View Content #20703

We are grateful to the ACTFL Teachers of the Year who have contributed to this month’s InterCom. We hope that they’ve inspired you and given you some new ideas.

This last November at the ACTFL Convention in San Diego, several Teachers of the Year gave “TOY Talks.” All of these are well worth listening to.  Here is a summary of the available talks.

Nicole Naditz encourages us to radically revise our thinking about grading and assessment systems. See her engaging talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYQpqWwStCw

Linda Egnatz makes an analogy to coaches and student athletes and inspires us to apply principles of life-long athletic skill building to life-long language learhing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7U7T4J0-5c

Noah Geisel stresses the importance of skills (as opposed to knowledge), and how to document them with digital badges here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU2hwkRIRrM

Lisa Lilley discusses teacher efficacy in connecting with and engaging their students, as influenced by teacher’s perception of their own impact, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8UwMnTSVbQ

Toni Theisen addresses the hectic lives that teachers and students are pressured to lead to keep up with their academic demands. Teachers and students both need more autonomy so that they feel honored and respected and can carry on joyfully with their teaching and learning, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyU4Qx13idw

Christine Lanphere talks about connections and expanding and overlapping our professional and personal networks here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmR1VPO6fE