Standard 8 Reflection

MEd. Program Standard 8

Teacher leaders will present professional practice for the review of colleagues.

Relevant Courses in Program: 

EDU6528 Accomplished Teaching

EDU6990 Teacher Leadership Capstone

Reflections 

Original Experience

Prior to this program, I had a profound understanding of how children learn and how to support and encourage their learning, but did not consider the power of collaboration and how it directly impacts educational outcomes for students. Now with a deep understanding of how adults learn effectively and through carefully designed PLC protocols and expectations, I have come to understand that through high-quality collaboration and PLC work, the instructional delivery of all teachers improves and, as result, so does student achievement.  

In order to truly improve student learning through quality PLC work, it is imperative to have a strong understanding of how students and adults learn best. As PLC leader, it has always been my paramount goal to ensure that every member of my team feels well supported and valued and that there is a strong sense of mutual trust on our team. I thought that this, along with careful, intentional planning on my end as the leader were the key ingredients to a successful, and impactful PLC. Now I recognize that these efforts are only impactful if I also design our PLC centered around how adults learn best.

New Learning

When adult learning is considered, teachers are more likely to authentically grow through collaboration. Zepeda (2012) explicates conditions that must be in place to ensure effective adult learning. Among these conditions she states that successful adult learning must “be based on ownership, appropriateness, structure, collaboration, internalization, and motivation” (Zepeda 2012). As a result, I worked with my teammates to select the work that is most critical and that we are most passionate about. All teachers on my team have been empowered to hold a deep sense of ownership and pride in our work, which creates an internal, and collective commitment to working collaboratively to create the most meaningful and impactful lessons and interventions to support student learning.  We feel immense ownership over our grade level PLC and our protocols, and clear expectations allow for us to be highly collaborative and productive. Our mutual commitment to planning interventions to support our most impacted students provides us all with a deep sense of ownership and commitment to our work. We are motivated to work diligently to meet our goals and to specifically create tools to support and empower our historically underserved populations. This shared passion and ownership of our work allows us to work very productively together to analyze our common data and alter our instruction as a result. Zepeda also continuously mentions the importance of establishing a productive, positive collaborative environment. When teachers feel empowered, inspired, and valued this lays the foundation for an incredibly productive, positive, and effective PLC structure. This structure leads to improved educational outcomes for students.

My understanding of effective collaborative work has been broadened by the concept of transformational learning which Malik (2016) explains as “learning that results in a change in how we see ourselves.” Impactful PLC work is an intricate process consisting of four major components “experience, critical reflection, reflective practice discourse, and reflection” (Marriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner 2013). Effective PLC work is only possible through productive, authentic reflection. A component of this is being vulnerable and transparent when sharing data, and recognizing when your specific class data is not as strong as a colleague’s. Impactful PLC teams empower one another and take ownership of victories and struggles to work together to improve the educational experience for our students. Teaching, by nature, is incredibly personal, yet it is only effective if we can critically examine our data and instructional strategies with a commitment to mutual improvement. It can be difficult to recognize that a colleague’s scores are significantly better and to ask how their instruction may have been different or, frankly, more effective, but through these conversations the most valuable instructional decisions are made. If we can truly approach PLC work through humbling ourselves and recognizing that we are all growing, we can develop interventions, and make instructional changes that increase student learning. 

