Kindergarten and First Grade teachers in PAUSD engaged in a powerful exercise analyzing the 8 Science and Engineering Practices (SEP). The verbs on each of the posters are definitely powerful verbs for all students. Our students definitely can engage in each of the 8 SEPs. The potential of children is boundless!

Which one speaks to you? Are we creating a space in our classrooms for students to exercise these verbs?

Today marks the first day of year 2 of this Math & STEAM Coach / TOSA position. I am super excited about this second year, taking what I've learned last year and pushing myself farther, deeper, ...

My goals this year:
-Make systematic changes and support in math content knowledge and instructional practices in teachers through PLCs, Learning Walks, and Lab Days.
-Complete the Maker Mobile proposal and get ready for its launch after securing funding from the district's fundraising organization.
-Facilitate workshops on NGSS and begin the 3-year rollout of the Next Gen FOSS modules.

Just like my first day post from last year: I have the privilege of engaging with many more educators. And with the support of the elementary TOSA team, my colleagues, and of course #TOSAChat ...

I am glad this is Day 1 - of Year 2.
Let it begin.
Let the journey continue.

Technology has really changed the world. Here's a simple story of the impact of technology. This story happened recently with a student I was speaking to.

"What's this word mean?" - a child.
"Well, here's a dictionary for you to look it up." - Mr. Young
"Oh come on, why can't I just ask Siri?"

On one hand, technology has given people easier access to information. People can pull up information from around the world, instantaneously. On the other hand, has technology had a negative impact on people's (traditional) research skills. Has it influenced a person's inability to exercise patience, persistence, and delay gratification?

What do you think?

It's been a wonderful experience so far serving as the principal for PAUSD's elementary summer school. The students and teachers have all engaged in so many amazing experiences, including genius hour, passion projects, design challenges, art projects, music, social-emotional discussions, number talks, and interactive read alouds.

In the work this summer, teachers and students have engaged in many conversations and activities around the concept of having a growth mindset. Below is a video I created back in September of 2014 that I've shown to my students, colleagues, and at conferences. There is definitely a lot of power in our words.

​Recently I was asked my colleague about how to disable YouTube from showing the related videos at the end of the video. She was using some videos embedded in her Schoology course for her students and wanted to keep the students focused on their work. I was able to find a video tutorial I made in November of 2015 that I was able to share with her. After sending the video, I thought of sharing it on my blog as well. However, instead of putting it on my main blog page, I decided to create the new "Tech Tips" blog page.

Today is Day 5 of the second session of PAUSD's elementary summer school program. It has been truly an amazing experience serving as the principal for this second session. As the days progressed after writing my post about the first day, I started gathering my thoughts about the successes and challenges of each day. Today, being the fifth day of summer school, I wanted to list five successes, five challenges, and five tips for new principals - not that I am at all a school principal myself since I am just serving as summer school principal. The list of tips/reminders is just a way to help those who are stepping into the role of principal.

1. The Students' Engagement and Excitement. The absolute best part of this week and my experience as summer school principal is being able to see the excitement and engagement from the students with the STEM, engineering, design thinking, ..., projects. It's truly amazing to see how the students connect with the lessons, activities, and projects. The students smile, laugh, work together, try again with failures, and want to continue the learning as they head home each day.
2. The Teachers' Dedication and Commitment. None of the excitement and engagement can be possible without the dedication and commitment from the summer school teachers. Today, I personally thanked each one of them (the teachers, aides, custodial staff, librarian, secretary, and coach) for sharing their summer with the students. Instead of enjoying their summer with trips, sports, ... they chose to share their time with the students. That has to be recognized. Their dedication, commitment, and hard work has to be recognized.
3. ​Communication. A great success for me was being prompt and proactive with my communication. Prior to starting this week's service as principal, there were so many email messages being sent about a change in the schedule of students taking a different bus at the end of the day to attend an after school camp at another campus. After I sent a reply asking for clarification, I received feedback from the program director that it was great that I engaged in the process of ensuring the safety of the students after each day at summer school. Another example of the success in communication was sending email messages on the second day of my service to the location of our field trips during week 2, the transportation department at the district office, and also food services to confirm all the details of our trip. Being proactive in checking the details of our field trip schedule, times that the bus picks up and drops off, and the delivery schedule of snacks/lunch for the students on our field trip days was very important to ensure the success of our field trips.
4. Personal Greetings. Beginning each morning and ending each day greeting and talking with staff members, students, and parents was a very successful part of these first five days. It sets the tone for the day. It fosters connection and community. It communicates trust, kindness, and a message that I'm happy to see them.
5. Partnering with and Supporting the Teachers. I started this role with a few guideposts in mind. I knew my position as the administrator of summer school was one of support. Supporting teachers deliver their enriching lessons was an honor that I had. My position was one of partnership. I knew I was a partner with the teachers in their brainstorming, their celebration of the students (I shared in their celebration through many tweets), and their management of behaviors. My view of my leadership position was one that led by walking alongside the teachers.

