Keep Growing: A Testament to my Future Goals

“To bloom, to flourish, to reach for the sun, this growing, this becoming, is never quite done."

-p.bodi

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On June 30th of this year, I boarded a plane with my fiancé and his immediate family for my first trip to Sweden to visit his Farfar (Father's father in Swedish). We spent one week exploring Stockholm, Sweden alongside of about 15 other family members. By the fourth day of travel, Christian, my fiancé's cousin, announced that he wanted to get a tattoo while in Sweden.

My tattoo that says "Keep Growing"

At this point, I did not have any tattoos, though I planned to get a few later in life. After only a few minutes of discussion, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and join him. It didn't take long to decide what I wanted: the words "Keep Growing" with some kind of foliage underneath on my arm; a visible reminder of a phrase that I hold close to my heart.

On the morning of July 7th, 2023, we took the metro train to Gamla Stan, Sweden, walked into Latino Ink, and left hours later with fresh tattoos.

After our two week trip, I returned home and began to prepare for the first day of my fourth year teaching. As I started to prepare, I was left reflecting on how much I have grown not only in the previous three years, but truly in the last 5 months or so. It was kismet that just one week prior I had permanently tattooed the words "Keep Growing" on my arm.

I consider myself a life-long learner, both professionally and personally, and so I took this unplanned coincidence as an opportunity to create a few professional goals that I hope to achieve in the coming years. Over the course of the next 5 years, I hope to grow in my skills as an EdTech leader, learn more about the implementation of virtual manipulatives in my math classroom, and work toward becoming a more skilled Canva user.

Goal 1: Becoming an EdTech Leader

Alongside of being a 5th grade teacher, I also currently serve as the Instruction Technology Resource Teacher (ITRT) for my building. Through this role, I collaborate with other ITRTs in my district to enhance the integration of technology in all classrooms. I pilot potential updated technology and provide feedback, hold workshops and training sessions related to technology integration, and act as the go-to tech supporter for our building-wide staff.

As an ITRT, I have been provided opportunities to hold leadership positions regarding technology integration and have found throughout these experiences that I feel challenged and encouraged to grow as an educator. For this reason, I have decided to make it a goal of mine to seek out technology leadership opportunities in my building and district, with the possibility of moving to a full-time Educational Technologist role in the future. To help achieve this goal, I have identified two graduate level professional development courses through Teaching Channel that I plan to enroll in.

The first course is titled "Developing Your Leadership Story", a course intended to help educators created a personal leadership philosophy that is well-aligned with leadership best practices. The second course, "Choose Your Own EdTech Adventure" acts as an independent study course in which the learner identifies an EdTech tool to become an expert on.

Goal 2: Enhancing Mathematical Instruction With Virtual Manipulatives

Though I have always felt more confident in my language arts skills as a student, I often find myself inevitably being pulled toward the many challenges that mathematics provides. Now, as a teacher rather than a student, I find my math instruction to be stronger than language arts instruction, and a large portion of that newfound confidence has come from the EdTech tools available today.

A little over a year ago, I worked alongside of two other colleagues to research the efficacy of virtual manipulatives vs concrete manipulatives in the math classroom. Like all resources, we identified many constraints of virtual manipulatives in comparison to concrete manipulatives. However, we also identified an abundance of affordances that concrete manipulatives could not offer. Reflecting on this research that we conducted, I realized that I feel drawn toward exploring more about how the integration of virtual manipulatives in the mathematics classroom can not only enhance the instruction itself, but also provide opportunities to increase equitable learning for all students.

In my journey to reaching this goal, I plan to seek out professional development opportunities, specifically articles and books, that will increase my knowledge of virtual manipulatives and guide me toward beneficial integration. The first book that I plan to read is titled "Teaching Mathematics with Virtual Manipulatives" by Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham, a guide to virtual manipulative research, resources, and ideas.

Goal 3: Becoming a Skilled Canva User

If you were to ask me what my most used and most cherished tech tool is, I would, without hesitation, name Canva, a free (premium upgrade is free for teachers!) web-based graphic design tool with infinite capabilities. Aside from being a graphic design tool, Canva also provides many affordances to increase collaboration, engagement, student choice, and learning in the classroom. My passion for Canva, educational technology, and teaching and learning has encouraged me to continue practicing my Canva skills to become a better educator, creator, and leader. To achieve this goal, I plan to utilize Canva's educational courses that are offered free to all users. This school year, I also plan to experiment with the affordances and constraints that Canva offers to both teachers and students.

As I always find, taking time to create and adapt future goals has left me feeling empowered and inspired. These three goals truly portray a promising professional future full of growth and learning that I eagerly await.

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