Why is my teacher on Twitter?

ISTE Standard 4 states that teachers model and promote digital citizenship and responsibility. For my project, I designed a poster explaining to my students why I have created a Twitter account. It is displayed in my classroom alongside articles about how to critically examine news articles, since a hot issue right now is the need for students (and all readers, really) to be able to better distinguish fake news from real news. I plan on changing out the articles every few weeks so that my display can address different concepts relating to digital citizenship throughout the year.

The poster highlights how Twitter relates to:
- Global citizenship
- Student-teacher relationships
- Professional development
- Media literacy
- Digital citizenship

This poster is on display in my classroom

Digital Professional Development

As part of my efforts to learn more about digital citizenship and the role that technology can play in professional development, I attended Google's Education on Air conference on Saturday, December 3rd. I watched the keynote speakers and then selected a breakout session to "attend" virtually. I particularly enjoyed the student and teacher panel. It was cool to hear from teachers that are doing inspiring projects with technology, and the hear student thoughts on the teacher/student/technology relationship. Below are some of the ways that I participated.

In this view, the presentation plays in a small screen at the bottom right
as people make comments or ask questions in the live stream

I also used a split screen- the presentation on the left as I watched the Twitter stream on the right

The break-out session I attended was on project-based learning, an area that I am particularly interested in improving in my instruction. We received a link to a Google presentation and then had access to a live stream as Kyle Wagner talked us through his PBL strategies. He spent lots of time at the end of his presentation answering questions that people posted, and he gave us his email address so that we could ask for the rubrics he had been explaining.

I learned about this PD opportunity through Twitter, and while it was sort of overwhelming to try and keep up with all the information coming at me, it was also fun to be thrown into the deep end and try to swim. I can go back and watch other videos later, since everything got recorded. And, I gained a few new Twitter followers! I am continuing to investigate online opportunities to extend my digital knowledge so that I can be a role model for my students. Follow me!

Acc. Teaching- End of Quarter Reflection

Program Standard 2

When I look back at where I started this course, I feel a little silly. I enrolled in grad school this year with the overall goal of improving my teaching and leadership skills. I started my first course, Accomplished Teaching, and I got super excited. What happened, though, is that I set lofty, unrealistic goals that didn’t really fit my teaching practice or the opportunities I had available. Rather than thinking about reflection or effective planning, the stated course objectives, that I could fit into my practice or rework my practice to better include, I thought about all the “big” picture ideas like standards based grading and inquiry based learning. In other words, I wanted to totally start from scratch, which isn’t the point of this program and really isn’t a possibility for my current teaching situation.

As I read Reflective Practice to Improve Schools (York-Barr et al., 2006), I realized that it is actually the smaller changes that can have the most impact. I need to know what I have in terms of teaching and collaborative skills, and what works or doesn’t work, in order to grow in these areas. I met with a partner a few times throughout the course, and because we lived close enough we were able to have face-to-face meetings. This fostered a sense of trust between us. Initially it was difficult because we teach in different subject areas at very different schools, but working with another to analyze teaching and learning “offers a safeguard against perpetuating only our own thoughts” (York-Barr et al., 2006). We used a tuning protocol to evaluate each other’s lessons. We found that we had similar ideas about feedback, and I enjoyed seeing her students’ paperback notebooks as I showed her my students’ digital ones. 

Feedback on the same student's third timed essay

Feedback on a student's second timed essay

From teaching my collaborative lesson to my work in the classroom, I found that an area that I really need to focus on improving my teaching is building my students’ analysis skills. I focused on this area for my synthesis paper. I learned that while many history teachers say they are giving ample opportunities for students to analyze and create their own arguments, it is only a very small percentage that give tasks that genuinely require that kind of thinking (Capps & Vocke, 1991). I worried I was guilty of the same. By reading articles and attending professional development on how to teach this skill, I learned that practice alone is not enough for student success. Monte-Sano, in two different studies, shows that access to a variety of sources and different writing tasks is very important (2008; 2012). I have begun to vary my students’ writing tasks, and I have seen improvement in their analysis strategies. One student, pleased with her higher score, told me that she “didn’t study” for her most recent test, but then very quickly took back her answer. She said, “Well, I did study, but I didn’t worry so much about memorizing so many facts. I thought about my own opinion, and I talked with my classmates to hear their opinion.” Her essay reflected this new strategy, and she has steadily improved from the first essay test.

