Teacher Leadership Standard 8 Reflection: presenting professional practices for the review of colleagues

Standard 8 Reflection: present professional practice for the review of colleagues

Background

Around ten years ago, our district approved a contract with teachers which provided additional professional development time that was divided equally between self- directed time, collaborative time, and  whole staff professional development in order to increase the collaboration in our school system. During this time we saw lots of growth in our teaching practices school wide. Unfortunately, it has been changed to being divide equally between self-directed time and district-directed time.  As a result we have seen less time for teachers to present their professional practice for the review of colleagues since teachers don’t want to give up their self- directed time and even though our principal has given up some of his district directed time for us to work in collaborative groups it is extremely limited.  As a result we are seeing teachers not presenting their professional practices for others to see as often.

Additionally, about 6 years ago, our newly hired secondary math coach, was able to get coverage for our classes from the district so we could visit other math classes.   Those who volunteered sat down with the math coach prior to the visit and planned out their lesson. Then on the day of the lesson, the math middle school teachers from both middle schools would meet with our coach prior to visiting the chosen classroom to talk through the lesson and discuss what we noticed and what we wondered. Then we would go visit the class and take notes as the lesson was presented to students. After the lesson, we would then return to the library where we would reflect on what we had seen with the teacher who presented, again sharing what we had noticed and what we wondered. We were lucky enough to go through this several times and rotate through most of the middle school math classrooms.  It was a great time to pick up other’s ideas as well as to reflect on making our instruc- tional practices better.

The following year, as we were working on best educational practices, we had the opportunity to work with a colleague of our choice to review each others learning targets and success criteria for a particular lesson.  Then go into each others’ rooms to observe each other teaching the lesson. Later, we would meet to reflect on the lesson presented. Unfortunately, due to cost as well as lack of guest teachers this practice only lasted a year.

Additionally, I have had the opportunity to share my professional practices with colleagues when I was part of book study groups with through the Center for Collaborative Support (a group of five school districts).  During this book studies, we would read and and discuss how we could apply our bi-weekly learning in our classrooms. Then the following week we would apply it to our instructional practices and report back what we did and how it went.  

At one time, we had started a video library which contained videos of teachers in our district as well as out of our district using good instructional practices.  This would help us to see how those instructional practices looked and sounded. It also provided an opening to present and share our own professional practices. We still have some of those videos available through our resources for Teacher/Principal Evaluation Program (TPEP), but otherwise the idea of a video library has disappeared over time.

Learning and Applied Practice

Throughout my master’s program, I have had several opportunities to present my professional practices with others.  The first being in my Action Research in a School Setting class when we presented our action research project to the class.   Then in my Survey of Instructional Strategies we created and shared professional learning presentations on various instructional strategies.  The topic I picked to investigate and share was Advance Organizers.  Additionally, in this class, we shared lesson plans as well as videos of that lesson plan in action,  each was based around a particular instructional strategy.  We then provided feedback others whose lesson plan and video we viewed.  For our final project in this class we provided a small group or whole-group professional training at our school.   Since we had lost some of our school-wide professional training hours due to weather, i presented information around advance organizers to the 6th grade social studies teachers.  During the summer, in both my Curriculum Design and Standard-Based Assessment class we shared and got feedback on our assignments from our colleagues.  Then the following fall quarter, in my Communication and Collaboration: Colleagues, Administrators and Community class we shared our project with others so they could see what we were working on as well as to give feedback.  Additionally, in fall quarter I took my Leadership in Education and as part of this class we were required to lead a discussion based on a given article. When I did my presentation, I introduced and used thinking maps as a way to help us understand the information.  Lastly, as we have been reflecting our our learning in our Teacher Leader Capstone class we have been sharing our reflections on the discussion boards so all can see our work and provide feedback as well as to provide a quick overview of an assigned  teacher leadership standard.   As can be seen throughout my master’s program I have had the opportunity to present my professional practices with my colleagues.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

One of the challenges we have in presenting our professional practice for the review of colleagues is providing time to do so. As the years have gone by in my district we have had less and less time to observe each other in the classroom.   It is not the norm. We just don’t have the number of guest teachers available to do this. Additionally, at my  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, when I was the 6th grade department lead I made my meetings optional and whoever shows shows. 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.

Another concern that come to my mind as I think about developing my own exemplary teaching and encouraging exemplary teacher in others are how to work with “the resisters” as well as how to influence others so they want to take on the initiatives of our school district has asked rather than doing it out of compliance.   A way that I have seen to deal with this issue at my school is to have staff members share stories of how a practice has made a difference in their classrooms as it gets to staff member’s hearts. Another way is to have assigned tables with a teacher leader at each table during all staff professional trainings. By doing this the teacher leaders can share stories as well as take notes to be reviewed in order to keep things on track since they have already had the training.  Also, by pre-teaching the  teacher leaders you can have them help you 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 have have less resistance to the changes be asked.

