Digital Citizenship Poster/ Lesson

Currently, my third grade students are taking on their first research project in which they have the freedom to comment on one another’s work for the first time, and explore district-approved websites.  I decided to create a digital citizenship lesson addressing general tablet responsibility, research responsibility, and posting responsibility. I also saved this lesson to the server, so that each student could follow along on his or her individual devices. I split this lesson into three segments so that students are able to practice each element of digital citizenship in conjunction with their research. I taught one portion of this lesson each day in order, so that they could practice each skill before moving on to the next.  The first day was simply dedicated to refreshing how to handle the tablets responsibly. My students have used these tablets a handful of times this year, but I find that a general review before each use is incredibly necessary. The next portion of this lesson focused on research responsibility. In our district, the students are only allowed to use district approved links which is wonderful in that it promotes web safety, but can also be limiting in that it is not conducive to teaching students how to explore and find their own relevant links safely.  Lastly, my students had their first opportunity to post on one another’s research projects through our district’s server. I wanted to model and emphasize commenting positivity and safety so this lesson spanned over the course of this entire project. Each day, I modeled posting positive, constructive feedback appropriately and safely. I can report without reservation that this was the most enjoyable aspect of the digital safety lesson for my students. They absolutely flourished when giving clear, specific and positive feedback to their peers. Each student was so excited to share their comments, and explain the components of positive posting. I really enjoyed creating this lesson, and love that it led to a successful digital citizenship lesson.

Growth Through Accomplished Teaching

As I read through my initial reflection it became strikingly evident to me that the skills I have attained in this course have been, and will continue to be invaluable to my practice. I read through the words of my initial reflection and though they sounded familiar, I felt as if they were also distant. Since September, if I have transformed so much as both a reflective teacher, and a leader. I have always been an extremely passionate, reflective teacher with a strong desire to grow which is reflected in my initial words, however, through my research, understanding of the Marzano Framework, and collaborative opportunities through this course, I now have the tools necessary to facilitate a productive, data-driven and constructive professional learning community. I have attained a more data driven approach to reflection and analysis of teaching and student work. As a result of the past ten weeks, my reflective practices, the strength of my lesson design, and the productivity of my PLC meetings have improved greatly.

When I consider the teacher leadership standard address in this course, “Engage in analysis of teaching and collaborative practices” I feel as I presume my third graders feel when they use the work as evidence to determine that they have reached their learning target for the day. I can say, with absolute certainty that this course has guided me to meet Teacher Leadership Standard 4. I will address my improvement when analyzing my teaching individually, and collectively and reflecting to improve my practice. Prior to this course and in my initial response, I described myself as “agonizingly reflective.” This was true; I spent far too much energy replaying ever minute of my lesson in my head, and overthinking every instructional decision that I made. Now, I pour my energy into reflecting through a data-driven lens that will allow me to improve educational outcomes for my students. This takes place in both individual reflective practices, and as a PLC. Individually, I now analyze my instruction, and my student lens with a focus on “improving teaching, not proving that students got it” (Duel, 2009).  It is vital to use student work to clarify the specific components that students need support with in order to design effective interventions. Data-driven reflection is an integral component of impactful PLC work. As leader, it is essential that I cultivate a deeply trusting, respectful environment. In order to attain a trusting environment, I must be willing to take ownership of instructional mistakes, and model using authentic, imperfect data to improve my practice, or  “to honestly and thoroughly reveal professional struggle” (Nicholson, Capitelli, Richert & Bonetti, 2016). Ultimately, it is imperative to understand that impactful teaching requires constant adjustment, and through a lens of imperfection and growth. At the beginning of the course, I facilitated productive PLC meetings, but the way in which we have approached data analysis has shifted immensely after further exposure to best practice in this class. Prior to this class, we would bring our data to meetings; identify students requiring interventions, and plan appropriate interventions for those students.  This course has driven me to fine-tune this process to maximize our precious time together.  I was given the idea to frontload the majority of this process. I now send our analysis questions in advance to ensure that my teammates come to the meeting prepared to sharing.

Moving forward, I will continue to lead PLC meetings in a manner that recognizes that the most important component of PLC work is to use formative data to improve student learning (Defour & Reeves, 2016). I will not only continue to analyze data with my team to plan interventions for struggling students, but will also work with my team to determine the most impactful, appropriate interventions that “employ systematic, intensive, focused, and immediate small-group instruction” (Defour & Reeves, 2016).  I will also continue to recognize that the most crucial PLC work is only possible to complete when a warm, mutually-respectful environment is created and maintained.

          Through my coaching sessions with my colleagues, my research, and deeper analysis of the Marzano Framework, my lesson design, planning techniques, and lesson delivery have positively improved. In my initial reflection, I indicated that I delve deeply into the Marzano framework solely during my observation time. With my growing understanding and comfort with this framework, it has now become an extremely useful, formative tool when designing lessons. For each criterion, there are examples elucidating specifically what an unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and a distinguished rating would look like. This is a very beneficial tool in improving teaching practices as these examples show precisely what steps I must take in order to improve. For example, as illustrated in my lesson plan, in my lesson planning session with my classmates, my goal was to strengthen accessing my student’s prior knowledge, and building background knowledge. We used the provided Accomplished Teaching Lesson Guide for Effective instruction to map out how content-specific prior knowledge would be activated, and how I could build background knowledge to ensure that all students have access to the content, and to promote student engagement, and buy-in. We also discussed as a group, the importance of using our student’s background knowledge and experiences to strengthen their understanding of the content, and to promote diversity. Jiang (2014) claims that by recognizing differences and “by being open to diverse ideas, teacher[s] establish a safe classroom environment.” (p.301). It was incredibly powerful to brainstorm ideas with other professionals to choose the most impactful strategies. As a result of this experience, my lesson design improved, and, ultimately, my students were successful.

          In the future, I will continue to use these resources to help inform and improve my planning, and my instruction. Being that the Marzano Framework is incredibly comprehensive, I will always have areas to focus upon to improve my practice, and specific examples to support my improvement.  As a teacher in UPSD, I have always adhered to the UPSD basics of instruction, which align exceptionally well with the Marzano framework, but I now recognize the power of collaboratively planning with peers to gains ideas to strengthen my lessons. I will continue to utilize my teammates’ perspectives to strength my practice, and to recognize each of them as the invaluable resource that they are.

          In the past ten weeks, my collaborative practice, my reflective practice and my lesson design have all improved. As a result, the educational experience my students have been provided with has also improved. Ultimately, I have learned that the most essential skill an accomplished teacher can develop is a strong belief that we are never done learning, and to maintain that growth mindset indefinitely. I look forward to continuing to apply all that I have learned and to constantly refine my craft to become the best educator and PLC leader possible.

References

Defour, R., Reeves, D. (2016) The futility of PLC lite. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.spu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c4fb9e6c-27e1-454d-b26c-17a9cee2499a%40sessionmgr102&vid=1&hid=124.

Deul, A. Holmlund, M. Slavit. D., Kennedy, A. (2009).  Looking at Student Work. Educational Leadership. Retrieved from http:ww.ascud.org/lookingatstudentwork

Jian, Y. (2014). Exploring Teacher Questioning as a Formative Assessment Strategy. RELC Journal: A Journal of Language Teaching And Research, 45(3), 286-304.

Nicholson, J. Capitelli, A., Richert, A. & Bonetti, S. (2016) The Affordances of Using a
             Teacher Leadership Network to Support Leadership Development.

York  Barr, J., Sommers, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools:       
               An Action Guide for Educators.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Artifacts

Collaborative Lesson Plan

Synthesizing Element