“Every conference, conversation, and classroom reminds us of one fundamental truth: our greatest strength as educators is our willingness to remain lifelong learners.”
— Michael O’Shaughnessy
Stepping Into the Energy of Professional Growth
Whether you recently packed an aisle at a state-wide gathering like the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM) conference at Kalahari Resorts, or you’re simply wrapping up another whirlwind week in your own building, there is an unmistakable energy when educators come together. Stepping out of my presenter shoes at OCTM to attend other sessions and watch wonderful educators share their craft reminded me of why I love this work so much.
Hearing legendary voices like Jo Boaler keynote set an incredible tone, but the real magic happened in the details across the board. Everywhere you looked, educators were leaning into the theme of growth mindset—not just as a buzzword for students, but as a lived practice for ourselves.
Highlights from the Trenches: What We Learned Along the Way
The sheer volume of new knowledge floating around those conference rooms—and circulating through professional learning circles everywhere right now—is staggering. It’s a wonderful reminder that we never truly arrive; we just unlock new levels of the journey. Here are just a few of the standout insights and takeaways:
- Building Systems That Work: One standout session provided a concrete, step-by-step process that lets you walk away with a ready-to-use planning document for building a math intervention system that actually moves the needle.
- Hitting the Third-Grade Wall: We dove into a powerful vertical trace of skills spanning from kindergarten through third grade. It was a brilliant reminder of how vital it is to map out exact foundational skills so our third graders are fully equipped for what’s being asked of them.
- Spiraling the Curriculum: Several brilliant educators shared practical ways to spiral curriculum so teachers aren’t stuck in a state of frantic, last-minute test prep right before state testing.
- Tactile and Tech Innovation: We explored how to boost math fluency using rekenreks (a manipulative that looks like an abacus), and—in one of the most exciting sessions—used micro:bits to dive into machine learning and determine if the machine actually learned!
- Growth Mindset in the Wild: We even got to watch a video of a dog demonstrating a textbook growth mindset by moving a stool to get onto a counter to score chicken nuggets out of a toaster oven. If a dog can problem-solve like that, there’s hope for all of us!
The Presenter’s Mirror: Embracing the Unknown in Real Time
Of course, learning isn’t just something that happens when we sit in an audience; it happens right up front when we put ourselves out there.
During my session on Gemini Gems, an educator asked a great question about how to share a Gem directly with participants. In that exact moment, I didn’t have the standard answer ready to go. For a split second, I thought, Well, how do we make this seamless right now?
I realized we should be able to just grab the URL to the Gem, generate the link, and go. So, right there on the screen, I shared the algebra tutor Gem we had just created, grabbed the link, ran it through Bitly, and threw the shortened link up on the display. Participants pulled out their devices, went right to it, and started using the custom AI assistant we had built together minutes prior.
The best part? There was an elementary math educator in the room who had initially worried that an algebra-focused session would be over her head. But by building it live and walking through it, she saw firsthand how easily these concepts and tools can be adapted for any grade level. It was a powerful reminder that when we don’t have all the answers, we simply figure them out together—and that’s the exact model of lifelong learning we want to project to our students.
Sparking the Flame: How Do We Keep It Going?
Whether you spent your weekend networking at a massive conference or simply reflecting on a great week of teaching, the real test—and our true mission—happens when we step back into our own schools, hallways, and districts.
How do we take that sense of inspiration and turn it into sustained momentum? How do we spark that exact same desire to keep learning in our colleagues who might be feeling overwhelmed or stuck in the daily grind?
Resolving everyday challenges in education isn’t just about managing curriculum or mastering new tech tools; it’s about cultivating a building-wide culture where everyone—from the first-year teacher to the veteran administrator—remains eager to grow. When we model our own curiosity, admit when we don’t know something, and share our learning out loud, we give permission for everyone around us to do the same.
So, let’s take what we gathered—whether from a conference center or our own daily classrooms—bring it back to our buildings, and keep fueling up. Go out there, stay curious, and light up a mind!
