Spring is here and if you are like me you are already thinking about summer! Maybe you are counting down how many more Mondays (or “Ups”) you have left of work, possibly making plans with friends for dates at the pool/lake, and of course purchasing those Cubs tickets 🙂But with all the excitement of summer around the corner it is also a great time to reflect on how your year has gone and what changes you would like to make for next school year! – Yep, the planning/prep of an educator is never ending!
Just like you would look at your student data to drive your decisions and make changes to your lesson plans for differentiation, or plans for next year’s class, I do the same at the Regional Office. I’ve been analyzing my analytics (data), reviewing feedback from participants/districts (data), and reflecting on the work that I LOVE to do. I’ve been thinking about what I do that is most beneficial for educators (and thus students) and reflecting on what I spend my time doing while at work. With that said, it is with VERY mixed emotions that I announce this is the last article of “The Progress Report”.
This blog was my baby at the ROE. I pitched the idea of writing a blog during my interview back in February of 2017 and published the first post 2 weeks after starting at the ROE that July! Check out the first post, “Who Are You & What Do You Do?”
As I reflect on my time writing and publishing “The Progress Report” I feel that it absolutely met the goal I set out for it: to provide a venue for professional learning and celebrations. That said, data and reflection has shown me that it is time to move on to new/refocused means of providing educators with professional learning and publicizing the success of our districts/students. Have no fear, I am not leaving Kane ROE, nor is the customer service/resources that you have grown accustomed to changing. I’m just spending more of my time out in districts providing professional learning and creating more online professional learning opportunities.
You can still check out our weekly bite-sized professional learning videos through “Branching Out” (click here to subscribe to our YouTube playlist) where you will get weekly instructional strategies to implement in your classroom with a quick 1-3 min. videos.
We still have over 300 online, asynchronous, professional learning courses for PD hours, Grad Credit, and Administrator Academy credit! And we can’t forget everyone’s favorite, our book studies for you to choose from, and we are constantly adding more courses & academies! (click here to review our offerings).
Additionally we have several in-person workshops and Evaluator Academies which you can find here. If you don’t see something you are interested in and/or if you have a specific need please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at any time, kalgrim@kaneroe.org
One of my favorite things about this blog has been that not only has it been a way for me to share my inner thoughts, research, and trends in education, but that it has felt like a way to give back to the educators that give so much to their students every day. SO, in my first blog ever we started off with a surprise for the first 10 readers to respond to my prompt, I thought it would be fun to wrap up “The Progress Report” the same way we started, with that said, the first 10 people to email me and respond to the following questions will receive a surprise from myself and the ROE (note you must respond by 5/1/23)!
What you need to respond with via email to receive the “surprise”:
- Name
- Role
- District you work in
- Topics of professional learning you are interested in or need information on
Thank you for an amazing 6 years of consistently showing up to read “The Progress Report”. I look forward to serving you in other formats/platforms in the future.
Katie Algrim – Director of Innovative Professional Learning
(t):630-444-3044
(c):630-675-4447
(e):kalgrim@kaneroe.org