1. Starting Day 1. Nothing can ever prepare you for day 1 as an administrator. When someone works at becoming a teacher, there's internships, the teacher prep program, student teaching, and more. When someone works at becoming an administrator, there's the administrative credential program, the masters program, but there's no "student administrator" position. Even if you have the opportunity to start as an assistant principal, there was no true prior experience. Day 1 was intense. All the nerves, anxiety, fear, ... that you'd been feeling days and weeks leading up to day 1 bubbles up and manifests itself as you start working on the countless tasks before you: checking class lists, placing high school volunteers, issuing classroom keys to new staff members, checking bus tags and bus schedules, ensuring snacks from food services are ready, preparing to introduce yourself as principal, ...
2. Volunteers. As mentioned above, placing the high school volunteers was quite a challenge (this could be volunteer adults and parent volunteers). On day 1, I had four high school volunteers who were starting their volunteer hours with this second session of summer school. I had to ask them which grade level(s) they're interested in helping, ask staff members who could use the help of volunteers, and try to find a match that would hopefully ensure each person found the partnership helpful and productive.
3. Working Relationships. Prior to starting this role of principal, I was a colleague to the summer school teachers. This week I took on a different role. With it there seemed to be an apprehension from the teachers to speak to me, a seriousness in our conversations, ... As much as I worked on partnering and supporting teachers (which is definitely a success as listed above), I kept hearing phrases in my head: "You're not fit to be principal. They're watching you. Why are you doing that? Are they judging me?" The working relationships was definitely a challenge I faced that may have been self-inflicted but nevertheless a challenge of beginning this position of principal.
4. Dealing with Behavior Issues. As a classroom teacher, you have the opportunity to build connections with your students that can help you with combatting and preventing behavior issues. Knowing your students helps a great deal. As an administrator, especially a summer school principal, you don't always have the luxury of knowing the student that gets sent to the office. You don't necessarily know which path to take with the child, which method would be most effective. As a new principal with students who are new to you, it feels like your attempts are like shooting in the dark.
5. Changes in Schedules. A specific challenge I faced this week was with changes in the students' busing schedule. Some students needed to take a different bus for after school programs they needed to go to and got on the wrong bus. After several phone calls with transportation, the bus drivers, and the parents, we reach solutions to ensure the safety of the child, but it sure wasn't an easy process.

Again, in no way do I consider myself an administrator. I don't believe serving as a principal for the summer school program qualifies me to speak on this topic much. I question whether this section is of any value to others. However, all of that may just be that self-deprecating voice in my head, and this current feeling of newness and reflection of the position I started five days ago will never be back. This is a unique feeling, unique time in my career. With that notion and with my reflection, the following list of five tips/reminders/things to think about is just to offer my perspective of this administrative position.
1. Always be in your Teachers' Corner. As mentioned on point five of the five successes, partnering and supporting your teachers is paramount to the success of you as an administrator. Guide your staff. Empower them to grow themselves. Always believe in them. This is true of the "star teachers" and those who need support.
2. Get to know Everyone. Greet everyone, get to know your staff and students, learn about each person's strengths, areas of growth, passions, joys, concerns, ... This will help with building positive school culture, staff morale, connections with students, and a sense of community. As commonly mentioned in teaching credential programs, the two most important people on a school campus are the secretary and custodian. Get to know them.
3. Schedule your time. Create time limits for being in the office, checking your email inbox, ... and get into classrooms. The classrooms are where the magic is happening. The classrooms are where the joy is found. Scheduling timeframes to do administrative things and sticking to those time limits will help free your time / prioritize your time to get in the classrooms.
4. Look Ahead. In any position, having a sense of the big picture is important. Knowing what's coming down the line is important to plan, prepare, and to be proactive. Sometimes, you can get caught up on the details of the task or the day. Keep an eye on the big picture. Think about what's scheduled next week, next month. Think about potential issues that may arise. Think about ramifications of each action you take.
5. Reflect and Celebrate. With all things, at [the end of] all times, remember to stop, breathe, reflect, and celebrate. You are doing great work. You are working collaboratively with professionals to help children learn, grow, think, question, comprehend, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, discover, design, construct, fail, recover, revise, ... and live.

