Teacher Self-Care Community |
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“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” Diane Von Furstenberg
In a year where educators everywhere needed to develop new plans and strategies, access students in a variety of ways, and be prepared to shift at a moment's notice, self-care is extremely important. For the last nine months teachers from around the region have been meeting monthly to enhance their relationship with themselves.
Self care requires you to consider the six areas of wellness; physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, social, and occupational. This group focused mainly on occupational wellness which can be described as the satisfaction and enrichment one gets from their work. This includes the belief that you are efficacious in your position. For educators, this is extremely important.
Over the course of the year the educators in the group have identified various characteristics which lead to occupational wellness. In September we focused on what makes them strong and what habits of experts they can call on in order to be successful. In October we discussed how important it is to have people who you respect and trust to connect with at work. We called them your “S.C.A.R.E.” person (a person who is Supportive Caring Accepting Responsive Enjoyable). In November and January we practiced gratitude and reflection as a way to grow in our practice. In February and March we discussed emotional labor and its impact on success. Then we strategized ways to “spring clean” our lives. Most recently we discussed the importance of work-life balance and reflected on resiliency.
Throughout many of these sessions the participants of this group have participated in community building circles. These circles allowed us to process our thinking around these topics and to grow together as a group. We will be finishing up this year in June celebrating the successes of this past year.
If you are interested in learning more about self-care, watch the Fall Professional Learning calendar for next year's offerings.
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K-12 Librarians Virtual Learning Community |
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From October to May, a group of 15 librarians from 7 districts attended an on-going K-12 Virtual Community of Practice led by Alicia Sherman and Nikki Laura. This group has evolved since its inception, from in-person meetings that began several years ago to fully virtual monthly meetings that began in March 2020.
Throughout the year, topics ranged from instructional strategies, remote teaching resources, developing digital resources for students and staff, copyright, and goal setting with cross-district partners, copyright, and promoting anytime access to ebooks and audiobooks. Topics for each session were developed in partnership with the group; during sessions, participants shared strategies, celebrations, and brought common challenges to collectively brainstorm solutions. At the final meeting of the year, participants reflected on their growth over the past year. We are looking forward to continuing to meet with this group in 21-22 to support continued collaboration among librarians in the region.
The work of this group was recently featured in Knowledge Quest’s May/June 2021 Issue in the article Elevating the Profession and Practice through School Library System. Click here to access a PDF of the journal.
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Sora eBook and Audio Collection Anytime |
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Administrators, teachers, and students in the Broome-Tioga BOCES region are able to access our regional Sora eBook and audiobook collection anytime – even through the summer. Follow the steps below to access titles to expand your professional expertise (or to enjoy a good book for fun).
Select Broome-Tioga BOCES, then sign in with your district credentials.
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From your device, download the Sora app, then follow the steps below: |
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Professional titles are highlighted on the main page – just scroll down on the main page to the “Professional Collection” shelf: |
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…or just search by title or author. Looking for a title that you can’t find? Email Nicole Laura or Alicia Sherman to request additions to our catalog of books. Happy Reading!
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Priority Workspaces in Google Drive: Stay Organized and Find What You Need Quickly! |
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If a hard copy file isn’t properly filed it offers a constant reminder by sitting on your desk, and magically multiplying until you have a mountainous fire hazard. Digital files do not offer the same visual cue when “left alone”. As a result, it’s very easy for your Google Drive area to become a swirling realm of “untitled documents” and “untitled presentations”.
I have tried using two common organizational strategies to tame the dumpster fire that is my Google Drive space:
- Using a regular file naming convention helped me to find files quickly by searching My Drive for a specific “tag” in the title, for example “20-21 PLIC Pride Admin Tip”… but the file names quickly became so long I had difficulty being consistent with the convention.
- Using a series of folders (similar to what you might have on your computer’s hard drive) worked best, but I found myself having to click between multiple folders often to find the necessary file. Whether they be for different districts, or different years, it was easy to find one file, but finding/comparing multiple files was not.
At one point, I tried using the January PLIC Pride tip of starring files in Google Drive, which was great! As the number of files I needed grew (and I wasn’t always great about un-starring files), my starred area started looking very similar to the mess that was my Google Drive space. Recently, Google added a new feature to Google Drive that bridged the gap, Priority workspaces.
Priority workspaces are like having the ability to star files, but have files organized into different collections. Priority workspaces can be found in your “My Drive” area on the left of your screen within Google Drive (shown in the pink rectangle). This 3-minute video tutorial from Rick Bray shows how to create and add files to a priority workspace.
Folders offer a great way to organize files… but it can sometimes be cumbersome to click down into your organization structure. Starring files offers a great way to quickly find files you need… but offers very little in terms of organization. Priority workspaces allow for the best of both worlds; have your files organized into folders, but pull ones you are working with regularly into a workspace. When you’re done, hide or remove the workspace, and don’t worry, you won’t lose your files. Deleting a workspace is more like removing a shortcut; the file is still in its original location. For example:
- “2021-2022 Budget Requests” could be a workspace that holds department forms while you are organizing the budget.
- “Open House” could be a workspace that gathers your agenda, slide presentation, letter home, and schedule for the night… and maybe even a PDF flier or video recording you created!
- “Next faculty meeting” could be a workspace where you collect and curate information for upcoming meetings.
Priority workspaces for Google Drive: think of it like Pinterest, but without the potential for clicking down rabbit holes.
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Learn ~ Collaborate ~ Explore ~ Register Today!
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[July 6, 27, August 3, 17]
Responsive Classroom:
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Looking for more Professional Learning opportunities?
View our catalogs and calendar here!
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