Meme: Summer Professional Development: My Goals

I picked this one up from Clay Burell thanks to his post at Change.org, and I believe it was Clif Mims who kicked of this meme.

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2009 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.

1. Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/07/09).
3. Post the above directions along with your 1-3 goals on your blog.
4. Title your post Professional Development Meme 2009 and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2447.
5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme09.
6. Tag 5-8 others to participate in the meme.
7. Achieve your goals and "develop professionally."
8. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

Alright. Here goes:

Finish my Master's. I've completed all of my coursework for a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction, yet due to the big move from Michigan to Connecticut last summer I had to scrap my original proposal and push back the completion of the degree. This is going to be a pretty busy summer without this Master's busi/yness thrown in, but if I finish anything this summer, this needs to be it. Oh, by the way, I'm planning on creating a project-based unit for 9th grade Integrated Science and interweaving that with creating professional development for technology integration for other teachers. I'm sure there'll be more posts on this as it develops.

Post more often. You may have noticed: I fell off the blogging wagon awhile ago. I've found myself missing the depth that results from forcing myself to put my thoughts into writing. No promises on posts per week or anything- hopefully I'll just be quicker to posts thoughts/reflections that I'm having.

Read. more. books. Two summers ago I set aside a specific amount of time for reading everyday (both for pleasure & professionally). Last summer I didn't read nearly as much without that regimen, so I'm hoping this year to rip through several books. Professionally I have some Papert1 and Dewey2. For leisure I have no set plan except to read what sounds good to me at the time. You can keep track of my reading through the LibraryThing widget in my sidebar (or visit my LibraryThing catalog).

Stay connected. It's much harder for me to follow Twitter during the summer. I'm not required to be near a computer during the day, so often I'm not. I'm already missing the conversations and links that are a regular part of my Twitter communication. I'm hoping to keep up on my feeds a little better, and will try to interact  more through that end of things as I spend less dedicated time in front of the screen.

I'll refrain from tagging others specifically, but if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. Here's to a fun, restful, productive summer.

  1. somehwere Gary Stager is smiling []
  2. despite having read an awful lot about Dewey's ideas and several excerpts, I've never sat down with his actual work. I know, I know... []