Today, Monday, July 11th was my first day of summer school in PAUSD's elementary summer school program. What a fantastic start to my service as summer school principal. The summer school program had been in session for three weeks already with students engaged in design challenges, engineering activities, math talks, interactive read alouds, and more, and I had the pleasure of joining the program today.

It was great to be able to have this job-share opportunity for the principal position. Jenna Segall (@MrsSegall) served as the principal for the first three weeks (and the ESY week during the week of July 4th for students whose IEP required four consecutive weeks of summer school). As noted in previous blog posts, Jenna and I, along with the summer school administrative team, worked together to prepare for the program that included meetings, professional development sessions on design challenges, and plenty of emails. Having this job-share opportunity allowed me to have time during the first part of summer to travel, run, be creative, write breakoutedu games, facilitate workshops with Sabba Quidwai (@askmsq) reflect, read, and relax.

This first day of summer school was a solid day overall. After a somewhat chaotic morning with placing high school volunteers with teachers, working on students' bus tags, and ensuring there was enough supplies for teachers' needs, it was a smooth day. It was great to visit each class, introduce myself, play soccer and basketball during recess, and get to see the great projects the students were engaged in. Classes had wonderful morning messages for the students, design challenges, interactive read alouds, and engineering activities. Some of the highlights included designing parachutes for their gummy penguins and plastic ninja toys, building towers with their choice of materials, and discussions about tools engineers use.

Below are some pictures from today's first day of the second session. One picture in particular is an amazing one. While some may see a pile of mess, the teacher, Laura Wright, and I see a pile of possibilities. I can't wait to continue to see the fantastic projects the students design, plan, prototype, revise, and create.

My year as a Math & STEAM Coach / TOSA in the Palo Alto Unified School District has been amazing! What an incredible experience transitioning into the role after over ten years in the classroom as a first, second, and fifth grade teacher, serving as a math lead, tech lead, and science lead teacher, and facilitating workshops within and across districts.

Inspired by Ryan O'Donnell (@creativetech), I spent some time looking back at my year in terms of numbers. This in no way reflects every aspect of my 2015-2016 year but it gives a glimpse into my work as a Math & STEAM Coach / TOSA and offers a nice overview of my work. I was indeed surprised by the numbers as I started doing the calculations.

There are many highlights to my first year as a Math & STEAM coach. Here are just a few:

• First, connecting with Ben (@cogswell_ben), Karly (@KarlyMoura), and Kelly (@kmartintahoe) to create #tosachat, @tosachat.
• Working on a fantastic elementary TOSA team.
• Facilitating the exploration year of 8 math curricula with math lead teachers and classroom teachers.
• Facilitating the STEAM Inquiry Group.
• ECET2 at the San Mateo County Office.
• Meeting Ann (@annkozma723), Debbie (@tech4teachers19), Jessica (@JustTechIt), Jody (@peerlessgreen), Judy (@judyblakeney), and Nick at Hotel Ménage before my 2015 runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon.
• Presenting at MDUSD's STEM & EdTech Symposium.
• Organizing EdCampSV with a fantastic team of educators.
• Learning about BreakoutEDU and playing my first game with Jody Green (@peerlessgreen). It was a game she created no less. My second game was facilitated by Amanda Haughs (@MsHaughs) and Lindsey Blass (@LindseyBlass1) at #connectedtl's Meet Up/Tweet Up. Needless to say I bought my own kit and have also begun writing my own games.
• Being a part of the SouthBay FOSS Collaborative and facilitating NGSS workshops.
• Exploring the Next Gen FOSS modules.
• Being a part of The Teacher Advisory Council at The Computer History Museum.
• Being an ambassador for ClassDojo, Khan Academy, and Schoology.
• Being encouraged to apply and being accepted for the position of principal of the elementary summer school program.
• Facilitating two EdTechTeacher workshops on the iPad and Design Thinking / Makerspaces with Sabba Quidwai (@askmsq).

It has truly been an incredible year collaborating with teachers in PAUSD, connecting with coaches and TOSAs from all over the globe, partnering with administrators, and ultimately impacting students. [Link to my first blog post of the school year]



If you're on the main page (jyoung1219.weebly.com), clicking "Read More" below will take you to my end of the year reflection that I wrote for my supervisor, the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Education. As a quick warning, it's quite lengthy. I wrote a summary of my year for my official paperwork and tried to be as thorough as I could.

What an incredible experience going to Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design on Friday, June 24th! This "field trip" was a special event during EdTechTeacher's (@edtechteacher21) #ETTSummer Designing Thinking and Makerspaces workshop, which I had the pleasure and privilege supporting Sabba Quidwai (@askmsq).

Throughout this two-day workshop, Sabba and I spoke about the importance in mindset, pedagogy, and the focus on the process of design thinking and Makerspaces. A common notion is that 3D printers, laser cutters, and the latest, fanciest technology are what makes up a Makerspace and the design thinking process. Some participants that attended the workshop certainly shared in that perspective. In just these two days, Sabba and I helped shift the perspective from materials and products to beliefs, mindset, and pedagogy. It's not about the 3D model the students create but the process in which they sketch, design, and construct the model. It's not about having the fanciest gadgets (although if you have the funding, gadgets are cool); it's about what you do and how you think during the entire design thinking process. It's not about creating something you can admire and love but the importance of developing empathy for the people and the problem you're creating that thing for.

In any workshop, as a presenter, you're never sure if participants will accept, let alone adopt your perspective. In this workshop on design thinking and Makerspaces, Sabba and I shared our concerns of whether participants actually heard the message of process over product. Our field trip to Stanford's d.school was tremendous in that message. Throughout the tour, important philosophical messages about design thinking were shared that aligned and supported what's been said at our workshop.

• It's not about the inventions but the inventors. The focus of the d.school is on developing the inventor's mindset and not on what product is developed. When the inventor's mindset is developed, the reward goes beyond that one product in isolation to a lifetime of empathy, design thinking, and problem solving.

• Innovations involves falling on your face multiple times. Through trial and error and the iterative process, we can learn from what doesn't work and build revisions and repeated revisions in order to create a possible solution. One of my mantras is: Mistakes are expected, respected, and inspected. It's what you do after you make the mistake that makes the difference.
• Design thinking is not about the hardware or technology but the process and mindset.

​
Again, it was such an incredible experience touring Stanford's d.school with the educators who attended EdTechTeacher's Design Thinking and Makerspace workshop. What a tremendous way to continue the conversation and elements of the workshop, focusing on process vs. product, mindsets, empathy, problem solving, trial and error, the iterative process, and how to instill these qualities in ourselves and our students.

During this week of EdTechTeacher's summer workshop where I had the pleasure of co-facilitating with Sabba Quidwai, I led the participants in a Breakout EDU game this morning. It was the second session of workshops this week, iPad workshop on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Design Thinking and Makerspaces today and tomorrow.

During the Breakout EDU game, teachers definitely worked hard on solving the puzzles. It was great to see them exercise the essential lifeskills we all try to foster in our students - persistence, collaboration, teamwork, curiosity, and critical thinking. It was great to see the participants, many who didn't know each other before today, immediately work together to solve the puzzles. During our debrief, they identified feelings and thoughts they had, many of which propelled our work throughout the day.

• Where to start? - critical thinking
• Complicated - trial & error
• Collaborative - teamwork & compromise
• Crowded - how do you engage all students?
• persistent - how many ways can you do something?
• Integrated - into curriculum with writing games, building boxes, ... what else?
• Momentum
• Analysis - reading - where can you search information?
• Frustration
• Classroom Space - "How might we ..."

As we draw closer to the start of PAUSD's summer school program, the elementary TOSA team, summer school administrative team, and I continued to facilitate professional development for the summer school teachers. The professional development days involved whole-group explorations of morning meetings, number talks, and interactive read alouds, and small group choice sessions. Structuring our professional development with choice was a great way for teachers to opt into which topic they want to explore and learn more about. The session choices included Engineering Is Elementary kits, "10 Ways to Get Your Students Reading," TheatreWorks, Spectra Art, and Design Challenges.

