2023 was pretty representative of my overall scope of work the last few years- teaching a variety of college courses, providing consulting services to school districts, and pushing myself to expand my areas of expertise. I have a habit of reflecting on the last year and doing an inventory of things I’m proud of.

So here are my top 10 professional accomplishments of 2023 in no particular order:

• Took a risk and taught an Educational Technology course for the first time. I got great feedback from my students and this might be my #1 for 2023. 
• I resumed a couple of things I enjoy:
  • A. I started supervising student teachers again.
  • B. I resumed reviewing articles for NSTA’s K-5 journal-Science & Children.
• Expanded my use of online tools to create interactive learning during Zoom courses and PD sessions.
• Started using AI as an assistant to help summarize text, generate a variety of levels of questions & prompts for text-based resources, etc. I’ve really enjoyed digging into these tools.
• Completed 3 online asynchronous workshops (as a participant) and renewed my teaching certificate.
• Stepped out of my comfort zone and taught 3 classes of Educational Psychology…and actually got pretty good at it. I really enjoy connecting Ed Psych content into my science methods courses.
• Continued to develop my expertise and ability to interrogate systems in teaching a course on equity, diversity, and culture. Also coordinated service learning placements for students in this course.
• Supported a school district with a joint elementary science materials adoption and ELA materials adoption.
• Gained a level of expertise in using Canvas to design interactive, engaging, organized and clear learning experiences for students (synchronous and asynchronous).
• Continued to prepare new teachers to become advocates for and practitioners of equitable science & engineering instruction.

What are some of your key accomplishments of 2023? What do you hope to strive for in 2024? (I’m working on my goals for 2024 and will publish that soon.)

I’m looking forward to more good work in the New Year. Let me know if you have questions about any of these items or if you’d like to partner on something in 2024.

Kirk