Standard 4 Reflections: Engage in Analysis of Teaching and Collaborative Practices.

Standard 4 Reflection: Engage in Analysis of Teaching and Collaborative Practices.

Background

I am lucky enough to be in a school district who has been focusing on analyzing our teaching and collaboration practices over the years that I have been with them during our professional development opportunities. Not only do we have whole school professional development where this is done, but we are also provided dedicated department time which encourages us to practice  analyzing our teaching and collaborative practices. We also have started Problem- Solving Teams (PST) this year to help us reach those students who need more academic or behavior support. During any of these meeting we have worked together to come up with common goals and use SPACE (Silence, Paraphrasing, Attention, Clarifying Questions, and Evidence) for our norms.

I have also been fortunate to have good role models in my current principal and math coach since they asked me good questions that made me think about my teaching practices  As I was taking the classes Accomplished Teacher I thought the informationabout the different types of leadership styles and the discussions of when each can be useful was interesting. I tend, like many others in
the class to easily fall into the consultant role, but I wish to become more of a coach with both my peers and students so places I need to improve on are paraphrasing and reflection on my teaching

practices.   Although, I realize the benefits of paraphrasing, such as valuing others and being on the same page, I doesn’t come natural for me. So with the help of the practice we got in our face-to-face meeting as well as the question starters am I improving. And since reflection has been brought to the forefront, I taking more time to reflect on my teaching practices and as result I believe I am helping my students to be more successful.  I am hoping with more practice both of these skills will become more natural.

Learning and Applied Practice

Accomplished Teacher

We started by looking at the instructional framework for our district and then reflecting upon on our area of strength as well as what area we wished to improve upon which led me to focus   4.2 - curriculum and Pedagogy - Curriculum: Alignment of Instructional Materials and Task from Cell 5+ Framework.   More specifically, I wanted to provide more supplemental materials that provide multiple opportunities for students to practice getting to the learning targets, provide more supplemental books that have a variety of reading levels and interests,  use the option of reading levels on the online version of our book, as well as to add artifacts to my learning target wall.

We then discussed our initial response to making observations.  From this we then looked at our experience and reflected upon about the baggage that influenced our thoughts upon observing ourselves and other teachers.  Then at our next face-to-face meeting we looked the different levels of interactions we have we colleagues daily -- consult, collaborate, coach -- as well as learning how to move toward the coaching role through paraphrasing and thinking about questions we could ask to help others solve the problem.   Using this information we again reflected and applied our learning to given situations.

We ended this part of Accomplished Teacher by looking at benefits as well as challenges of teacher leadership.  The biggest benefit that I see for having a leadership team is that it promotes collaboration and we always come up with better solutions because of the diversity of knowledge and experience.  It also helps with our school culture since it gives teachers a voice. I think the biggest challenge that we have is navigating the resistance of change. It is nice to have a built in support system with the other teacher leaders so you can predict what the resistance will be and how do we handle it.  Sometimes, it truly starts off with compliance, but eventually changes to “we do this because it works”. After awhile you can build upon the past successes. The other challenge we have is finding teachers who want to be on the leadership team. One of the ways our principal has dealt with this is by giving us department level leads.  This helps get people skills to feel empowered to eventually become a department head. It is like putting your toes into the water before you start swimming. Additional, having time to meet with your department can be a challenge. At our school there has been resistance by a few to having regular department meetings since there is a question of where it is in our contract.  To overcome this, as a 6th grade department lead I have made my meetings optional and whoever shows shows. So far we have had 3 out of 5 of us meeting. Also, some of our district directed time has been used for department meetings as the teacher leadership team has asked for it. But usually this time has come with a school wide department agenda. For example, this month we have been working on our formative assessment cycles.

Communication and Collaboration class

We began this class by reading about different distributed  leadership models and described our experience with professional learning practices in a blog post.  We also posted in the discussion board where we thought education was going.  My was entitled “Moving from an Island to a Continent” because I do see more collaboration happening out of necessity as more and more is asked of teachers and competing needs and wants collide.  

In this class we also looked at how TPEP (Teacher Principal Evaluation Program) has pushed us toward providing professional development that focus on our teaching practices and collaboration since it requiresindividual teachers to show growth in our students and our teaching practices as well as with others.  For example, with growth goals we are asked
identify an area our students need to grow that is in alignment with teaching standards. We are also asked to identify the assessments that will help determine that growth so that our information is data driven.   Additionally, we are asked to identify what tools and resources we need to support growth in our students.  As we are helping our stdents to grow we are working both as individuals and with others to show growth in our classes as well as the entire grade level.   Then at the end of the TPEP cycle we are asked to write a narrative with our reflection.   In additional to creating a growth goal for our students we also are asked to identify an area that we need to improve on whether on focus or comprehensive.  We
begin this process this by reflecting on our own teaching practices.  Once we have identified
our area of focus we needto create a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results Focused and Time period for it to be achieved) as well as to  identify what resources and supports we need.  Then at the end we need to provide a narrative about our process and results.  As with all things, some teachers will do this out of compliance and the need to do it to have a job the next year, while others will embrace it and truly grow in their profession.  Overall, I think TPEP drives our professional development to meet many of the needs of adult learning - extrinsic motivation, content driven, differentiated, narrative - but, I think if we taught the action research model and let people know what others were working on, we could have more collaboration and meaningful growth.