I had the pleasure of facilitating the Design Challenges sessions. In those sessions, teachers and I explored ways to incorporate design challenges into the summer school program, the lifeskills these activities fosters, the real-world application and connection these challenges provides, and engaged in a design challenge of building paper towers.

Below is a Padlet of Design Challenges I've collected. Please feel free to add to the padlet.

Team.

The least important word: I
The most important word: WE
The two most important words: Thank You
The three most important words: All is forgiven.
The four most important words: What is your opinion?
The five most important words: You did a good job.
The six most important words: I want to understand you better.

PAUSD's elementary TOSA team met this Thursday for our Spring Retreat. It was a gathering of the new TOSAs who will be joining the team and a send off to the TOSAs who will be moving onto other positions as they complete their TOSA assignment. Along with some time spent "passing the baton" by the veteran TOSA members, the bulk of the day was spent with next year's TOSA team talking about the importance of relationships in our TOSA role. It was a wonderful time to identify the priorities of the TOSA role.

• My Team member's feelings, needs and concerns should be held close to my heart.
• Teachers and their needs must come first.
• Principals and their site needs must come first.
• Customer Service as our mantra starts with the mindset of always stopping long enough to consider and to think ahead of any potential disruption to the relationships we claim are important.

Start any relationship thinking about incorporating a set of similar premises about all people.

• I will look at any situation as if I was in the similar situation as the person I am working with. This creates an empathetic mindset.
• Treat each and every person as if they are the most important person in the world for the time you have with them. Remember there is NO I in WE ...
• Everyone wants to be important, acknowledged and valued.
• Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
  
• Everybody needs somebody ... resistance speaks to a need.
  
• Everybody can become a better person if someone invests in them.
  
• If you help one person you are actually helping many others.​

After a full school year used to explore eight different CCSS-aligned math curricula, PAUSD's elementary education department and its teachers leaders have identified the three curricula to pilot next school year - Investigations - TERC, Everyday Math 4, and engageNY / Eureka Math.

It was quite a process for the district to arrive at this point. This exploration year's primary focus was for sites to explore a variety of Common Core State Standards aligned math curricula. This collaborative exploration strengthened teacher understanding and instructional strategies in relation to the CCSS and built a cohesive teacher leadership group that recommended the three curricula that are worthy of a formal pilot during the 2016-2017 school year.

Yesterday's final math lead meeting that resulted in the three pilot curricula was the culmination of two years of work - identifying the math curricula neighboring district's adopted, reading research, connecting with other math professionals at NCTM, and collectively developing our understanding of CCSS and the Math Practice Standards to help inform our process of exploration and decision. Having had this year of exploration that helped us deepen our understanding also had additional benefits, one of which was that some publishers were still in the process of completing their CCSS-aligned curricula. We found that several neighboring districts that had adopted various curricula were unhappy with their "rushed" decision.

It was an incredibly collaborative process to explore the eight curricula (listed in the image below). The timeline of our exploration year is also included below. Now as we move forward with our three selected curricula for pilot, we will definitely assess the following areas of each curricula:

• concept development
• math practice standards organization
• teacher accessibility and easy of use
• student accessibility and special needs populations
• lesson design and sequence
• assessments
• instructional strategies
• supporting/supplementary materials/technology

I've always enjoyed the STEAM, Designing Thinking activity of building paper bridges. I've had the pleasure of sharing this activity with many classes throughout PAUSD from Kindergarten students to teacher workshops. The experiences were always the same - excitement with the hands-on activity, frustration with the paper bridge falling, determination to keep trying, celebration with more and more pennies/nickels being set on the bridge, and requests to keep going.

This activity is quite simple. The challenge is to create a bridge with a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 piece of paper across a 10 inch gap. Paperclips are available but may not be used to attach to the boxes or containers that form the gap.

Recently, I had the chance to share it with Jenna Segall's fifth graders at Palo Verde Elementary School. It was great to see the fifth graders brainstorm ways to construct a strong paper bridge, keep working on their bridges, celebrate their success, and recognize the strength of triangles. This activity definitely helps learners of all ages understand the iterative process of design thinking. One attempt that I haven't seen to that point was tearing the piece of paper in half and trying to make it a longer piece of paper with the paperclips. Such a simple step and yet no one had tried it before when I did the activity with so many people.