How Presenting Professional Practice for the Review of Colleagues
is Supported by Research

When we present our professional practices for the review of our colleagues it forces us to look at our current instructional practices and see  what is going well and what we need to work on in our instructional practices.  And by observing our colleagues in action we are able to learn new strategies and well as to realize that sometimes we struggle with similar things.   As a result each is  willing to try new teaching strategies in their classroom and feels supported.   Additionally, by sharing our teaching practices with each other we speed up changes in our classrooms and school making  those changes more effective and sustainable. It also improves the chances that all students will be taught similar information, so what they learn will not depend upon the teacher they get which will improve overall state testing scores.

Overall Impact

By being “forced” to share my practices throughout this master’s program my comfort level in sharing my practices with colleagues for review has increased.  As I have been supporting teachers this year who are new to our district or teaching a new subject which I have taught before, I have been sharing my resources and presentations for them to use, edit or lose.  As a result, others have seen my teaching practices. I also have been sharing websites that I have been creating to support projects for a variety of classes with the person in my same position over at districts other middle school.  As a result I am finally starting to see her doing the same with me.

I hope to be able to do more professional development with my school’s staff as well as work one-on-one with teachers in the future.   I choose my master’s program with the hope that it would prepare me to and give me the resources I needed in order to move into this type of work and now we are at the end I recognize how it did just that.

References

Borko, H., Jacobs, J., Eiteljorg, E., & Pittman, M. E. (2008). Video as a tool for fostering
productive discussions in mathematics professional development. Teaching &
Teacher Education, 24(2), 417–436.

Corcoran, C. A., & Leahy, R. (2003). Growing professionally through reflective practice.

Kappa Delta Pi Record, (1), 30–33.

Dean, C. B., & Marzano, R. J. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2013). The power of professional capital.  Journal of Staff
Development,  34 (3), 36–39.

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New
York: Routledge

Nappi, J. S. (2014). The teacher leader: Improving schools by building social capital
through shared leadership. Principal’s  Research Review, 9(6), 1–6.

Teacher Leadership Standard 1 Reflection: Modeling ethical and moral behavior

Standard 1 Reflection: model ethical and moral behavior

Background

Modeling ethical and moral behavior is a necessity for teacher leaders if they wish to be credible and trusted.  I am a rule follower (first born) so I think this has come somewhat naturally. I also think that it is important.   As I also try to live by Jesus’ commandment, “Love your neighbor as you would like to be loved”.

As teachers we are asked to model ethical moral behavior toward  our students. One of the ways I do this is by treating each students as an individual and I try to resolve any problems between students and students, or students and myself by using ideas from Positive Behavior Interventions Systems (PBIS).  If needed, I will ask for help by bring administrators and parents into the discussion. Additionally, I try to focus on the behavior rather than the student. For example, when a student is rolling around in one of our chairs with wheels in the library, I will say, “Oh, I am sorry.  This chair appears to not remember that it not supposed to roll around the room, do you need a new chair or do you think you can train this one to behave in the library for me?” Students may think I am a bit crazy when I say this as they know the chair can not obey rules, but they get the point and it focuses on behavior, not on a student.  I also try be fair to students by having consistent rules and consequences in my classroom yet at the same time treating each student as an individual. Lastly, I keep information about students confidential except in those cases that the law requires me to report something.

We also need to model ethical and moral behavior toward our colleagues in order for students to see what good relationships look like.    I try to do this by listening to all stakeholders during meetings and supporting my colleagues as needed. When asked about decisions made by a team, I will tell them “After listening to all of the perspectives as a team we decided . . . .”.  If I am asked why, again I will start by saying “The team based this decision on . . . . .”. I will do this even if I voted against the decision. I believe that I am seen as a trustworthy person by staff members in our building and throughout our district.

Additionally, I model ethical and moral behavior with parents.  I send home emails to parents as necessary as well as a weekly newsletter at the end of the week to let parents know what we have been doing for the week as well to let them know what is coming up.  I also try to learn more and respect those who are culturally different than me. I also participate in community events and committees since I live in the community I work in.

Lastly, I  do my best and take pride in my work.   When I was a classroom teacher, I often would work late hours, meet with students after school, attend all IEP and 504 meetings.  I would also often work during the weekends to get grading accomplished in a timely matter and be prepared for the next day or week.  Even in my new position I work hard and I am willing to work extra hours if needed. Additionally, I continue to take advantage of opportunities to grow in this profession by attending and presenting at conferences aimed at educators and by asking for help from others as needed.