Impact

As a leader, I have the ability to positively empower and influence teachers to take on this critical collaborative work effectively. I believe that this collaboration is achieved through my team’s intentional PLC work. In Teacher Leadership, Hilty states, “well-composed and well-functioning teams can exert substantial social and normative influence over their members, shaping their thinking, beliefs, and behaviors” (Hilty, 2011, p. 275). This concept has motivated me to create documents and protocols to maximize the effectiveness and productivity of our PLC work to ensure that it leads to increased student achievement. These protocols allow us to consider the most difficult concepts for students, to determine potential student misconceptions, and create scaffolds and interventions for students who struggle. As a team, we have seen the positively transformative effects of this intentional, reflective work. Prior to this program, I assumed that by just meeting, sharing data, and altering our instruction as a result, we were doing highly impactful PLC work. Now, I recognize that there is far more to it than that. Lewis, Perry, & Murata (2006) explain the process of collaborative PLC work in four steps consisting of studying the curriculum and formulating goals, plan, conduct research, and reflect. As a result, I created a document that enables teachers to backwards plan units, which has led our team to select the most informative data to analyze and bring to our meetings. We use an assessment map to backwards plan our delivery and to break our culminating critical task into smaller, formative subskills that allow us to intervene earlier and support student learning throughout each unit. Additionally, we use preliminary data and lesson outlines to determine the most difficult components of concepts and highlight potential student misconceptions that allow for us to alter our instruction. As a team, we have truly been blown away by how far students have progressed as a result of this work. When comparing our data from this year to previous years, we have found that all students, particularly those who struggle, have become proficient at much higher percentages than they have in previous years.

As a result of this program, I will be able to use what I know about how adults learn, effective professional practice, and my understanding of our school and our needs to restructure our collaborative PLC practices to maximize productivity and leverage genuine engagement from all team members. This course has not only improved my leadership capabilities, and ability to empower my team, but has also led me to improving learning outcomes for all students.

Artifacts

Theories of Adult Learning

Leadership Reflection

References

Hilty, Eleanor Blair. (2011). Teacher Leadership: The "new" Foundations of Teacher Education.

           Reader. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Hirsh, Stephanie, and Hord, Shirley M. (2010). Building Hope, Giving Affirmation. The    Learning   

         Forward Journal, 31(4). Retrieved from                                                                                                           http://learningforward.org/docs/jsd-naugust-2010/hirsh314.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Lewis, Catherine & Perry, Rebecca & Murata, Aki. (2006). How Should Research Contribute to       

          Instructional Improvement? The Case of Lesson Study. Educational Researcher. 35. 3-14.

Malik, M. (2016). Assessment of a Professional Development Program on Adult Learning Theory.

             Libraries and the Academy,

 Zepeda, Sally J. (2008). Professional Development: What Works. New York: Eye on Education.

Standard 1 Reflection

MEd. Program Standard 1

Teacher leaders will:

model ethical and moral behavior.

Relevant Courses in Program: 

EDU6085 Moral Issues in Education

Reflections 

Original Experience

Prior to this program, I understood the wonderful privilege we had of modeling strong ethical .. and moral behavior for my students. I have always considered honoring culture and cultivating student personal sense of identity a high classroom priority. I have also always been committed to promoting compassion and acceptance in school, and shedding a light on injustices to create aware, empathetic students. Prior to this course, I recognized that our classrooms were charged, and composed of students of diverse backgrounds, and beliefs however, I was reluctant to ever discuss topics that could be controversial, mostly because I never wanted any student to feel uncomfortable, or marginalized. After this course, I am now well-aware that it is not only critical to know about your students’ culture, but also to discuss authentic, real-world issues, and to model to students, and colleagues the importance of having difficult conversations with peers, and learning how to disagree respectfully.

New Learning

Judith Pace refers to a “charged classroom.” The charged classroom that exists in our nation refers to the intrinsic tensions in our classrooms today. There is not a solitary cause for these tensions, rather there are a multitude of complex contributors. Among these contributors are different viewpoints, conflicts and the handling of conflicts, contemporary, curricular demands and constraints on teachers, maintaining high expectations, while encouraging authentic engagement, diversity and pressure to close the achievement gap, while employing teaching techniques that engage all students. Any educator who has spent a day in a contemporary public classroom is well aware of the convoluted, difficult, highly complex, seemingly impossible nature of our profession. This book eloquently points out that many aspects of the charged classroom are also, in nature rather contradictory. For example, we are expected to cultivate student’s unique identities (p. 5) and to engage and excite students, while maintaining order and high expectations for student behavior. We are told to teach students how to think, and to express themselves appropriately and constructively, yet, are often encouraged to avoid conflict. Classrooms are incredibly complicated and riddled with tension, yet we are increasingly pressured to close the achievement gap, to improve test scores, and to cover all curricular materials in a timely manner. The term “charged classroom” sheds light on the intricate, countless, classroom tensions present that educators and students must navigate, and their implications on the educational system, and students.

