
Setting your 2021 PD Goals
A new year brings endless opportunities for reassessing and refocusing our energies towards positive thinking and growth mindset. According to a July 2020 Remote Learning Experiences Study, 70% of Teachers reported that they needed continued resources to support remote learning, and 62% of Teachers reported that they needed additional instructional planning time.
The Professional Development Resource Center is here to support your 2021 learning needs and PD goals, and to provide you with resources to enable best practices for instruction and learning in a remote or hybrid learning environment.
Becoming a Digital Expert
As we start the new year there are a few free technology tools to consider adding to your tool belt.
First up, is Google Keep which allows you to create notes and to-do lists for yourself or to collaborate with a colleague. This a tool you can use yourself or introduce to students to help them stay organized.
Next up, is Mentimeter which allows you to create collaborative word clouds for your students. A word cloud is a great way to kick off a virtual lesson where students can submit words to share feelings, ideas, or takeaways.
Finally, a third tool to try out is Spark Video, a free tool for movie-making. You might make a video to share with students or introduce it to them as a tool they can use to create their own movies to share their learning.
-Monica Burns is a monthly contributor to our Digital Citizenship series and provides leadership professional development and coaching for The Long Island PDRC
Thursdays @ 4PM
Design a Multimedia Project
Maximize your student engagement with innovative learning modalities! Join our Thursday sessions to grow your digital toolkit while crafting multimedia projects for your classroom. You are invited to join individual sessions or join for the Soup to Nuts Multimedia Series!
Feb 4- Design a Multimedia Project
Feb. 11- Publish a Video
Feb. 18 – Publish a Podcast
Feb. 25- Publish a Blog
Start the Year with a little Self-Care
Many students have expressed feeling overwhelmed, distracted, moody, insecure, or even lonely during virtual learning, but that doesn’t have to be the case for students and teachers alike. Let’s shift our energies to focus on our social-emotional well-being.
Click on the emoji to express how you are feeling today:
Mindful Exercises to Start Practicing Today!
- Try 5 mins a day of mindful breathing: Relax your body and your mind as you focus on deep breathing.
- Make a list of 3 things you are grateful for, striving for or have accomplished.
- Challenge yourself to learn sometime new – whether a new hobby, book or podcast.
- Connect with others: the age of social distancing should not equal to loneliness. Let’s hop on a video call, text a friend or even go old-fashioned with paper and pen. Pen pal, anyone!
- Put down your Phone: Life doesn’t need to be virtual all the time. Carve out time for you and you alone, without any technological distractions.
Leadership Conversations: Prioritizing Habits
As we look to the new year, we face a fresh beginning with boundless potential. We make promises to ourselves about what we will do differently and how we will be better – both personally and professionally – as we make New Year’s Resolutions and promises to ourselves.
To make resolutions that stick, we need to be able to identify what’s important – in other words, what your priorities are – and we need to find a way to successfully incorporate new habits or ways of behaving into our routines.
Whether we are resolving to make changes in our personal or professional life, consider what James Clear teaches us in Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.

This newsletter is presented by Catapult Learning in partnership with the New York State Department of Education.
Catapult Learning, LLC 32 Broadway, Suite 1502, New York, NY 10004
For questions, or inquiries, please email [email protected]
Or visit the Long Island PDRC website: www.catapultlearning.com/nyspdrc/
