Keene State College / MCST Transition Resources

"What does it mean to live a good life? What about a productive life? How about a happy life? How might I think about these ideas if the answers conflict with one another? And how do I use my time here at college to build on the answers to these tough questions?"

"Students learn best when they are in environments in which they feel safe, supported, challenged, and accepted. Research shows that when schools and districts focus on improving school climate, students are more likely to engage in the curriculum, develop positive relationships, and demonstrate positive behaviors."

"As I prepare for another afternoon of district-provided professional development activities, I always make sure that I bring plenty of work to do (papers to grade, lesson planning, etc.). This isn't because I have a bad attitude and hate professional development (PD). A great PD event can really energize me to improve my classroom instruction. However, the sad fact is that the majority of PDs I attend are repetitive, simplistic, or downright boring. I bring other work to do so that I don't get irritated when I feel that my time is being so carelessly wasted."

"Most Likely To Succeed is the best film ever done on the topic of school - both its past and its future. The film inspires its audiences with a sense of purpose and possibility, and is bringing school communities together in re-imagining what our students and teachers are capable of doing. Run, don't walk, to bring this film to your school. After seeing this film, you'll never look at school the same way again."

"While being a teacher is never easy, working with students in special education comes with some unique challenges. From writing lengthy IEPs to working closely with parents and other teachers, it takes a calm, collected, organized, confident, and very special person to work with students who often need a great deal more support and assistance than their peers to succeed. Yet even the best special education teachers can use a little guidance, inspiration, and information to help them to be even better at what they do. That's just what the 50 blogs we've collected here can do."

This guide has been out a while, but is still useful for understanding NH Dept of Labor requirements for getting approval for work-based learning for students. This includes job shadows, internships, and some ELOs.

Podcasts from 2016 teachers of the year.

Great mental health resource for educators...please pass on. How do we take care of ourselves!

"In this post, I am going to describe #Opensem, an Open-Pedagogy-powered First-Year Seminar (FYS) that I taught this past Fall at my small, public university in New Hampshire. While following certain parameters set by the university regarding learning outcomes and goals for the FYS program, I ran the course as an experiment in radical OpenPed. I say "radical" not because it's anything brand new or particularly edgy, but because it takes some of the basic principles of Open Pedagogy as I have been conceiving of them and puts them into practice in the fullest ways that I could imagine within the confines of my institution."

"Chartered in 1966 as Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Education Northwest now conducts nearly 200 projects annually, working with schools, districts, and communities across the country on comprehensive, research-based solutions to the challenges they face. Our wide-ranging projects are making an impact in areas such as school improvement, community building, literacy, equity, and research. Although our services and publications have national reach, we primarily work in the five Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington."

"A broad group of individuals has been working since 2009 to develop the skills and improve the stability of the NH Children's Behavioral Health Workforce. This group, called the NH Children's Behavioral Health Workforce Development Network (the Network), includes family organizations, universities, providers, trainers, and state policy makers."

"Professional development certificates are available for the IRIS STAR Legacy Modules listed on the link below. After completing a pre-test, working through the Module, and completing a post-test, you will receive a certificate verifying Module completion and indicating the number of hours it typically takes users to complete that resource. In turn, this time can be applied toward your professional development hours"

A way to stay organized...worth reviewing

""Tailoring learning for each student's strengths, needs and interests-including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when and where they learn-to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.""