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As a teacher, I think it is important to be sure to not appear to favor one religion over another. However, if contacts within these organization can help build connections to different communities in our school, I think they can be valuable.

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I like to use See Saw. This is an app where students can upload their work. They can record themselves, and share their work with their families. I also like to use other apps to enhance students' learning.

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I wonder how this would work?
This is something I could act upon ASAP...any suggestions?

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I love when parents come and help out! I usually like parents to come in mid October, after all the rules and procedures are mostly in place. I like taking time to get to know my students and build a community.

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This is something new at my previous school. They created a closet where the school has many resources for the students. The community has come together and donate clothes, backpacks, shoes, school supplies, and more!

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I have only done it through this course. It's fun and engaging!

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Within my PLC I worked well with my teaching partner. We would always share ideas, and would work together to plan for Spanish language development (SLD).

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I love PLC's! This was the best time of the week when our first grade team would meet and collaborate. We would share material, ideas, data, etc...

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I am a member of the Association of Two-Way and Dual Language Education (ATDLE). I have attended various conferences in the past and have learned so much that makes me want to put everything into practice right away! I have also attended The California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) conference, and has been as powerful as ATDLE. I recommend teachers to attend to one of these conferences once is possible. You will find new resources to make learning more meaningful and engaging for all students.

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Is See Saw considered an ed blog? I have used this app for the past 5 years and parents love it! As a teacher, it gives me the opportunity to share videos, songs, and assignments with my students. Students can share with their parents, grandparents, or anybody from their family.  This helps students develop great oral skills especially when learning a second language.  I love this app!

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I use many websites that can help students with the assignments. most of them are educational websites and some of them are necessary tools.

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I didn't have the opportunity to volunteer in my class. But I think this will help many students.

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There are a lot of resources in the school for student's families that can help them with their needs.

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I have never done this one but would like to try it.

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we have many programs in the school for students. the teachers lead them and provide help so I was leading one of the groups.

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I did that when I was teaching. the teacher gathers in small team and discuss many things about students.

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this is my first. year teaching in the U.S. so it was too early to be a member of a professional team. but I would like to be one in the future.

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I am very interested with doing an educational vlog. I would like to share things with the class. And keep me and the students connected.

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Hi Class,

I'm not sure if anyone will see this, but I'm interested in starting a book club with folx. I know the upcoming school year will likely increase some of our work demands and have us confront new challenges that may not allow for a ton of extra time, but I think the continued conversation could be worthwhile. I believe engaging with reading and talking about it helps us process information and perhaps makes some the ideas more salient in our memory. The texts can be shorter, too - essays, articles, short stories, and the like.

Send me an email if you're even remotely interested - wmilburn@pdx.edu

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I am not sure that google classroom would count but I enjoyed being able to create resources for my students to use.

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Our churches near by often lend supplies for students or school needs.

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I have families volunteer in my classroom.

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I want to look into community organizations.

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I find these a whole lot of fun and I feel that they are great for both adults and children.

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I have nervous about joining a partnership but it could be great for me.

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Every Thursday my school has PLC's in the morning where we cycle around different units and discuss areas for improvements and successes. We also brainstorm grade level activities.

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I would like to be a part of more teams.

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I haven't really ever done a website or blog. However, I did become interested after I used google classroom and other formats last year.

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I do not have a website, but I do communicate with my students via an app called Remind. I think this could be considered our social media?

I would like to initiate a website for my students to access out work, but also to take a look and be informed about what is happening in my classes, what my students are doing, and what I am up to. This would be a cool way to communicate with parents and other teachers as well. Now that we will continue distance learning, this is my opportunitiy to begin this website and implement my ideas. I am very excited to get this started!

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I would like to use this in my classroom to show different religions in the Spanish speaking countries.

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I would like to brainstorm about this with my department and maybe have a volunteer organization that benefits our Spanish speakers in our community. Would be so cool!

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I would definitely love to look into this one!

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With all the changes happening in schools, this would be an asset for communication and structure.

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We have a church located directly next to our building. It would be great to have a more direct relationship with them.

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I am currently not using in my own classroom. I am enjoying our book talks for this course!

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Students get to share so many field trips and moments with exciting guests when we get involved with volunteers, and students have volunteered their time to help their community.

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Our school is fortunate to have wrap-around services located in our building, acting more as a community center than purely a school. We have a Kaiser health clinic, a Basics food store, and Trillium Health Services. Their partnerships are utilized every day.

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I enjoy book clubs when they are run efficiently and everyone actually does the reading. I've learned a lot from others' reflections.

