SOLSC #28: Resolutions Revisited

A couple of years ago, my friend Beth turned me on to the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.  She recently sliced about it on her Seeking Six blog (read it here: Seeking Six), and it was a good reminder that “self-control is an exhaustible resource.”  With that thought in mind, it seems like a good time to reflect on my professional resolutions for this year as, somehow, we are 25% through this calendar year (Yikes!).

I made my professional resolutions based on 2014: 2 new goals, something I’d like to stop doing, 1 thing I want to learn, 4 new books I want to read (yes, I stole this idea from another blog).

My 2 goals:

1.  create/find an easier way to share with teachers – I am nowhere with this.  One of the huge disadvantages of working for the Dept. of Defense is all of the tech rules.  We can’t use thumb drives, social media is extremely limited, avenues for work sharing must be approved, and so far, I haven’t found the avenue that many teachers love.

2.  better follow-up for trainings – I have made small steps here.  I keep a chart of the trainings (I work with 21 schools), and attempt a follow-up within the first week, then after a month.  There’s so much going on that it’s easy to get distracted.  That just looks ridiculous in print, but I suppose that’s why it’s one of my goals.  Surely I can do this!

I want to stop accumulating more stuff on my desk.  I am doing better with this.  Ok, I’ve added some books, but they can’t possibly count as “stuff.”  Otherwise, I am making a much better effort to scan, file, and/or get rid of things.

1 thing I want to learn:  How to use Evernote.  I pay for Evernote, and I’ve tried a bit to use it, but I just can’t make it work for me.  I really like the folder idea, but I can’t seem to easily work out how to get my documents into the folders.  Notes and pictures, I can work out, but I haven’t figured out the documents.  It must be so easy.  I’m sure I’m going to chuckle then shake my head when I figure it out.

4 books:  High-Impact Writing Clinics, Rigourous Reading, The Common Core Companion, Reading Ladders.   All four are sitting on my desk.  I’ve read all of the front matter for High-Impact Writing Clinics, and now I’m working on how to try this out in one of my local middle school classes.  The Common Core Companion isn’t so much a “read” as a “use,”  We haven’t actually moved to the CCSS so this will be used a bit later.  I haven’t even cracked open the other two, so I’d better get to work.

I made fairly reasonable professional goals, most of which I expected to have done by now, so it’s disappointing to see that I’ve diverted my self-control resources.  On the bright side, I have written and posted 28 times this month!  🙂