Reflection and Goals

As a new school year is about to begin (and because I didn't do it earlier), I am ready to reflect on last year and look to the new year with fresh eyes.

At the end of last year, I created a Year in Review that I shared with the staff at my school.  You can check it out HERE.


After creating the Year in Review, I looked back at previous years and felt maybe I didn't do as much as I had in the past, so this upcoming year, I would like to challenge myself to do better.

Big Goals:

• Collaboration    This is a big one for me.  I feel like I just touch on basic collaboration when I meet with the media committee to plan out each nine weeks.  I let them know what I have planned, but don't feel like we collaborate that deeply to create lessons.  I really would like to do more than just the same lessons over and over each year and I feel like collaboration is the key.  Finding the time to collaborate always seems to be the obstacle. *sigh*

• Tech Centers    I'd love to design/offer more technology based centers for my patrons. This will take some time to develop and then teach, but it's something that I've wanted to do since I took this position.  This could open the door to MakerSpaces, the Hour of Code, Digital Learning Day activities, and maybe even a Technology Club after school.

• Building a MakerSpace   I have spoken to my principal about this.  She agrees that we might be able to do something in the future so I want to start exploring what is out there now.  There is a grant opportunity offered through our county each year that might be a good starting point.  It offers up to $1,500, which could be a way to get some starter kits.

• Technology Club   This is another one that has been on my goal list for several years.  I always have lofty aspirations for doing something after school, but doing the job of two, sometimes three people every day burns me out.  I am going to try to push myself a little more this year to get this accomplished, at least maybe by the end of the year.

Smaller Goals:

• Author visits via Skype or Google Hangouts    I have done Skype visits before, but our connection wasn't so hot.  I am thinking that Google Hangouts might be a better option because our county is going to Google Classroom this year, starting with teachers and a few trial grades.  Next year, we will be 100% Google Classroom 2nd grade and up. This goal may or may not be feasible because we are still working out the kinks.

• Reading Tent    This was a big hit last year, and I'd like to do it again this year.  You can read about it HERE.

• Book Awards    I did one lesson last year during Read Across America about Book Awards, but I'd like to do more this year.

• STEM lessons    This one isn't so much a goal as it is a requirement. I have been told that we will be a 100% STEM recognized school by the end of the year, so that means that I have to do my part to fulfill the requirements to personally get STEM recognized by our county. This involves creating and teaching 5 STEM lessons.  This can be tricky with only 30 minute time slots for K-3, including check out, and only 45 minutes for 4-5 every other week, including check out.  But I WILL, somehow, make it work.

Collection Goals:

• Change the call numbers in the Biography section from 921 to B.  The current call number 921 causes confusion in both locating and shelving biographies.  I think the B call number might help this.

• Evaluate the collection and determine which series might be ready to be weeded or at least replaced with newer copies.

• Look at the Easy Chapter book section and determine if some series might fit better in the upper fiction section or perhaps create yet another section for beginning chapter books.  Some of the books I have in this section are much longer than others, and although the longer books have larger print, they still might fit better in a different section.

• Continue weeding the entire collection to keep it fresh and up to date.

Personal Professional Goals:

• Present at a least 1 conference

• Attend at least 2 new conferences

• Complete Goodreads reading challenge (Feel free to follow me on Goodreads.  I am Jnase1.)

• Clean up blog posts and organize the Freebies page.

• Put more items in my Teacher's Notebook store.  Right now I only have 2 items up.

• Continue to revise, update, and create items for my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

• Look into the location, the requirements and cost for acquiring a doctorate degree

I have begun my Scope and Sequence in the hopes I will be able to see how I can accomplish many of these goals.  There are still some areas I need to work on, but it's a start.  If you'd like to see what I've done so far, you can click HERE to download the Google doc.

So those are my goals for the year.  What about you?