Does this sound like you?
Because this is, admittedly all too often, me.
I try to tackle one thing at a time and focus on my task.
However, when I plan, it's more like..."Squirrel!"
Whenever I try to get some school work done, I end up in a never ending
spiral of random tasks. Don't get me wrong, many of them lead to the most
creative ideas and collaborations, but my thinking is definitely not linear.
Like I mentioned before, maybe you'll see yourself in this
breakdown of my latest attempts at commenting on student blogs. (Not even all
140 of them. I just wanted to get ONE class of 38 done).
*Note...I did manage to finish them all at some point that
evening. It should also be noted that in the midst of my randomness, I started
a running list for this post, which I find rather ironic.
Without further ado, here's a peek into my distracted brain...
•
I read and commented on a few before deciding
that my writing groups were too large (and might be the reason my students'
peer comments were not as deep and helpful as they could be). So...I created a
writing buddy list for that class.
• Then, I joined one of my favorite Twitter chats- #sstlap
and read some tweets, said hello to a few educators.
•
Back to commenting on a few blog posts.
• I got to thinking that I should make a writing buddy list for
the other morning class as well, so I did.
•
Once again, I went back to commenting on a
few more posts
•
Well, after #sstlap comes #ditchbook chat, where I ended up in a conversation about an upcoming student-created videos chat topic. I feel strongly about this subject, so a teacher friend and I planned to co-moderate a future
chat in March.
•
While on Twitter, I was reminded that
I need to tweak my Global School Play Day (GSPD) post for Oliver Schinkten. I took a look at it, made some revisions, and then sent it to him.
•
Ok, back to a few of my student blog comments...
• Oops, I realized I hadn't posted in my fitness FB group,
so I checked some other daily posts before responded to a few. Then, I posted my
eating and workout for the day.
• It was at this point that I had an "a-ha" moment about my distracted
behavior making an interesting blog post, so I jotted down what I had
accomplished (or what had distracted me) so far that night.
•
Back to some more blog comments...
•
I looked over at my book stack, and decided to read a
little from the one on top-feeling justified that I needed a break. Read about
50 pages, and then found a good place to stop and went...
•
Back to commenting on a few posts.
•
A tweet in the latter part of the #ditchbook chat gave me a great idea for a
short story activity, and I spent a little time creating it.
•
Then, I got thinking about the next short story
I planned to read with my group. I read through it and came up with a fun way to
introduce it and provide some context.
•
You got it...back to the blog comments.
•
Reading more comments, and looking at my students' goals, I reviewed their portfolio self-assessments. I got an idea for how to
help them be more reflective. I made changes to their response sheet.
•
Then, since I was already in the tweaking mindset, I pondered how I could improve students' self-assessment
during Socratic seminars. Since my professional growth goal is student
self-assessment and I had an observation the next week, I worked on deepening
the self-reflection piece for my next seminar.
•
Finally, I finished those blog comments...3
hours later.
Although it took much longer than I anticipated, I had
accomplished more than just blog comments.
Yes, I have a distracted brain.
Doesn't everyone?
For sure! Looked to me like you were writing about my night... ;)
ReplyDeleteHow can I look at this article without a smile? You are a very interesting person. You have so many thoughts and all of them do not fit in your head. This is really cool that you are full of ideas and you share some of them with us. So many teachers today don't like their work and they students feel it. They give uninteresting home assignments and give boring lectures. I believe that teachers like you can be interesting for children and it is thanks to your fresh thinking. So don't worry about your being distracted.
ReplyDeleteIt's awful, I think it's all about your fatigue from work. Perhaps you need to be distracted from work for a while, then your brain will begin to work more attentive and concentrated. I once ordered an essay on a similar theme, by the way you can go in my footsteps Edusson. Distract yourself another kind of activity, then you can work more productively.
ReplyDelete