Throughout my research in this program, I was truly stunned by how much research elucidates the importance of social, and values education. A huge theme throughout my research was reframing the goals of public education to include, and emphasize teaching values. While academic learning will always be at the forefront of our efforts, social, emotional and “ethical competencies” must also be explicitly taught. (Cohen, 2006).  Another theme in my research was simply the inconsistent nature of implementing ethic learning, and guidelines for social-emotional learning in our nation, as the adoption of such programs are at the state level, and not always long-term. The most powerful component of my research came up in two different sources in which the authors equate ignoring the teaching of social, emotional, and ethical education to social injustice, because this type of education is a human right which all students are entitled to (Cohen, 2006; Beland, 2003).

Another theme that surfaced throughout my research was that our society and students are changing, and, as a result, it is increasingly important to equip our students with the necessary tools to interact positively with one another, and handle difficult situations, and emotions. In Wanted: Compassion, Goodwin asserts that our children are less empathetic than they have been historically. Goodwin asserts that our society is generally impolite, and that this can be attributed to a general lack of consideration for the feelings of others. He believes that we can only amend this lack of empathy through education, and teaching specific strategies in our classrooms to teach compassion to our students. His solution involves explicitly teaching compassion to our students and children, and provides steps for educators to teach students how to be compassionate.  Through strengthening perspective talking, helping kids practice caring, and measuring and valuing compassion in the classroom, Goodwin asserts that we will cultivate more compassionate, and caring students. Every article, and study that I encountered had one thing in common. They all expressed a need for increased social emotional education in our public schools.  Hanson et. Al (2012) explained the impacts of the Lessons in Character program, which is an ELA curriculum that integrates a character education program on student academic achievement, social competence, problem behaviors, and the school environment. This article explained that social emotional curriculums do not necessarily need to stand alone, or be separate. They can easily be integrated in core content areas, and through daily instruction

Perhaps the most difficult balance to achieve in the classroom, is the balance of maintaining high expectations while authentically engaging student, and eliciting student response while maintaining a sense of order. This also must be maintained while navigating the intense pressure to meet the curricular demands, and focus on closing the achievement gap, and increasing test scores. In order to deeply engage students, the content presented must be of high interest, and relate to students in a meaningful way. Often times, curriculum and content standards do not allow for teachers to create highly engaging lessons as they are focused on teaching to specific standards. This leaves very little room for individualized, interesting lessons that cultivate strong academic identities. Students benefit from a strong, multi-cultural curriculum that fosters a development of their identities, and provides authentic, democratic learning opportunities. Now more than ever, students need to understand how to respectfully disagree, and discuss modern issues in a way that leads to a deeper understanding of differing perspectives. Fostering these dispositions through content is not present in many curriculums, so this becomes a daunting task for teachers to undertake.

            Scholars deem it vital to openly discuss political and controversial topics in the classroom as it promotes “political equality” and teaches students to productively address conflict, which is an imperative social, and societal skill (p.45). Students need to be taught how to be active democratic members of society, however often in the classrooms teachers avoid teaching, or discussing controversial topics for a multitude of reasons. The outcomes of these discussions can be unknown or messy, these discussions can be difficult to manage, and can lead to potential conflict between students and families. I have also found that we are encouraged to avoid potentially provocative or charged topics with our students, and told that such topics should be discussed at home to avoid upsetting families. From my experience, it is also implied that we have far too many standards to meet to justify straying from the curriculum. The current state of politics in our nation illustrates more than ever that many adults lack the ability to have constructive political discussions, and to disagree in a productive respectful manner. I believe that this demonstrates a lack of democratic education and the importance of teaching this skills in our classrooms. Students at any age have meaningful, important opinions, and views on controversial topics. It is critical to make room for provocative discussions in the classroom. Our public-school classrooms are becoming increasingly charged, however students can be taught to handle this appropriately and constructively through honest, open discussions through which disagreements are promoted, and handled respectfully