Learning and Applied Practice

For this standard most of my learning came from my Morals and Theology class.   In this class we read three books and responded to them. The first books was Religion in the Classroom.  In this book we were reminded about the separation of religion and state, as well as the “Lemon Test” which helps to know what we can and cannot discuss in our our classrooms in regard to religion.  It also reminded us that democratic education, religion and politics are intertwined, therefore

connected. One of things that stood out to me is that we all come from different cultures which includes a variety of religious backgrounds, so we need to be willing to look at things from a variety of perspectives in order to be able to understand and respect one another.  The second books we read, The Charged Classroom reminded us that we should have high expectations of students and be focused on discussions of provocative topics by students, and meets the curricular demands while still nurturing our students.  We also need to balance the conflicting curriculum demands that we face everyday as we are asked to “cover the curriculum, raise test scores, and investigate complex topics, while maintaining classroom order and engaging individual students” (Pace, 2015, pg. 69).  Our last book, Way of Love,  discussed how the understandings of creation, fall, redemption, and heaven are all Christian beliefs, but they are interpreted differently among the denominations which causes division in our world    It talked about we need to support each other and focus on our commonalities instead of our differences. Lastly, while in this class I investigated and wrote about character education.  As I worked on this paper, I was reminded that we need to lead as example.

We also talked about modeling moral ethical behavior in my Leadership in Education class as we discussed what a good leader looks like and sounds like throughout the course, but particularly as we discussed and reflected on the book Leadership and Self-Deception and the concept of giving grace to others.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

While I taking the  Moral and Theological Issues in Education class I was still in the classroom teaching ancient civilizations.  One of our concerns we had with the curriculum we adopted was how much it talked about the different religions and were concerned how our dominantly Christian community would react to it.   But, I as I went through the class I was reminded that we need to introduce our students to other world religions and their beliefs as well as their influence on politics so they can broaden their knowledge and deepen their understanding of the world around them in order to discuss issues with respect toward others which we find in “democratic education”.

One implication of charged classrooms for teachers is the need to keep a balance of high expectations with the attention to nurturing students.  This balance is really hard to keep as the pendulum has shifted from using a bell curve when it was expected that you would have the same number of F’s as A’s and most students would be in the middle.  But, now we expect all students to get A’s and B’s and we as teachers are failures if our students get D’s and F’s. With this philosophy, not only do we need to have the high standards, but we also need to provide scaffolding for our students in order to  get them to those high standards. The question is how much scaffolding should we provide. I know we deal with this frequently, not only in our social studies department, but across curriculum and we often ask ourselves “How much help is too much help and lowers the expectations?”

The next implication of a “charged classroom” is to have thought provoking discussions in your classroom to engage and deepen the knowledge our students have of our subject, yet as a teacher you need to maintain order in your classroom.  Again, this is difficult to balance. We want it to be student centered, yet still on the topic of the curriculum we are teaching. Therefore, we need to prepare our students by giving them background knowledge and choose questions that don’t have right or wrong answer.  It is often hard for us to find those questions. In addition teachers are concerned about losing control of their classroom.

How Modeling Ethical and Moral Behavior is Supported  by Research

By modeling ethical and moral behavior ourselves we are providing a place where student and staff feel safe, an environment where excellence, respect, responsibility and acceptance of others are the norm.  As a result schools that do promote this have found that academic scores and attendance have increased while disciplinary issues have decreased.

Overall Impact

As a teacher I have always tried to focus on the positive that happens in my classroom as I have found that not only does it cause my students to do their best for me, but it makes me a happy and energizes me.  In my new position, as our Future Ready Librarian , it is my job to support both staff and students. The best part of my job is that I get to ask “How can I help you?” which shows others that they are more important than me and keeps me out of the box of self-deception.  They feel valued as a result they value my role and abilities.

As I went through my master’s program, I was also reminded that as a teacher we need to remember that our students’ knowledge about religion can come from several sources, so as teachers we need to provide opportunities to asking more questions and digging deeper to find out where our student’s beliefs around topics come from so that we can foster “democratic education” in our classroom where students are able to learn about themselves others similarities and differences.

One of things I had been doing in my classes for a few years was Socratic Seminars.   I think they are great way to make students look at things from different perspectives. As a result of doing these I have taught others how do set up and run Socratic Seminars. This year in my position I have been setting up websites with resources for students to use to prepare them for Socratic Seminars in both science and social studies to help teachers create these experiences in their rooms.

Additionally, I have also been reminded how important it is to explicitly teach our expectations for our classroom as well as for any activities we have students participate in our classrooms so we can provide them a safe, nurturing place. We also need to look ahead at our lesson plans and look at places we can build in scaffolding to help all of our students to be successful and meet our high expectations.  This summer I will be looking over curriculum that we use for our STudents REaching Toward new Challenges (STRETCH) and will be looking for places where we can be putting in additional scaffolding and teaching strategies to improve those lessons.

References

James, J. H., Schweber, S., Kunzman, R., Barton, K. C., & Logan, K. (2015). Religion in the classroom: Dilemmas for democratic education. New York: Routledge.

Leadership and self-deception. (2018). Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Pace, J. L. (2015). The charged classroom: Predicaments and possibilities for democratic teaching. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Sharkey, C. (n.d.). Association of American Educators. Retrieved from
https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/about-us/aae-code-of-ethics

Wirzba, N. (2016). Way of love: Recovering the heart of Christianity. New York, NY: HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins.