Wrap it up! Parlay Ideas, Laos and Mind Maps

PARLAY IDEAS

I am a true believer in the power of collaboration. One of the things I like the most about being a tech coach is the opportunity to work alongside virtually any teacher willing to.

In a previous post, Migrating toward collaboration, I talked about Parlay Ideas, a tool we learned about when planning one of our final COETAIL projects. After playing around with the platform and training other teachers on it, I wanted to try it at my school. It allowed me to co-plan with my colleagues, coteach with them and interact with the students in meaningful sessions.

I loved the results, and so did the Spanish, English, and Social Studies teachers, as it helps build classroom community and have meaningful and inclusive student-driven discussions.

LAOS

I am not a quotes person. I don’t use stickers on WhatsApp or share memes on Instagram to show my thinking; I’ll instead try to explain it myself. But some are worth sharing, as they perfectly summarize our thinking. One of those is an image on privilege by Marie Beecham (follow her on Twitter, @mariejbeech).

If you have followed my previous posts, you probably know that I have been trying to use my writing, experiences, and voice to create awareness of equality, diversity, and inclusion in education. Privilege is a big part of it, and we tend to focus more on the perks than on the removal of the barriers, which is way more important.

I was recently part of a very intense interviewing process as part of my application for an MYP Math position abroad. After almost 15 years living in Panama and seven years in education, I recently accepted the offer to teach at Vientiane International School in Laos. I am thrilled to join their community and get to Laos for the first time. I feel validated with this opportunity and what it represents for me, especially knowing what it takes for minorities to accomplish this. I feel like the elimination of obstacles and barriers is possible.

MIND MAPS

When we started COETAIL, one of our first posts was about our communities. I remember using diagrams.net to create a mind map to show our different groups, networks, and communities.

When preparing for my interviews, it wasn’t straightforward for me to visualize my professional journey. Even though my career in the educational world is still short, it has been filled with many different roles.

A friend recommended creating a visual representation of this journey, and after some pen and paper sketching, I knew diagrams.net was perfect for this. Here is the result:

Stay tuned for my final project!