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This is an alliance that I would like to act upon immediately. As a building sub, I have an opportunity to work with all teachers in the school, not just grade level teams. I see an opportunity to set the tone about how a building sub interacts with and supports teachers and staff in the building. I would want to create a space where teachers can voice their cares and concerns about guest teachers and their students, and we can work together to address those issues.

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I find PLC time valuable for a variety of reasons, but mostly for analyzing data and planning interventions and responses based on that data.

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I have participated in teams and cohorts of study and research, but I have never been a part of a professional team with a membership.

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I have put together a blog before, but then I changed grade level and I would forget to update it. I'd like to incorporate this especially now that we are moving to distance learning.

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My school has many opportunities for partnerships, but I have been afraid and nervous to add myself to one because I do not have much experience. I am ready and open to trying some now!

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I have been part of many  PLCs since my first year of teaching. My teaching assignments have changed every year since I started teaching, so I have been in many, many PLCs.

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I am a member of the AP Teacher Community because I teach AP Spanish Literature and Culture, but I would like to try other memberships.

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I do not have an educational blog, but I would like to try out in the near future. I think that I am very nervous about opening up a social platform for a non-personal use. It is something I have never done and it intimidates me a little...

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I use many different websites with the students. We use Physics Classroom, NGSS Physics, youtube, and google classroom to name a few. I currently don't use social media in my classroom since I collect their cellphones at the beginning of class.

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If I were to use these types of organizations it would be to show how religious organizations work within the science community.

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I would say that these engineers are also a volunteer.

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During our Bungee Jump Expo, the students engineer their own bungee jump. I have 3 Engineers from around Portland come to work with the students during their engineering project and I also have them judge the competition.

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As part of our professional development in staff meeting we are reading Zaretta Hammond, Culturally Responsive Teaching. We read a chapter every few weeks and use part of our staff meeting to talk about the book with our colleagues.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

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Hey. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You might have found your way here through a number of possible paths. Maybe you heard about my book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Or, maybe you typed in www.ready4rigor.com and those shadowy internet puppeteers redirected you here. Maybe you ended up here because you were doing a Google search for culturally responsive teaching practices

Or maybe your school is reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain in a book study and you wanted to know more about this Zaretta Hammond chick who wrote it.

It doesn't matter how you got here. What's important is that you and I are now connected.

Since you are an equity-minded educator like me, you are probably waging your own private movement to bust the myths behind student engagement (or the lack of) among low performing students of color, poor students, and English learners.

Well, you are in the right place. This is a blog where we can get answers to our collective and individual questions about how we can help students become confident and competent learners. In this space, I want to highlight what I am learning from being out in schools and classrooms with teachers who are successful with diverse students. I want to focus on how we can take everyday strategies and practices and put them to work in their classrooms to be more culturally responsive.

So, again, welcome!

Just to let you know, on average, I publish a new post every other week - two times per month at the least (sometimes a few more). That gives me time to be in schools and to write. If you don't want to miss updates on what I am seeing and learning, sign up for my newsletter by pushing that button below.

Binge-worthy Posts and Podcasts

Books are good, but sometimes you want your knowledge in bite-sized doses. That's what I like to deliver: consumable, usable, and entertaining food for thought (and action). Here are some of the most popular blog posts and guest podcast interviews to sample.

About Zaretta Hammond

It's funny. These days a lot of folks are calling me "Dr. Hammond" since the book has become required reading in many teacher education programs and school districts. Well, to set the record straight, I am not a PhD. I do have a Master's degree, but I consider myself a "boots on the ground" teacher. I call myself a former writing teacher turned equity freedom fighter. My heart is forever with children and teachers in the classroom, not in an ivory tower, even if these days most of my "students" are new leaders and pre-service teachers. [ A quick note: Not throwing any shade at all the PhDs out there doing the work.]

When I was in the classroom back in the day, I taught composition (expository writing). It was where I started to understand how important literacy was to equity, and how neuroscience and culture should inform our instructional practice.

Since leaving the classroom, I have done work as a curriculum designer and professional developer at organizations such as the National Equity Project and the Annenberg-funded Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) in the San Francisco-Bay Area. I am a trained facilitator in anti-bias processes and have facilitated groups focused on learning to talk about issues of racial politics and privilege.

My primary work has been linking instruction, equity, and literacy. I have spent time as an adjunct instructor at Saint Mary's College in Norther California where I taught Adolescent Literacy and trained tutors and parents in reading support strategies for struggling students of color.

As an undergraduate, I attended University of California, Berkley before finishing up my degree at New York University where I majored in English Literature with a minor in Writing. I completed my Masters in Secondary English Education, with a Concentration in Writing Instruction at University of Colorado, Boulder where I simultaneously did my teacher certification program (starting three months after the birth of my son. I do not recommend this).