Jenna will soon lead this activity with the summer school staff members as our second design thinking professional development activity.

Here's a story of how you know you're a STEAM Coach. As I was getting ready to go to the store, a friend of mine asked me to pick up a snowball for him. Immediately my mind wondered how I was going to get a snowball in the San Francisco Bay Area. Snow doesn't fall in the Bay Area. My mind thought of all the physical, environmental, and scientific situations that are needed in order to get snow. In that span of about three seconds I thought surely he didn't mean an actual snowball.

As a child, I never wanted to attend summer school. I wanted my summers to be filled with fun, camps, and playing at the playground. As an adult, I still enjoy my summer breaks. It's definitely a time for me to unwind from the school year, take and attend professional development workshops and conferences, and prepare for the coming year. I've only taught two years of summer school out of my 10+ years as a teacher - one year at math-focused summer program and the other year for a middle school digital arts program I designed.

This summer I have the honor and privilege of being a principal for the summer school program. It's not any ordinary program either. This summer's program, designed by a fellow Elementary TOSA, Arcia Dorsti, is an enrichment program that focuses on student choice and STEAM! Students have the opportunity to engage in Genius Hour, Passion Projects, MysterySkype and MysteryHangout, designing thinking projects, coding, and more. Each day will include aspects of Responsive Classroom, Number Talk and an Interactive Read Aloud.

The summer program is not only a chance for students to take on projects they're interested in, there are opportunities for teachers too. One message in our first professional development meeting for summer school is that the program allows teachers to do projects and units they've wanted to explore and teach but may not have the time and flexibility during the school year. This year's summer school is also for the educators to learn and grow.

I can't wait to support the learning from the students and the teachers this summer! Below is the Padlet we used during our first professional development meeting of ideas and topics summer school teachers are interested in.

It's been truly an incredible experience and true pleasure partnering with so many teachers throughout the Palo Alto Unified School District in math and STEAM throughout the school year. I've had the privilege and pleasure of working with Valerie Sabbag, a fifth grade teacher at Fairmeadow, throughout the year on Number Talks, the use of Spheros, and co-planning STEAM integration.

BreakoutEDU is one of those STEAM integration projects we got to work on. Throughout the year, her fifth grade students worked together to solve BreakoutEDU games and puzzles that involved math, social studies, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving. BreakoutEDU is definitely an activity that surpasses any curricula and content area. It addresses multiple areas, and, more important, the lifeskills that are essential to educating young children. Character education is a critical part of life.

This week, Valerie's fifth grade students had the pleasure of working on their own BreakoutEDU games AND boxes. Valerie really had a wonderful vision of having students build their own boxes. This process addressed many mathematical concepts that she was going to teach and in doing it with this project, it was definitely an engaging and hands-on project. Measurement, surface area, volume. Students got the chance to use a hacksaw, hand sanders, and wood glue to construct their boxes. Students worked in small groups to plan this boxes, check and double check their measurements, and put their box together.

While one group worked on building the boxes with Valerie and a wonderful volunteer, the other groups worked collaboratively on writing their own BreakoutEDU games. This was also part of Valerie's integrated approach to teaching. In her Writer's and Reader's Workshop, her class was studying fantasy stories. This became the basis for the BreakoutEDU games. Groups of students created games centered around the themes of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and more.

The fifth grade students got to beta test their games with their third grade buddy class, Krisiti Van's class. This was an important step because it helped them observe how effective their clues were for their puzzles. The fifth grade students had opportunities to revise their games before sharing it with their parents at Fairmeadow's Learning Celebration / Open House.

Check out the pictures below of this incredible project that spanned a few weeks.
Also, check out #breakoutedu for tips and stories. A #breakoutedu Twitter chat also takes place. Be on the lookout for days and times of the chat. Here's an archive of the first chat by EdTechAri.

At this week's elementary TOSA team meeting I was given the above quote by the Chief Academic Officer to think about its meaning and impact related to my work as an instructional coach. Each team member received a different quote and the discussion that followed after each quote and impact was read aloud was profound and enlightening.

