How many of us attend workshops just so we can collaborate with other teachers from around the area? I know I do! This is one of the best times to meet with people from everywhere else and pick their brains on what is working and what is not. Honestly, I think I would attend a workshop that was purely over just collaborating with my math people, if given the chance. I guess that is why I am apart of several math learning networks. A few of them are listed below.
This learning community is a private Facebook group that is free to anyone that would like to join. It is made up of math teachers that are using the All Things Algebra Curriculum that was developed by Gina Wilson. There is a lot of collaboration that occurs in this group and also a lot of problem solving happening.
This is a learning community that is also on Facebook and is also free to join. Lindsay develops a lot of her own interactive worksheets and she also develops curriculum for teachers to use in the classroom.
This particular community is another Facebook group that I found during the start of the pandemic. What I particularly like about this group is that teachers from all over are sharing their resources and you can find resources for all grade levels and subjects. This community is also free to join.
The Squadratics community is on Instagram, and it is made up of a group of women that have come together to help create interactive resources for teachers to use in their math classrooms. They have also provided professional development for teachers to help us learn how they develop these types of lessons. This community is also free to join.
Not all of my learning communities are on social media.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is the world’s largest mathematics education organization. They host annual conferences around the country for mathematics teachers to attend. They also provide webinars throughout the year and provide resources for teachers. NCTM has two different types of memberships. The essential membership for $94 and the premium membership for $149.
This is the most recent learning community that I joined. It has proven to be a great asset to me. I attended a two-week long workshop over the summer where they showed us how to incorporate an inquiry based learning atmosphere in our classrooms and allowed us to develop our own collaboration groups. The only way to be a member of this community is for your school to offer UT OnRamps courses and you have to be the teacher of record for the course.
This past school year when our coordinator of instructional technology found out I was beginning my technology portion of my master’s degree, she suggested me joining and I have found this to be a great asset! Last year due to the pandemic, they ran a special that teachers could join for free, but to join now, the fee is $49 for teachers. They proved a plethora of resources such as, webinars, conferences, and blogs with the hopes to advance education with technology.
For the learning communities that I am apart of on social media, I mainly just consume, I find myself reading through peoples’ questions and read all of the answers posted. I may contribute a time or two but I mainly just browse through the post and read what catches my eye. When the pandemic first started these learning communities helped me a lot! There were so many teachers helping each other and putting out suggestions on what they were doing to survive this new teaching we were having to do, it was unreal! These communities proved to be invaluable with the wealth of information that was shared. The University of Texas OnRamps is probably the community that I am currently the most active in. The teachers get on and collaborate with each other and help each other work through math problems and we share ideas. We met for two weeks via Zoom for our training this past summer and within those two weeks we developed collaboration groups and we were able to network with others, which I thought was great for us. When we have that opportunity to get with other teachers and form these cohesive groups, we become stronger educators.
I believe that I need to step out of my comfort zone and become more of a contributor with these learning communities. I have a hard time putting myself out there to the world, but when reflecting back on how much these communities have helped me when I am consuming these ideas, I wonder could I have helped someone too?
My Journey with Digital Learning and Leading 