A Quick 2017 Reflection

The last time I wrote for this site, I had agreed to participate in an #IMMOOC - An Innovator’s Mindset Massive Open Online Course - centered around the George Couros book - "The Innovator’s Mindset". It was in early September and I was just starting in my new role as an instructional coach.

At that time, I was still getting my feet under me as a coach. The first few months in this new role have been about building relationships and doing professional reading. I assumed, incorrectly, that I would have plenty of time to contribute to this ongoing, educational weblog journal.  It is now the last day of December...and 2017… and I am just getting time to reflect and write.

I have, over the past four months, been provided with a deluge of quality professional development through my Board, my Twitter Professional Learning Network (#PLN) and my own reading & research. My position also affords me the enviable opportunity to collaborate with creative, passionate and dedicated colleagues who consistently bring their “A Game” to classes and schools everyday.

So, I want to take a few minutes to reflect on 2017 and start anew tomorrow.

• Last year, I wrote  16 blog posts - My goal for 2018 is to get to 24. I also intend to ReTweet more blog posts from my colleagues. I think we should all tag each other in our posts and repost frequently - ideally quoting the post with feedback.
• My most popular was an effort to dispel some myths about Prayer in Schools that I penned in April http://bit.ly/prayerinschool  Perhaps this is evidence that I should tackle more controversial or dynamic subjects.
• Surprisingly, my least popular was http://bit.ly/AlrightFairEnough which detailed a cross-curricular approach to teaching Junior age students how to effectively and amicably disagree with each other. It was written in the middle of the summer. I suspect that had something to do with it.
• Another weak post was my early September effort to chronicle my journey as an Instructional Coach. This I get. It is self-indulgent and frankly boring. I need to do less of this.
• I am proud of the growth of my #PLN. I am following nearly 3000 Twitter users (mainly educators) and I am on the verge of gaining 2000 followers. I don’t want to set a goal here, because I have already far surpassed my expectations.
• The best book I read this year was Trevor Mackenzie’s “Diving into Inquiry: Amplify Learning and Empower Student Voice”. It was made better by my participation in a summer book club using my favourite App of the year - Flipgrid.
  

I want to keep this short. I know that is important. Knowing that my posts are short will embolden me as a contributor - I hope to come right back to the keyboard tomorrow to begin writing my #OneWord post for 2018.

Have a safe, happy and healthy New Year.

Marc

"Talk Less - Smile More" Aaron Burr from "Hamilton"

When I was in my second year of university, I took a course called “An Introduction to Personality Theory and Research”.  I loved it and I dove into my studies voraciously. It was as if I was perpetually on the verge of cracking a secret code miraculously overlooked by Maslow, Freud, Jung and Skinner. You know - the typical delusions of grandeur that possess a twenty-something with an inspiring professor, easy access to books and a patient girlfriend willing to indulge half-baked theories and rants.

Around mid-November, I began to craft my coup de grȃce - An essay of such deeply referenced research and powerful eloquence that my professor would be utterly bewildered by my brilliance. Much like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” I anxiously awaited its return. Unlike Ralphie, I received a B and not a C+.  However, more stinging was a single word, aggressively etched in red ink on the third or fourth page of my treatise.

Parsimony!!

I’ll admit, I had to look it up.

Parsimony is stinginess. It is the quality of being careful with resources or, as Merriam Webster puts it “economy in the use of means to an end; especially:  economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's razor.

It was a valuable lesson, and one of which I still need to remind myself. Say more with less. I thought about that today when I debated writing another post. I have a whole bunch of them rattling about my cranium like errant billiard balls and I wondered why I kept procrastinating. I think it is because I know I won’t easily respect the need for parsimony.

• I must respect the need for parsimony.
• I will try to write more often.
• I will make use of bullet points when it helps me summarize ideas.
• I will write in the same way that an Ignite Talk is done. (Perhaps even recording them with pics and posting them on YouTube).
• I will try to keep my posts in the 500 - 750 word range.
• Hyperlinks are my friend.
• “A Christmas Story” is still one of my favourite movies.