Impact

My research has allowed me a deeper understanding of the importance of teaching social-emotional skills in our public-school classrooms. Every source that I found, along with my own, informal research that I conducted at my school elucidates the critical importance of teaching students to express and manage their emotions, along with the importance of teaching students how to cultivate positive and fulfilling relationships with others. Inarguably, there is a need to teach social-emotional education to all students in public schools. It is essential that this is done effectively, and that teachers are provided with materials to meet student needs. For students to be successful adults, capable of contributing positively to society, we must support their social-emotional development and teach them how to appropriately express their feelings, manage inevitable disappointment, and cultivate relationships with others. Neglecting this critical component of educating our students could have harmful effects on student behavior, and, eventually, our society. We need to create individuals who can create mutually fulfilling friendships, who can appropriately express and work through frustration, who can advocate for themselves when isolated, and have genuine empathy and compassion for others. While some schools have effective social-emotional programs or curriculums, many teaches do not feel as though the materials provided are sufficient to effectively teach students these skills.

            Above all, this program has demonstrated the importance of creating a classroom environment in which all students feel comfortable expressing, and developing their identities. 

Artifacts:

Inquiry Project Moore

This I Believe Reflection

References

Beland, K. (2003). Eleven principles sourcebook: How to achieve quality education in P–                     

        12 schools. Washington, DC: Character Education Partnership.

Cohen, Jonathan. (2006). Social, Emotional, Ethical, and Academic Education: Creating

        a Climate for Learning, Participation in Democracy, and Well-Being.  Harvard

        Educational Review, v76 n2 p201-237.

Goodwin, B. (2017). Wanted: Compassion: When empathy wanes, the best response   

        might be to strengthen compassion. Educational Leadership, 75 (3), 80-81.

Hanson, Thomas; Dietsch, Barbara; Zheng, Hong. (2012). Lessons in Character Impact

         Evaluation

Pace, J. L. (2015). The Charged Classroom: Predicaments and Possibilities for Democratic Teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.

Standard 12 Reflection

MEd. Program Standard 12 

Teacher leaders will: 

evaluate and use technology for teaching and learning

Relevant Courses in Program: 

EDTC6433 Teaching with Technology

Reflections 

Original Experience

Prior to this program, I used technology in my classroom daily, but it was typically only to deliver lesson. All of my lessons were taught through the SMARTboard platform, or, occasionally PowerPoint and students rarely interacted with these platforms. I used technology to communicate with parents, and created a class website to keep parents apprised on their child’s progress. Students also used Chromebooks and tablets regularly, but mostly just to type up final drafts after a writing project, and to occasionally research. At the time, I thought I utilized technology in my classroom very effectively. I used Chromebooks more than my colleagues, and created SMARTboard lessons daily. Now, I realize that is so much more to using technology effectively in the classroom.

Learning

Through this program, I came to the realization that while technology will never replace great teaching, the use of technology can undoubtedly increase student excitement, and engagement. The use of technology in my third-grade classroom immediately increases engagement among my students and evokes a sense of excitement and possibility. There is so much value in this engagement. It is conducive to creating a thriving classroom environment leading to substantial learning.  Through my research and this program, I discovered how I can best use technology to innovatively and creatively enrich what we are already learning through self-preparedness and confidence, intentionality, and creativity. 

The ISTE standard of using technology to advance student learning, creativity, and innovation (ITSE1) is something I have really employed in my classroom in a relevant and valuable manner since taking this course. While I cannot create my own curriculum and methods of integrating technology, I can use technology to innovatively supplement and enrich what we are already learning. I am constantly looking for ways to get students more excited and invested in what we are learning. I have found that integrating technology into our lessons or content has increased student engagement. I previously associated technology as adding something to my overly full plate; however, through my research and interaction with my colleague’s research through this program, I have found that this is not necessarily the case. It is entirely possible to use technology to supplement and enrich what I would be teaching anyway. 

Through my research I found that the use of technology is connected to academic achievement (Robin, 2008). This allowed me to rethink my perspective of considering the use of student centric technology to be a deterrent from all of the content that much be covered. When technology is used with intentionality, and when the teacher is comfortable and skillful using technology, it does nothing but enrich student learning. Perhaps my reluctance to utilize technological resources in the past stems from a lack of “familiarity and confidence” with various mediums (Pucket, Cabuk 2004). With educational technology constantly growing and changing, in order to use resources to support student achievement, I must be proficient and comfortable with the resources. This knowledge has allowed me to rethink my reluctance and reevaluate myself and understand that powerful technology integration starts with me obtaining the confidence to utilize it as a teaching tool.