This class has been a great gateway into my grad school experience. I am getting back into the school “rhythm” and throughout the quarter I have been better able to fit class work to my classroom needs, rather than the other way around. I look forward to continuing to improve my practice.


References

Blythe, T., Allen, D., & Powell B.S. (1999). Tuning protocol: Overview. New York: Teachers College Press.Accessed at www.nsrfharmony.org.
Capps, K., & Vocke, D.E. (1991). Developing higher-level thinking skills through American history writing assignments. OAH Magazine of History, 6(2), 6-9. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162811

Monte-Sano, C. (2008). Qualities of historical writing instruction: a comparative case study of two teachers’ practices. American Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 1045-1079. Http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831208319733

Monte-Sano, C., & Harris, K. (2012). Recitation and reasoning in novice history teachers’ use of writing. The Elementary School Journal, 113(1), 105-130. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/666388

York-Barr, J., Sommer, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J.K. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An action guide for educators (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Engaging in Digital Communities (ISTE Standard 5)

While investigating the standard for ISTE 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership, I noticed that a lot of the provided resources involved Twitter as tool for professional development. The first subheading of ISTE 5 is to "participate in local and global learning communities" so it just makes sense to use the internet as a way to exchange ideas. One problem- I have never used Twitter before.

I decided to make figuring out "What's the big deal with Twitter?" my research question for this module. I watched Twitter for Teachers (Hill, 2010) on Youtube, and got Twitter account set up. The video describes exchanging ideas online as a constant stream of thought, and it says that Twitter is an effective way of "hooking" the ideas that relate to you or that you want to investigate further. I also read an article found by a classmate called Modern Professional Learning (Davis, 2015) that came from the excellent teacher resource Edutopia. In this article, Davis examines the difference between a PLC (professional learning community) and a PLN (personal learning network). A PLC is usually face-to-face, and it most likely involves individuals at the same school. A PLN is wider, and usually happens through online connections. It is more informal, but just as valuable. Since I teach at school where the social studies department consists of 4 people, including me, and I am the only one teaching 9th grade history, it could be nice to engage in a PLN where I could find more similar people to bounce ideas off of.

While these resources were great, I wanted to find some research that was more study-based about the use of Twitter for academic purposes. I found an article published in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education called Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). This was great, because it almost exactly matched my research question! I learned that the social studies participants in the survey "tended to use Twitter more for PD than for communication or class activities" (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 46) but I did see some cool ideas, including tweets from Enlightenment thinkers. I don't think I will be using Twitter in class any time soon, but I am enjoying learning how to use it and seeing what is out there. There is a weekly chat under the hashtag #sschat where teachers exchange ideas about social studies. I also registered for a Google webinar. There is more to be learned, but I know that I will get some great ideas from engaging with others on Twitter. Follow me! 

References

Davis, V. (2015, November 11). Modern professional learning: connecting PLCs with PLNs. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/modern-professional-learning-plc-pln-vicki-davis

Hill, P. (2010, August 27). Twitter for Teachers [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tT6N_8wcn4

Krutka, D.G., & Carpenter, J.P. (2016). Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 16(1), 38-59. Retrieved from

https://citejournal.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/v16i1socialstudies1.pdf

The Complexities of Digital Citizenship (ISTE 4)

Reflecting on ISTE standard 4, my overall impression is that this standard covers a huge scope. Digital citizenship is an ever-evolving, complex task that ranges from civil discourse online (part c) to giving credit where credit is due (part a) to ensuring all students have equitable access to resources (part b and d). For this reason, I found it difficult to focus my research this module.

Reading the provided resources, two stuck out to me. "Navigating the digital rapids" (Lindsay & Davis, 2010) emphasizes the growing importance of tech education, not just use. Just as my grad school program has me using this blog to demonstrate my learning, Lindsay and Davis assert that "it is only a matter of time before colleges begin requesting hyperlinks for e-portfolios and other online work" and that it is our duty as teachers to prepare our students for these requests. I'm glad that I have the opportunity to practice this skill for my classes. Perhaps my students could use the OneNote notebooks we build throughout the year in my class if they are asked for digital examples of their work. However, the move to digital expression highlights the importance of social media policies. "The need for student social media policies" (Junco, 2011) discusses both the positive and negative aspects of social media use by students, but ultimately concludes that "although certain uses of social media can propagate negativity, appropriate uses can support student development." My school, like most today I am sure, has an Instagram account, various electronic newsletters, a website, and a twitter account for athletics. Since the school is interacting on social media with a variety of audiences, it makes sense to me that schools should have policies in place. I try to keep my online persona separate from my teacher persona, but it is at times very difficult. Even if students do find my online accounts, I think I am being a good digital citizen by modeling responsible social interactions.