During the think time of my quote, I focused in on Bloom's Taxonomy and my work with it as a facilitator of the Elements of Instruction workshop for the Palo Alto Unified School District. Education leads to Knowledge and Comprehension. It is from the foundation of knowledge and comprehension that one can go to the higher levels of thinking - application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. To me, Education leads to knowledge and comprehension, and as an instructional coach, that knowledge leads to countless benefits: ideas, growth, passion, connections, clarity, support for others, vision, integration, professional development, ...
​
​In the picture of my notebook, I wrote, "As a coach ... My continued personal PD & education leads to knowledge and understanding. From there I can move to higher levels of thinking. Higher levels when I can bring light to my surroundings & to others. To support others, challenge status quo, build connections, support PD, growth, continued R&R, ..."

What does the quote mean to you?

​(Below is the digital sketchnote I created from the image in my notebook.)

Yesterday, PAUSD's STEAM Inquiry Group had the pleasure of spending a day at The Computer History Museum (CHM). It was a fantastic day for the elementary school teachers to experience the museum's Revolution exhibit, speak with Lauren Silver, CHM's vice president of education, and continue our work on district professional development on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). As a STEAM coach / TOSA, this was a wonderful experience - to engage in so much history of design, computing, and revisions.

The Computer History Museum is definitely an amazing treasure in the Bay Area, and specifically in Silicon Valley. CHM's Revolution exhibit takes guests through the first 2000 years of computing, from abacuses and early calculators, punched cards, analog computers, to early computer companies, real-time computing, personal computers, and the internet. If you've never visited the museum, I definitely recommend adding it to your list of things to do in the SF Bay Area.

As a Math coach, I loved getting to see the (r)evolution of computing. It was incredible to see the progress of computing and calculators through time. One part of the Revolution exhibit that caught my eye was the display of Napier's Bones (pictured below). This really resembled the lattice method of multiplication that many math curricula, one of which is Everyday Math.

McGraw Hill's Everyday Math curriculum has been PAUSD's adopted math curriculum for the past seven years and have experienced both support and criticism from the community and teachers. One of the complaints was the variety of math strategies students are taught and how this might confuse students. Some family members and teachers question why teaching so many strategies is helpful when the traditional algorithm works. While I understand that perspective, I have always been a proponent of learning multiple ways to do something so that there can always be many options and tools to complete the task at hand. An analogy or story I've used with students in classrooms, and parents while supporting principals at their info coffees and parent ed nights to explain the "why" of learning multiple strategies goes like this. "One day as I was driving home, there was a construction crew digging up the road I always drive down. Oh well. I guess I can't go home today." Students always respond, "No! Just take another street."

Napier's Bones reminded me of the lattice method of multiplication, a method that's quite popular with the fifth graders I've taught. It's truly amazing to see how methods of calculating and computing we teach today have origins in history. ​I wonder if John Napier's method was the foundation to the lattice method. 

Ten years ago Twitter was born. It's crazy to think about how much Twitter has impacted social media, celebrities, sport teams, and companies.

One view may be that Twitter has contributed to our shorter attention spans. If things, like emails, aren't short, we often use the TLDR approach - Too Long, Didn't Read. Twitter's 140 character messages have contributed to changing the landscape of social media. On the other hand, I've seen the use

Twitter has indeed changed the landscape in education, and definitely for this Math and STEAM Coach. I've been on Twitter as an educator for the past few years and I definitely wish I was on sooner. The learning, sharing, encouragements, and connections I've made have impacted my career in countless ways. Social media is career-changing.

Here is a list of some of the amazing things I've learned as a result of being a connected educator on Twitter.
#OneWord
MysterySkype and MysteryHangout
Digital Citizenship Resources
EdCamps
Connection-Based Learning
Online Buddies and Peer Editors using Google Apps for Education
Countless Twitter chats including #tlap, #caedchat, #dojochat, #Schoologychat, #digcit, #fitnessedu, #Read4Fun, #edtechchat, #1stchat, #2ndchat, #5thchat, #personalizedPD, #educoach, #elemmathchat, and more.

Last and certainly not least is #TOSAchat. TOSAchat has changed my life. There are countless professionals in that community who support, share, collaborate, encourage, inspire, and enhance each other's personal growth. I had the pleasure of partnering with Ben Cogswell, Karly Moura, and Kelly Martin to create TOSAchat.
​The TOSAchat community has a chat every Monday at 8:00PM PST - tosachat.org for more information.

Twitter. Social Media. = Game changer for connected educators.