As I took this course, i also thought about how our district along with neighboring districts sponsors a  Powerful Learning Conference every August. For this conference teachers within those school districts are asked to not only submit ideas of what they would like to learn, but they also given the opportunity to submit proposals for presentations.  This conference is free to those in the represented districts while others pay a small fee to attend. I have been both a participant and a presenter at this conference over the last few years, and I would say that the presenters are ‘energetic risk takers whose integrity, high-efficacy, and content knowledge give them
credibility” (Teacher Leadership Skills Framework - pg. 1) with the attendees.   Since you get to pick the classes you go you can choose to attend those that meet your needs as well as you can go to as many or as few as you wish.  I only wish that we had more time to reflect and plan how we would apply the new knowledge.  By working with neighboring school districts our district is showing us how important not only collaboration is, but also supporting us in analyzing and improving our teaching practices.

The last way that our school district shows that collaboration is important for our teaching practices is  through the Center for Collaborative Support which helps teachers with their professional growth is by running book studies once each quarter.  Again this is optional. At the beginning of each quarter we are given an electronic flyer that lets us know what book studies are available for the quarter.  All work is done online. They are set up so we read one week and apply the following week and answer questions based on that learning.   Educational coaches from the various districts are in charge of the book studies.  Not only do you get to talk about what works and what doesn’t work,  you get see a wider variety of perspectives than you would if it was just ran through our school district.  Again, this is optional and not all teachers will participate, but it is a great support for those who choose to use it.

In this class we read the article “Filling a Leadership Vacuum” which talked about mistrust between staff members.  We were then asked to discuss how a climate like this could be changed. Many of my suggestions in my discussion post had to with strengthening the relationships by providing collaboration opportunities.  We also learned about ways in increase this trust such as using critical friends as part of our professional development so you could see things  from multiple viewpoints. Then we summarized one or two of the models of collaboration you have learned about so far in our third reflection for this class.   Even through throughout this class we were focusing on professional development, collaboration and analyzing our teaching practices was very much part of my final project.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

It is easy for me to get into wanting to “fix” something instead of asking questions to lead another person to their answer and analysis of their teaching practices, so I really appreciated having to practice paraphrasing and question another person during our face-to-face meetings.   This is an important skill to develop as it empowers others.

Another issue is developing a culture of collaboration.  One way develop this for administrators/

school districts to provide time and expect people to collaborate others.  Another way is to create a grassroots movement where one shares ideas, concerns, etc. with others with no expectations and hopefully over time a relationship would be built and it will be reciprocated.  Part of the issue is being will to put the time into developing this culture as well as having the tools to do so with.

How Teaching and Collaborative Practices ares Supported by Research

The overall theme I saw as we went through these courses was that as an educational leader we want to help others feel valued as well as to become independent and confident in their own thinking. In our Accomplished Teacher class this began with the first articles, “The Teacher Leader:  Improving Schools by Building Social Capital Through Shared Leadership” as it discussed the need to build relationships so we can sustain the programs and practices we believe in and not get burned out. This continued in the article, “Four Stances: A Continuum of Learning-focused interaction”  as it discussed that although there is a time and place for each of the different types of leaders, we really want to get to the place where we are coach so that we are helping people find their own solutions and therefore are gaining confidence in themselves and become more self-reliant. The other article about mentoring, “The Good Mentor” also discussed how is it is important to develop good relationships and to make sure you are meeting the needs of your mentee.  In orders to do this you need to be able to know what they struggle with and help them to reflect and find solutions which leads into the article “Paraphrasing: An Essential Skill of the Educational Coach” which emphasized this when it talks about the goal of paraphrasing is to help the person you are paraphrasing “to examine and reflect on their beliefs, values, goals, and assumptions along with their feelings and ideas”.   By feeling valued and empowered, we are able to grow and get excited about our profession.

In our Communication and Collaboration course similar themes were seen as with any of the methods we had studied, I saw time, trust among staff, and buy-in as the most challenges.  But, I also saw that it would help teachers have a greater understanding of the curriculum,  analyze their teaching practices and collaboration as they are teaching, provide stronger relationships between staff, and provide better available lesson plans

Overall Impact

As I have been going through these classes, I have learned or re-learned how important it is to build relationships with both my peers and students to help them become effective leaders in the future.  In order to do this I will need to continue to work on my paraphrasing skills as well as my reflective practices. Additionally, I will look for where I can provide professional development opportunities that provide a framework to develop collaboration as well as support improvement of my teaching practices and those around me. Lastly, I will
ask for feedback from others on my teaching practices as well as video tape more of my
lessons so I can reflect upon my own eaching practices.

References

CELs 5D Teacher Evaluation Rubric. (2015, September 23). Retrieved from http://www.tpep- wa.org/the-model/ framework-and-rubrics/instructional-frameworks/uwcel-5d/

Corcoran, C. A., & Leahy, R. (2003). Growing professionally through reflective practice. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 40(1), 30-33.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2013). The power of professional capital: With an investment i n collaboration, teachers become nation builders.  Journal Of Staff Development, 34(3), 36-39.

Jackson, P. W. (n.d.). Coaching for Educators. Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://msuk12connect.org/articles/coaching-for-educators/254-paraphrasing-an-essential- skill-of-the-educational-coach

(n.d.). Teacher leadership skills framework.  Retrieved October 10, 2018, from
http://cstp-wa.org/teacher-leadership/teacher-leadership-skills-framework/

Michelson, J. (2007). Filling a leadership vacuum. Leadership Cases 2007 School Level Reform.

Nappi, J.S. (2014).  The teacher leader: Improving schools by building social capital through shared leadership.The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 80(4), pp. 29-34.

Rowley, J. B. (1999).  The good mentor. Educational Leadership, 86(8), 20-22

Zepeda, S. (2008). Professional Development: What Works. 2nd Edition. New York: Eye on Education.