During the past month, I have been working on several projects which has caused me to reflect on how I teach, what our school does well, and how have I managed to get here.

The first project was a presentation for the STEM Smart: Lessons Learned from Successful Schools workshop in Las Vegas. This presentation was hard because we had to capture what we do as a school to promote STEM and be successful at it. The problem was that we were confined to 45 minutes and had to address specific topics set by Successful STEM Education. Our topics included how we are setup as a CTE school, project-based learning (PBL), staff development, community involvement, incorporating technology, and a specific example of a STEM project that we incorporate. In the three plus years that our school has been open, we have done so many things that it is hard to capture all of it in 45 minutes. We tried to determine what our best practices are and highlight those. My component of the presentation was the community involvement and incorporating technology where I focused on our use of Google Apps for Education, the 1:1 iPad program, and the various other technologies seen our campus on a daily basis. The majority of my time was spent on Google Apps for Education and the iPad program especially since we started collecting data on our student’s usage of those tools, but it was important not to skip out on the other items like Edmodo and laptop carts because they contribute to our school’s success. Our presentation, as well as all the others from the workshop, are available on the conference website.

The second project was working on an application for our school to earn an award. I am not sure if I can disclose the award that we are applying for so I will not mention it by name. This was an application that our three administrators, myself, and an English teacher have been working on for awhile. Like the STEM presentation, this application was difficult because we needed to capture everything within a specific word limit. For the most part, we were able to stay within the word limit in the first or second draft in most sections. Unfortunately, the sections that we were over in, we were over by hundreds of words. Through some creative writing and some major cuts to sections, we were able to get all of the sections within the proper word count.

The final project that I am working on (not completed yet) is the Google Teacher Academy application. For an application that I have previously completed, this has been a learning experience for me. Obviously, since I did not get into the last Google Teacher Academy, I have been rethinking every answer that I gave on the last application. This may mean that I am answering questions with different examples all together or just rewriting sections to make them better. I am not done with the application yet because I need to cut some words from most of the sections and edit a video.

I mention these three projects because while it is sometimes difficult to be limited by time or word counts, I think it is an important exercise in reflection. I have had to think about what is really important in each section of a presentation or application and be able to convey that message in a limited space. I always want my students and my children to get to the point without rambling and now the shoe is on the other foot and it is my turn to get to the point. These presentations and applications have been great at getting me to think about what is important, what do we do really well, and how can I present it in short period of time. While it may be difficult, I have enjoyed the journey and I look forward to future chances to reflect back on the opportunities that have been given to me at Southwest CTA.