the project is relevant today.  I think the book could be a wonderful complement to language arts or social studies classes.  


Finally, I have been doing some research into a program to become a certified arts integration specialist (https://artsintegration.com/certification/).  I think it could be a wonderful compliment to my degrees in art history and studio arts and a way to confidently apply my artistic skill set in my classroom, and further aid and engage my students. I’ve been in touch with some alumni of the program who have all given it solid reviews.  I’d love to hear anyone else’s first-hand experience with the program!


        

        2. Explore new methods of family engagement



For those who may not know, I teach at the lower elementary level.  At this early stage of learning parents/guardians are often quite involved in the learning process, and they love to be part of what is happening daily in the classroom.  However, I am not a big advocate of homework for children in these age groups.  I find it is generally limited to low-level learning,  and can create stress in the home as students in this age group, more often than not, require family support to complete homework.  Not to mention it can unfairly disadvantage students who do not have as much support at home as others.  


This is my challenge.  How can I continue to engage families who have time/desire to be involved at home, without the unnecessary burden of homework for the whole class?  I am planning to trial a new idea this school year.  I plan to send home a series of suggested home ‘extension-activities’.  Each quarter I will prepare a list of suggested activities, per content area, that would support our units of study in subject for that particular quarter.  Some examples would be YouTube videos to watch, a short story to read, conversations that parents could prompt on a particular subject, a simple art project etc.  Parents would be free to share the work with me (if they choose), which could then be shared via our class blog, or in our class morning meetings. However, it will clear for all families that no credit will be given for these activities, they are simply intended to support/ extend classroom learning.  I am not sure how this will go, but I am willing to trial the project this year and look forward to receiving feedback from my parents.  I would love to hear from other lower elementary teachers about creative ways to engage families in the learning process without sending home nightly homework.   



        3. Build-up my professional network outside of my current school



At my current school our administrators place teaching faculty into Professional Learning Communities based on division, and/or subject area.  In a previous post (https://kellyhoganeducator.blogspot.com/2022/07/deep-dive-close-reading.html) I mentioned how I find the work I do with my PLC group to be really beneficial, and I have come to rely on their professional support.  Basically, I would like to create something similar, but on a larger scale.  I have found that advice from fellow educators, who are on the ground teaching everyday, to be the most helpful.  Other teachers just get it! This summer I have worked hard to become more active on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyhoganeducator) and I hope that sharing here will also help to further facilitate an extended professional community.  So please feel free to reach out! 

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