For the past 25 years, I've maintained a small, independent education consulting practice from which I do my research and writing as well as support schools doing deep instructionally-focused equity work.

Stay in touch

I hope this blog inspires, motivates, and challenges you to try some new practices that move you toward being more culturally responsive. If it does, send me a note. I'd love to hear from you. The best way to keep in touch with me is to sign up for free email updates (where you get all kinds of exclusive goodies).

Other Ways to Connect

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About - Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

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Hey. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You might have found your way here through a number of possible paths. Maybe you heard about my book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Or, maybe you typed in www.ready4rigor.com and those shadowy internet puppeteers redirected you here.

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I am also on a Student Success Team (SST). We meet during our extra "prep period" every other day to talk about struggling students, successful students, and our HUS. It supports our freshman during their first year of high school.

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My school currently uses and focuses on PLCs during our staff meetings, they have also scheduled our members with the same prep period to use some of the time to designate to our PLC.

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I am a member of the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA). I attend conferences regularly. When attending the conferences I come away recharged and energized with burning passion to take the things I have learned back to the classroom!

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I use google classroom as a blog as well as posting assignments. I am able to keep a running log of classroom assignments and info. During the last two months of school it was my main way of communicating with my students.

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We use Facebook and Seesaw. The kids love Seesaw.

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I know there is a local Catholic Church as well as Mormon Church that many of our students belong to. We have many Somali students who go to a local Mosque, but I do not know as of yet which mosque. I would like to find out because I have always believed that many of our school's African languages (like Somali, Oromo, Afar, Swahili) are under-served, and perhaps making a connection with the mosque could bring valuable partnerships for our students. I speak some Arabic because of my family history (We are of middle eastern descent, but not Arab) and sometimes help students with their homework they get from the mosque. It gives me a connection with them that other teachers do not have. I plan on contacting our Somali liason and beginning a partnership with the mosque as soon as we can.

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We created a group of parents who read to students in both Spanish and English.

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We utilize a lot of different community organizations. There is a local Bike group which teaches our students how to ride bicycles as well provide bikes to students who do not have them. We have a plot in the community garden which the students love. We also are connected with Latino Network who do tons of work with us. They are amazing.

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In the past I have joined groups dedicated to equity or pedagogy.

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Our school actively uses this tool, which is great because I see how it is used to develop system wide improvements from the 80s onward (Shmoker, as well as A History of Teaming)

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I am a member of my school's AVID team and regularly meet to develop college readiness activities. I also go regularly to their training and conferences. I am also a member of the Portland Health Teachers cohort.

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We do have a school facebook page, but that really is not the same. I do enjoy teacher instagrams, and pintrists, but some are just so amazing I get intimidated.

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I have a class website, but it's pretty basic. All teachers at my school are expected to have one to post information about lessons and assignments. I don't have my own "teacher social media" account, but I do follow several teacher social media accounts on Instagram. Some are curriculum based, some are more about classroom aesthetics, and some are about justice and equity in the classroom.

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I don't live in the same town that I teach in, so I am a little unfamiliar with the churches in the town. I need to better familiarize myself with them.

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I would love to find ways to integrate opportunities for volunteerism for my students. I think students become more aware of volunteer opportunities when they are in high school for college applications, but I don't think middle school students are as aware of the opportunities available to them and the organizations they could get involved with.

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As my school's student leadership advisor, I assist the student leadership group with creating service projects our whole school can participate in. I have not done something similar in my own classroom, though.

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I'm not currently a part of any book groups/book talks at school, but in the past, my school equity team did a book took around a book about allyship for racial justice.

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My middle school has two different teams for each grade level, and I work closely with the other 6th grade ELA teacher -- we actually are roommates, too! We work together to plan our curriculum. Of course, we have different teaching styles, but what we create together is what we teach our students.

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I have two different professional learning communities that I am a part of. I work with the other English Language Arts teachers from different grade levels. I also have a PLC that consists of teachers from different subjects and grade levels. In this PLC, we typically do learning that is broader and applicable to all kinds of educators.

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I would like to have a professional membership to an association for ELA teachers or just for middle school teachers in general!

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I love following teacher Instagram accounts, which usually have links to their blogs. I read them a lot during the summer when preparing for a new school year. I've always thought about starting my own, but didn't quite have the confidence as a newer teacher to start it.

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This is another potential area of growth for me. I would like to explore how I can utilize volunteer organizations and encourage student participation in volunteer activities to benefit our community.

