MEd. Program Standard
8
Teacher leaders will present professional practice for the review of colleagues.
Relevant Courses in Program:
EDU6528 Accomplished Teaching
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
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.
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