Goals for the coming Year - Day 1 of the 30-Day Reflective Teacher Blog Challenge from Te@chThought

It's the first day of spring here in New Zealand.  The start of new beginnings and experiences and new goals.

I'm really excited about this challenge that Beth Leidolf and I are running in conjunction with TeachThought. We wanted to encourage teachers to reflect on their practice as that's how we can make a difference in the lives of our learners.

Although this is a 'beginning of the new school year' challenge for the first post, I'm thinking about my goals for the remainder of this year and looking towards the new school year here for 2015 here in New Zealand. If you've read my previous post then you'll know that I've had some 'interesting' challenges over the past year.

So, what are my goals for the rest of the year?

• I want to complete my final Masters' paper - coincidentally it involves online communities of practice so I may bug you with survey requests if that's ok.  All anonymous - designed so that I can be certain of what I need to be doing to help create motivating and engaging online communities - my passion and goal for teacher professional learning.
• 5 months after surgery I ran the Auckland Round the Bays run and in November will run my first official half-marathon - the Auckland one.  This is my next goal and I'm really nervous about it but I always tell my students to take a chance, to push themselves and try something outside their comfort zones so I wouldn't be much of a role model or mentor - or lead learner - if I didn't take my own advice.
• Returning to school - learning and teaching are my passions.  I need to be back in that environment.  I really want to get back into a leadership role so I'm applying for positions at the moment.  Fingers crossed.  My goal is to have a new position by the start of 2015.  I can't wait!
• My final goal - at the moment - is to help create a vibrant community of learners through the TeachThought organisation which I'm very lucky to be a part of.  It has to be an engaging and motivating community that is owned by everyone in it.  Where people feel confident to contribute, question and discuss all things education and share resources.

#reflectiveteacher