Week #5 of CeDO565 - Leadership and Planning

As I finish my work for this week in CeDO565, I think the biggest thing I have taken out of this weeks class is that I am glad that I am a very flexible person.  For the most part, change isn't very hard for me.  I see it as a challenge that needs to be overcome and most of the time, it is for the better.  I currently have a lot of change going on in my life.  I will be moving out of my house I have lived in for 7 and a half years and moving into a new town and much larger house.  My wife has a new job she will be starting in a few weeks and even though it isn't me getting the new job, I know I a lot of what she will be experiencing will be a new experience for me as well.  I am also getting very close to finishing up this Master's program and I am working on my first casino party tonight that I have supplied all of the card dealers.  A lot of change, but I like it and look forward to it.  I think the biggest obstacle I have now and would like to work on in the future is helping other people with change.  I know it is hard for a lot of people, but a lot of time they just needs someone to help them through and know that there is someone who has got their back.  I feel I will be doing that a lot in the next few years at my school as more technology is being introduced as well as different work conditions are implemented in my school and district.  I am glad that this class has opened my eyes up to different ways of working with change, and I hope I can use some of what I learned to help others. 

Week #4 of CeDO565 Leadership and Planning

This week, we continued to investigate the effect of change on ourselves as well as the people we work with.  During Tuesday's class, we started a simulation game where our goal is to set up a school change plan and convince as many people as we can to go with the change and make it happen.  We are given "three years" to do this (which is actually 3 hours).  After the end of year one, our group did ok.  We got a few of the people of the game moved over to the 2nd stage of change, which is preparation for change.   However, for a years worth of work, this was very hard.  Our group felt that we should have moved people further than that in one year, but we had no such luck.  I am looking forward to what the next year does for us, but I am expecting many challenges as this game isn't very easy.  I guess it is supposed to mimic real life change!   In addition to this game, I just finished an individual assignment which I picked a time when I had to make a change.  I picked the way I am currently running my Civics class.  In the past I had the students use books and take notes from power points I made.  Now the students are using Moodle and looking for there own information and then coming to me with it. This is a huge change, but it is working great so far and I feel it is a huge benefit to the students as they are learning much more than they would from hearing me lecture on a daily basis and take notes.  I do still do quite a bit of talking, but it is when students have questions on what they have found or if I see that they are working on something that I want the whole class to be aware of and investigate.  I look forward to seeing the many more change based activities we will be working on for the remainder of this class as they are interesting and make me think!

Week #3 of Cedo565 Leadership and Planning

The big idea that I enjoyed learning about this week was the ability to change.  After reading the articles and watching the videos, I think that I am doing very well in this area of my life.  I don't love change, but I am very good at being flexible and moving on when I do need to change something in my life.  I currently have two huge changes happening in my life.  My wife and I are going to be moving to Appleton from Oshkosh so our son can be in the same school district as me.  We put our house up for sale 3 weeks ago and thought we would probably be waiting a few months before anyone would put in an offer.  To our surprise, we got an offer last week!  We are now looking through many homes and trying to figure out what would best fit us when we move to Appleton.  This is a HUGE change in my life, but I am hitting it head on and I am trying my best to find something that will best suit my family.  I feel that my wife and I are like Haw in the video because we were thrown something that we weren't expecting, but we are not hiding, but looking and trying to find our next piece of "cheese".  In addition to that, I am currently looking into helping a friend expand a casino party business in North Eastern Wisconsin.  He said that he would provide me with a trailer and equipment, but I would have to find a way to tow it and I would have to find casino game dealers who can help me run the parties.  I decided to take this on and find another huge piece of "cheese" in my life.  I also daily run into change at my job.  I tell people that every day I go to my school, I don't know how the day will end because so many factors come into play.  I need to be flexible to change or my job would drive me crazy!