Reflection #16: Learning from Every Interaction and Opportunity with Stephanie Rothstein

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Stephanie Rothstein is an Educational Leader focused on making education more collaborative and less competitive. In her 18-plus years in education, Stephanie has taught grades 9-12 English, Yearbook, AVID, and she chaired the LEAD Design Thinking Pathway at Los Gatos High School for 10 years. Her continuous love of learning led her to become a Google Innovator, Trainer, and Coach. Stephanie has a new position for 2021-2022 as an EdTech TOSA for the Santa Clara Unified School District, supporting 33 schools and the opening of a project-based learning high school in 2022.

Stephanie speaks at educational conferences worldwide and was named CUE’s Teacher of the Year for 2021.  In her TEDx Talk “My Year of Yes to Me” published on TED.com, Stephanie explained why she needed to model the leaps we expect with these 4 points:

1. Know your WHY
2. Clear your Plate
3. LEAP
4. Cheering Section

Here’s her family, her cheering section:

I asked Stephanie about the Design Thinking Pathway, Authentic PBL, and Real-World Connections

I have chaired a Design Thinking pathway for the last 10 years. It combines English, history, and science, focusing on authentic, real-world experiences. Each project involves bringing in panelists. Examples include Person of Inspiration Unit (StoryCorps), the Service Learning SDG Unit, the Dream Job Unit. I am the co-founder of Global Google Educator Group (GEG) and co-leader of GEG Northern California. 

We talked about building Collaborative Teams and why she started CanWeTalkEDU

I started CanWeTalkEDU to support educators wanting to use Personality/Learning styles to better help them with staff, colleagues, and students. It helps provide insight into interaction, communication, collaboration, and honoring the strengths of one another, and learning and growing from them. I have implemented monthly challenges that help students and staff grow in the Agency. 

Everywhere I look, I see your articles and love your blogs. How are you doing professional learning through writing?

For the last two years, I have written articles, blogs, and have been a regular writer for Edutopia. I am excited to have a chapter coming out in the BecauseOfATeacher Book! The writing process has really helped me to process my own lessons learned. What I didn’t realize was that these lessons would impact others, and once I became more open to sharing my voice through my writing, I became less timid to put it out there. 

Edutopia Articles:

• 4 Relationship-Building Strategies to Help Finish the School Year Strong
• 7 Tips for Breakout Room Success 
• Discover, Discuss, Demonstrate: Using Inquiry-Based Learning to Keep Students Engaged
• 3 Tech Tools for Distance Learning and Beyond
• 3 Lessons From Online Learning to Take Back to the Classroom
• A Project to Prompt Student Reflection

Stephanie’s and Traci Browder’s Collaborative Project

During Barbara’s Dance Party on 12/28/20 to bring in 2021, we joined a breakout room to discuss pandemic teaching. That’s when I met Traci and talked about a collaborative project. We created a Google Doc with Barbara, who shared the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with us. That’s when we decided to collaborate on a project with my 9th graders in California and Traci’s Kindergartners in Texas. My students chose different SDGs and created websites about the goal. Check out the Wakelet collection.

Traci’s Kindergartners focused on Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and shared that they were going to make people aware of how many people in the world do not have clean water. Here is a FlipGrid with their descriptions.

We met several times on Zoom to discuss our plans and progress. This is just the beginning of more collaborations with Traci and her students.

You can connect with Stephanie on Twitter and Instagram @StephRothEDU, and through her website https://StephRothEDU.com

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