Standard 8 - Present Professional Practice to Colleagues

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

As I reflect on my time in the Teacher Leadership program, I am reminded of where I began and where I have ended up. Prior to this program, I was not at all comfortable presenting information to my peers, especially things related to educational practice. I felt as though I did not have enough knowledge and experience to deserve the attention of my peers. As I have progressed through this program, I have grown in my confidence and knowledge and am now able to present information to peers and not feel out of my element.

Through classes like Accomplished Teaching and Survey of Instructional Strategies, we constantly and consistently researched various teaching practices that would work well in various classroom settings. In Accomplished Teaching, we looked at various teaching strategies that culminated in our Synthesizing Elements of Accomplished Teaching final paper. My focus at that time, as has been throughout this program, is figuring out how to differentiate well. Looking at differentiation as a means to open access to my content, math, has been a goal I have pursued for a while now. This goal is also something that most, if not all, teachers in my building are working toward as well. This is a pursuit I can help lead with the tools I have learned in this program.

Some of the differentiation tools I was introduced to through the Survey of Instructional Strategies class. The differentiation skills we learned dealt with what Hattie (2012) dubs, “Multiple Ways of Knowing” (emphasis in original, p. 113). There are many points of information in this particular section of the text, but the one that I find myself drawn to time and again is, “Materials presented in verbal, visual, and multimedia form provide richer representations than can a single medium” (p. 113). Utilizing multiple representations is something that I have worked on with my instructional coaches. During this program, I had the opportunity to work on implementing a Nonlinguistic Lesson Plan where student utilize a visual representation of functions that outline what they are and how to figure it out.

Another element dealing with differentiation we looked at deals with cooperative learning. Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone (2012) state, “cooperative learning provides opportunities for students to interact in ways that enhance and deepen their learning” (p. 37). In creating a lesson for cooperative learning, I had to work with fellow math teachers to utilize their knowledge of groupings. This shift to group learning was not easy for me and is not something I have done regularly. The utilization of nonlinguistic and cooperative learning are things that I could bring back to my school and help to engage teachers in shifting their focus and practice. This shift actually started in my work with my fellow math teacher on the collaborative inquiry project. We worked on helping our students to increase their confidence and persistence. Through the differentiation strategies mentioned above, we were able to begin helping students elevate their understanding and confidence.

In relation to helping others to improve their practice, I also had several opportunities to present information to our peers in class. Sharing our practice and things to look out for was beneficial for both the individuals presenting and those observing. This practice of presenting to our classmates was great practice for presenting to people at my school. It also helped drive home the difference in teaching students versus teaching adults. I have not had a ton of experience with teaching adults, so all the practice I have had through various presentations has been great for understanding that for adult teachers, learning occurs best when they can work collaboratively. When we worked together with people from different content specialties or different age levels, we were provided a view into the professional duties and practices of those we do not often see. As Zepeda (2013) states, “learning communities must be ready to confront the fragmented way in which schools are organized (e.g., departments, grade levels, and specialty groups such as gifted and talented), and they must be committed to working alongside each other as a collective to provide support” (p. 84). We must all work toward improving our schools. To do this, my role as a teacher leader must be to bring teachers together to tackle an issue within our school and to help others raise their level of practice together. It is always easier to work on a difficult situation or fix a long-standing issue with the help and support of our peers.

Dean, C., Hubbell, E., Pitler, H., Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for incrasing student achievement. Colorado: McREL.

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

Zepeda, S.J. (2013). Professional development: What works. New York, NY: Routledge.