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I have used Twitter in the past, but do not currently do so. I also have always been interested in setting up a class website, but since Google Classroom came around, I have mostly used that, and will continue to do so, unless we are encouraged to switch to a different platform. I do interact with various teachers' groups on Facebook as well.

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I have used book talks in the past, but am not currently participating in any with the exception of this class. I am always open to expanding my awareness of educational issues in this way.

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This is one I would like to utilize more. I want to explore the community organizations that could be beneficial to my students and find ways to connect my students to their assistance or find ways to have my students take part in community service activities through them.

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Within my PLC, I have developed a close partnership with the 7th grade science teacher at my school. We often informally observe each others lessons and discuss ideas for lessons with each other.

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I work with the other science teachers in my school in a PLC. our 8th grade team also works together to communicate about and develop plans to support all of our students.

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I am a member of the Oregon Science Teachers Association and sometimes attend professional development organized by this group.

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I sometimes will read blogs that have been shared by teachers at my school, but I wold like to be more intentional about seeking out and utilizing them to inform my practice

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I have found a great teacher tribe on twitter and am a member of a few groups on Facebook that are education focused. Being so isolated in my job it is nice to find people that I can connect with professionally.

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While we do have church in our community, the group I would prefer to work with is our Native tribe. I would like to see them more involved in the school and for there to be a better connection between the tribe and the school.

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In my previous community I volunteered with a group that helped to build a new playground, and also volunteered with a non-profit writing group that promoted writing and reading in the greater community and also in the school. Once I am finished with my grad program I would like to volunteer with the local library and to participate in the local arts council in my current community. I already volunteer and help when it is needed but would like to be helping the community in a more consistent way.

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I am going to act upon this immediately. This year I will be teaching government to my high school students and I am going to have them become involved in the city council meetings. They are going to be learning the importance of civic duties and working closely with the community to learn how to be involved civically.

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I think book talks are a great way to discuss and evaluate teaching practices among staff in a less formal setting. Our staff is pretty busy schedule wise but I think we could find time to read and discuss a book.

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The nice thing about only having three teachers in our school is we work very closely with each other and co-teach various subjects with each other.

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We currently only have three teachers total at our school. There are other teachers in our district that also teach in a multi-grade, multi-age classroom and I would love to be able to work with them to share ideas and collaborate. I often find myself teaching subjects that I don't have prior experience teaching or don't have a degree in. This collaboration or learning community would be extremely beneficial to my classroom.

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I would like to look into various professional memberships that would be related to working in a multi-grade multi-age classroom. This is another thing that I feel I could spend money but would not have the time to commit to actually reading or participating in.

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If I found an educational blog that I really enjoyed reading I would follow it but currently I feel like I have a lot to read. I have considered writing a blog but again do not feel like I have the time to keep it going.

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This something that I will check into as needs arise when I have more time.

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I would love to find a group who has people who would like to just spend time hanging out with students. Each year, I have some students who would benefit from another dependable adult who is there for them.

Currently, I am blessed to have a former principal's mother who comes in to read with students once a week. The kids are SO excited when they see her!

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My school partners with SUN (Schools Uniting Neighborhoods). This is a newer partnership but they have helped to meet some practical needs of our students and families that our school just doesn't have the capacity to meet.

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As a school, we are reading the book that William referred to,  Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. It has opened up some great discussions.

Informally, many of my co-workers are reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. Since we all come from different backgrounds, I am hoping this book with give us some common ground for productive conversations in the fall.

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I teammate and I have worked together for many years. Our background and teaching style is very similar and working together just flows. This year, we will be working with a teammate who is newer to our school. It will nice to be able to take a fresh look at what we've been teaching and try new things.

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On my list of things to do once I am done with this class is to read regularly "Educational Leadership Magazine." I like the timeliness of the articles and I learn things that I can use in my classroom immediately. It also helps broaden my world to see what is going on beyond my classroom.

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Informally, I appreciate discussions with my teammates during out PLC meetings. It is helpful to get other people's perspectives on things. I also work with another teacher as a Professional Growth Specialist in our building. We co-lead teacher meetings around Danielson's Framework for Teaching.

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We have a church in our area who has reached out to my school and created "back-to-school-bags" for every staff member. I would like to reach out to that church and find out if they would like to create a partnership with our school and if so, find out what kinds of things they'd be interested in providing. I teach in a high poverty area so food backpacks are always great but I don't want to predetermine what the church will want to do with our school.

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I don't current take the time to follow many blogs. I have a couple that I occasionally followed before my Master's Program but since I've been taking classes, I had to let some things go and that was one of them. I like following blogs because it is current info that is relevant to my interests.