Episode 37: And We’re Back! Season 2 Opener
INTRO:
Welcome to Season 2 and Episode 37 where today we are going to talk about what’s new for Season 2 and where we’ve been for the past few months. Visit paigehendricks.com to get an easy to read and sharable version of this podcast and sometimes a handout of the episodes’ highlights.
CONTENT:
Hello everyone! I’m so excited to announce Season 2 of the Get Off The Dotted Line! podcast. Season 2 is going to be a little bit different because educators and topics in education are changing and evolving- so I thought it fitting to change and evolve too.
Get Off The Dotted Line! began as a space for me to try and share some topics about teaching and learning that I wish I would have had more information about when I first began teaching in an elementary classroom. But now that I have had various positions in the field of education, like being a professor of pre-service teachers, someone who evaluates and assesses students, an advocate for gifted and twice-exceptional students, a curriculum writer, an author, and a mom of an amazing school-aged kid, I have a wide variety of educational knowledge as well as multiple perspectives that I can draw upon about current educational topics, trends, and challenges. Season 2 is all about presenting different educational topics and unpacking them from various angles so that we, as teachers, can make the best decisions for ourselves and our students and create a space for the most informed and highest quality of learning potential to begin.
In Season 2, I also hope to bring in some of my amazing colleagues, friends, and those in the field who can share their thoughts and feelings on all of the many topics and challenges within the field of education for all of you hear too. It’s going to be exciting- so I hope you can listen and enjoy what is yet to come.
So what has been happening all of this time? Well, life has gotten busy my teacher friends! I have been helping out a bunch of overwhelmed teachers in their classrooms, volunteering at my son’s school, seriously relaxing and spending some quality time with my family, and co-editing a book with a colleague friend. Plus, I was re-thinking Season 2 of Get Off The Dotted Line!- probably too much but that’s what I do. In an upcoming podcast, I hope to talk more about these topics- especially about the book my colleague and I have been writing- so stay tuned.
When I first started this podcast, I said that “during my many years of teaching, I was struck by how much time I was spending modifying my curriculum to fit each students’ needs, getting away from the boxed curriculum, and getting off of the dotted lines I was initially confined to. I was always thinking about ways to be more creative in the teaching and learning processes and how to differentiate instruction to offer high-quality, tailored learning to my students each day. I needed to move out of the boxes and manuals, get off the dotted lines and away from the standardization often given to me by my administration. This was the only way I saw to move toward really good teaching and student learning that was applicable to my students, right away.” I also said that, “getting off the dotted line was giving myself permission to have the freedom to enter into a more creative mindset about teaching and learning. It was re-writing and manipulating curriculum and having it work really well with my students, more times than not. My process is simple and high-level and gets to the core of why I was doing what I was doing and why it was good for my students.” Season 2 isn’t far off from my original interpretation of “getting off of the dotted line”- It’s a re-interpretation of that phrase with some added thoughts and ideas to more current educational topics.
We’ll still talk about some methods and instructional ideas based upon core content areas that you can implement into your classrooms. I do want to finish our conversations about social studies and move through teaching and learning science. But I want us to think carefully and systematically from multiple angles about topics we encounter every day in our classrooms. I want us to get more to the core of what we are teaching and why we are teaching that so we are better able to elevate our students’ learning.
I’m still going to do the heavy lifting, work through most of the kinks, and allow you to reap the rewards of what you are listening to here at Get Off The Dotted Line! But I’m not naive to how complex teaching and learning is in our schools and classrooms. Together, let’s journey toward exploring the complexities of everything educational or teachable- starting right now.
OUTRO:
Thank you so much for joining me!
You can subscribe to Get Off the Dotted Line! right now in the app you are using to listen to this podcast and receive new episodes as soon as they are released. I can’t wait to share another podcast with you.
Thank you again for joining me, Dr. Paige Hendricks in today's episode of Get Off the Dotted Line! See you next time!