Through this program, I have learned a multitude of creative and innovative ways to incorporate technology authentically in my daily lessons. For example, I specifically learned more about WebQuest, which uses teacher chosen, and specific scaffolding, to enhance lessons (Wang & Hannafin, 2008). This is extremely helpful in my classroom because it allows me to be extremely intentional to ensure that the use of WebQuest aligns entirely with my student target to support my lessons. This program has inspired me to use WebQuest both in my whole classroom setting, and with small, afterschool groups. I am happy to report that this does not detract from what I must accomplish in a day; in fact, it does the exact opposite. This strengthens my lesson, and even increases student excitement and engagement. Technology also allows for students to be inventive and creative in their learning. This allowed me to consider options in which to use technology to create “collaborative learning, group work, and accessibility” (Mazur, Brown, Jacobsen. 2015.) Formerly, I have considered the use of technology as relatively individualized in my classroom, but this sparked my interest in using technology as a tool for students to collaborate and inquire in small groups. This concept of using technology to support collaboration amongst a small group actually inspired a unit that I taught that allows students in table groups to explore culture and identity using sources I have picked on their tablets. This aligned with and enriched a lesson I would have taught anyway, and proved that technology does not need to take away from curricular materials, but actually can supplement and enhance a lesson.

Impact

This program has completely changed how I use technology in my classroom, along with my mindset regarding technology. Prior to this program, I thought of integrating technology as something additional to add to my plate. As teachers, that prospect can be daunting as we are already stretched so thin. This program has shown me that integrating technology should supplement my lessons rather than replace them, or add more. I now consider ways to integrate technology into work we are already doing.

Through this program, I was able to delve more deeply into collaborative mathematic experiences for my students.  I found that through technology, I can create collaborative math lessons and units that aligned with my curriculum, and student targets. These lessons have been created through WebQuest which, largely, approaches learning with technology collaboratively. ITeachers can create and utilize collaborative lessons in which students “enjoy their collaborative and interactive nature” (West, 2012). WebQuest is also conducive to providing specific, timely feedback and data, as the platform is managed by the teacher. Using WebQuest has not only increased collaboration and assessment data, but has also allowed for me to develop more creative mathematic experiences for my students through technology.  

This course has also increased my students’ involvement in our SMARTboard lessons. Kershner et al. (2010) elucidates that interactive whiteboards can be used for small group lessons, or intervention in order to encourage authentic collaborative learning experiences. This particularly pertains to my classroom because I had been looking for a way to incorporate technology-rich math experiences for my students, while still differentiating to meet various student needs. Small group, rather than whole group math instruction using my SMARTboard has not only increased student math engagement and interaction with technology, but has allowed me to formatively assess my students in a small group setting. Students can engage by taking turns interacting with the smartboard.

            This program has encouraged me to consider the most creative, engaging ways to incorporate technology into my lessons.

Artifacts:

Digital Citizenship

Technology to Support Student Needs

References

Judge, S., Puckett, K., &Cabuk, B. (2004).. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 36. 383-396. Retrieved October 7, 2016, from http://www.eric.edu.gove/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content.

Robin, B. (2008).  Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21^st Century Classroom. Retrieved October 8, 2016 from https://canvas.spu.edu/courses/10314/files/271987?module_item_id=101733.

Kershner, R., Mercer, N., Warwick, P. et al. Computer Supported Learning (2010)

Can the Interactive Whiteboard Support Young Children’s Collaborative Communication and Thinking? Retrieved from        

Mazur, A., Brown, B., Jacobsen, M., (2015) Learning Designs using Flipped Classroom Instruction. Retrieved October 6, 2016 from http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/26977

Wang, F.& Hannafin. (2008) Integrating Webquests in preservice teacher education. Educational Media International. 45 (1), 59-73.