Standard 6 - Communicate and Collaborate with All

Standard 6 - Teacher leaders communicate and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders.

Starting out in the Teacher Leadership program, I did not give much thought to the ways in which adult learning and student learning are different. That is not to say that I did not recognize the differences, just that they were not something I really thought to think about. Throughout this program, we have been confronted by differences in the way adults learn and the way that learning activities should be structured in order to get the greatest effect. In EDU6600, we looked at the modes through which teachers will gain the most understanding and be able to successfully transfer their learning to their practice. We learned that adults tend to learn best in situations where information is transferred through or within work experience (I imagine this is especially true for teachers). Because teaching is a profession where we learn so much as we do it, learning on the job is one of the ways that is highly successful in developing teachers and their skills.

As we have seen time and again during this Teacher Leadership program, reflection is one of the most important abilities that we can develop. Experiential learning is one of the modes for learning that requires reflection and response to that reflection. The process of experiential learning, as given by Hansman (2001, p. 47), consists of "modeling, approximating, fading, self-directed learning, and generalizing". This process consists of reflection on practice at nearly every step along the way and is tied closely to the practice of job-embedded development, which happens to be my personal choice for learning or professional development. Zepeda (2013) reports that when taking part in job-embedded learning, teachers experience an increased ability to reflect on their practice, work with their peers with more ease, helps reduce isolation, makes learning relevant, helps in the transfer of new skills, supports continued development, and helps create a common language that all teachers and administrators utilize (p. 127-8). Through the development of these skills, teachers become more willing and able to work together and help create the school environment they desire.

One of the goals as a leader is to aid in creating an environment where learning is looked at as a lifetime continuum, rather than a moment in a person’s life when they attended a school. This belief, along with the belief that all students can reach for and meet high standards, is the crux of the perspective presented by Angelle, who states that, "Teachers who work in a culture of high expectations and continuous learning find that their leadership skills are actively called upon to contribute to the improvement of their school" (2011, p. 233). The overall effect of this type of atmosphere is that all teachers, leaders or not, feel lifted up and more confident in their abilities and the abilities of their students. This can lead to a massive shift in a school environment. I have been a part of a situation where leadership was not honored in any way and the school became stagnant and, frankly, a horrible place to work.

The culmination of our learning about the modes and methods for adult learning is our final product, a plan of action for an area of need in our school. Through the development of this action plan, we looked at demographics and some detailed information about our school. We then had to find an issue within our school upon which we could have an effect. I chose to look at academic language development because there is a large population of ELL students and our students' ability to utilize academic language is going to enhance their ability to perform in all content areas. The plan is highly dependent upon site-based, job-embedded learning. This particular area of adult learning is something I have had the good fortune of experiencing with math instructional coaches. It has enhanced my ability as a math teacher tremendously and I know it can do the same for others. While the plan is not something that I am able to implement, there are some elements being utilized by our school over the course of this school year.

Another course that has influenced my approach to teacher leadership and collaboration was EDAD6589. Through this course, I had the opportunity to work with many future administrators to get their perspective on working with other administrators, teachers, parents and students, and community members. We had the chance to reflect on a significant event that occurred at our school. This reflection was a great opportunity to think about how I would approach the situation (in this case, the death of a student). Additionally, I created a community engagement plan that detailed how I, as a principal, would work to engage the community of my school and how this connects to the principal standards of SPU. Both major projects in this class required me to take the perspective of a principal and really stretched my perspective.

In looking back through this program, I have learned a great deal about what will work well and not so well when dealing with adult learners. There are many different theories or approaches, but the mode I have found myself drawn to is job-embedded learning. This approach makes the learning something that happens in the moment and is applicable, rather than something theoretical happening in a conference. The plan developed, while not perfect, I believe would be useful in aiding students and their ability to utilize academic language proficiently. Overall, EDU6600, EDAD6528, and the Teacher Leadership program has provided me with a great deal of information as I work to become a teacher leader in my school.

Angelle, P.S., (2011). Teachers as leaders: Collaborative leadership for learning communities. In E.B. Hilty (Ed.). Teacher leadership: The “new” foundations of teacher education (pp.229-238). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Hansman, C.A., (2001). Context-based adult learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 89, 43-51.

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

bPortfolio Reflection #3

I would like to see my school utilize lesson study in a genuine way. We did this a little bit with an earlier administrator and the results were okay. Back then, our focus was related more to just general teaching strategies, not something explicitly related to the goals of our school. I would like the opportunity to pursue this practice with my current peers and with the goal of finding research based practices that are highly effective in increasing academic vocabulary and literacy. As a Math teacher, choosing a topic so Humanities-based may be surprising, but there is a great deal of emphasis on modeling and utilizing language and literacy skills in Math and Science (the state assessments in particular) that this is the type of work that would be very useful for all. We could start by looking through our individual curriculum to determine a specific topic related to language/literacy acquisition. In Math, this may be something related to being able to identify the mathematical action words in a story problem that indicate what steps or process would be best. We would move on to creating a plan and developing a question or two we would want answered through our research. Again, in Math this could be related to the depth of understanding in Math-specific vocabulary, how this will be assessed, and what types of learning opportunities will be available to aid in this acquisition. We would then move to researching the areas hopefully being able to identify practices or strategies that will help in general and in our specific classes. By finding and utilizing these strategies, we are working on developing a common set of practices, or a set of practices that aim at the same result. Moving forward, we will reflect on the practices that worked well and not so well to determine what is going to work best. Then, we will start the cycle once again, looking for something that will help further lead our students to even more success.

Overall, this process will be hindered by a few things. First, time is always a factor. With all of the initiatives we must work on for the state or district, time is at a premium. Another thing that is going to be difficult is the research aspect. Teachers may be hesitant to take on something like researching strategies that could, potentially, take a great deal of time and may be difficult to find. Another issue that may arise is that some teachers may not feel comfortable working together to share their practice in ways that this process would require. This is the most difficult thing to overcome in my opinion. Teachers, young and old, have varying levels of comfort in people accessing their classroom or their teaching practices and this can too much to ask a person until they trust those with which they work. Developing a camaraderie or sense of common purpose is going to be vital to being able to do this work with success in any school situation.

The current state of collaboration at our school is not where we would all like it to be, but it is improving. There are elements of collaborative work, but there is not a great deal of structure, at least not as there is with the lesson study. Our collaboration occurs mostly as an entire staff and does not always allow the deeper work that could happen when working with a smaller group of 6-10 people. A next step we could take would be to split up our staff into similar areas of interest and then begin forming relationships that will allow us to dive deeper into our practice than we currently do. Overall, I think our school is doing a good job with where everyone is at in their practice. We have a great deal of early career or first year teachers who are figuring things out and much of our learning is directed toward them. As we progress through the year, I am certain that we will be able to work on a deeper level and begin collaborating with one of the models we have studied.