OngoingProfessionalDevelopment

=Ongoing Professional Development= Finding good resources for keeping up with the news

Research
Your research for this topic is a little different than the others. You are going to try out a source that will bring the research-based best practices to you. Edutopia has resources and information directly related to classroom management and it has even more information for good teaching in general and that will always make classroom management a little bit easier.
 * Read the [|Mission and Vision of Edutopia]. Figure out who founded it and why. Is this an organization that at first glance you think might have information that you are interested in/believe in?
 * For this semester, you will be asked to regularly check out resources and information from Edutopia. You can
 * remember to check their website on a regular basis
 * use a good reader app to subscribe to some of their blogs and check your reader often
 * "like" it on Facebook and have their updates appear in your newsfeed so you will see them regularly
 * follow it on Twitter
 * "pin" it on Pinterest
 * "join" it (button in top right corner of the website) and sign up for the free weekly newsletter
 * Try out various subscription methods and determine which one works best for you.
 * If after 5 weeks, you find you don't like the content on Edutopia, find another reliable educational site whose news you do like or that you find more pertinent to you. Have a quick chat with Dr. Theresa about the new site you've found and subscribe/follow/join that one.
 * If after 5 weeks, you find you don't like the content on Edutopia, find another reliable educational site whose news you do like or that you find more pertinent to you. Have a quick chat with Dr. Theresa about the new site you've found and subscribe/follow/join that one.

Additionally, find a source of professional educational resources for your content area and "subscribe" to that for at least three weeks. (Good timing for this might be when you are out in the field.) Is there a podcast series you want to follow? Dan Ryder from Mount Blue and Jeff Bailey have an amazing series called [|Wicked Decent Learning]. Check out what your professional organizations have to offer on Facebook, Twitter, their site, etc. (there are MANY such as National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of English, Association of Teachers of Social Studies, National Science Teachers Association, American Association for Health Education).

Remember that good proactive classroom management starts with keeping students engaged in meaningful learning, so any sources you can find that you feel help you understand and teach your content better are going to help you with classroom management.

Reflect
Create a reflection (write/record/document) in your personal digital classroom management kit that captures your reflections on your research--a semester's worth of following Edutopia or a similar educational resource site plus your three weeks minimum of following a content area source. It should be apparent from your documentation that you actually took in information from the many updates. In your reflection you can agree and/or disagree with the information from the site.

Did any of the news bits from your sources "come in handy" at any point this semester? Were there any that you thought you might use in the future? How hard/easy was it to get news in this fashion for you?

Resolve Part I
As a professional educator, it is your obligation to participate in ongoing professional development. This can be accomplished formally by attending workshops and conferences, taking graduate classes, etc. It can be accomplished informally through various means including subscribing to professional organizations' news sources. As you go forth in your pre-service teacher career and into your in-service teaching career, what are ways that you plan to/hope to participate in ongoing professional development?

Resolve Part II
This topic does not really have a required "reactive" aspect. However, another aspect of professional development is that you can provide professional development to others. Joseph Joubert said,"To teach is to learn twice." What are ways that you can contribute to the greater body of knowledge of the teaching profession? Have you already done anything along those lines?