In a study carried out by Z.A. Gazi, a professor at Near East University in North Cyprus, Gazi found that teachers initially defined digital citizenship as "knowing ones [sic] role on the internet" (2016) but that within that broad definition there were many more nuanced understandings of what digital citizenship actually looks like. The pervasive nature of technology use, along with the sheer amount of information available, has created many dilemmas about how to use these tools.

A classmate of mine, Michaela Clark, shared an article on the use of Turnitin.com in her efforts to understand digital citizenship. As referenced on this blog previously, I use Turnitin in my classroom, but I had only thought of it in terms of writing skills, not digital citizenship. Because of the way students now access information, the authors of the article acknowledge that "not all incidences of plagiarism are the same, and treating them all as academic misconduct may not be appropriate as some students struggle to acquire the skills of academic writing" (Graham-Matheson & Starr, 2013). I see this in my classroom especially with my ELL students who not only come from other cultures, but who struggle with understanding the sources in the first place. It is gratifying to see my students' citation skills grow from the first draft to the final draft, and I can now help them see citation in terms of being a good digital citizen.

My question for this module was: What does good digital citizenship look like, and what strategies can I use in my classroom to prepare my students to be good digital citizens? While I still feel that digital citizenship is an often confusing concept, I think I am doing a better job in my classroom than I thought. I will continue to help my students develop quality research skills and I will make an effort to use some of the new language I picked up from reading these articles to help them understand their role in the digital world.

References:

Gazi, Z.A. (2016). Internalization of Digital Citizenship for the Future of All Levels of Education. Education and Science, 41(186), 137-148. http://dx.doi.org/10.15390/eb.2016.4533

Graham-Matheson, L., & Starr, S. (2013). Is it cheating or learning the craft of writing? Using Turnitin to help students avoid plagiarism. Research in Learning Technology, 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21i0.17218

Junco, R. (2011, February 7). The need for student social media policies. Educause Review, 46(1). Retrieved from

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2011/2/the-need-for-student-social-media-policies

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2010, March/April). Navigate the Digital Rapids. Learning & Leading with Technology, 12-15. Retrieved from www.iste.org

Communication and Technology (ISTE Standard 3)

As a teacher in the digital age, communication is becoming an increasingly important issue. So much information is available at all times through digital grading platforms, email, class websites, and even in-class tools like OneNote. While so much is said, a lot of important information often falls through the cracks. This led to my question around ISTE standard 3: What tools are available to communicate effectively with parents, and what are the benefits of using those tools?

Reading the provided resources this week was not super helpful for my question, and I'm not sure if I should be skimming these articles before I come up with my question, or if I should continue to do my own thing and just look for broader connections. Regardless, I enjoyed the article "Evaluating learning the 21st century" (Starkey, 2010) because it emphasized the importance of feedback. A takeaway from this article is that what teachers hope students are getting out of a lesson is not always what is really going on, so getting feedback from students about learning is just as important as it is for students to get feedback on assignments from teachers. I am a supporter of standards-based grading, even though I don't get to use it at my school (and need a lot more training in it if I were to do so!), this article demonstrates how assessments should look for completion of learning standards, rather than having an end product. Technology is useful in this regard because it makes the feedback loop easier. However, training in that technology is important; teachers must know the best way to use the tech, and not just know that it is available. This idea is explored in the blog post "Digital literacy vs. fluency" (Briggs, 2011).

So, I wanted to find out how I could be more fluent in my use of technology to communicate with parents at a school where parents receive a ton of information all the time. I read "Using technology to increase parental involvement" (Olmstead, 2013) and learned that it is very important for parents to feel informed about what is going on at school. Students with engaged parents do better, and technology is one way for parents to move from reactive engagement to proactive engagement. However, engagement wasn't my problem. I found a second article, "The changing nature of parent-teacher communication: mode selection in the smartphone era" (Thompson et al., 2015), that tackled the how of communicating. Published in a journal on communication, this article examined the effectiveness of different modes of communication and reported that theoretically, people should choose different modes of communication depending on the sensitivity of the topic at hand. What they found in a study of parents, however, is that convenience trumps sense, and that most parents choose email every time, only shifting to other modes when a situation has not been handled effectively through email. This is what I have seen at my school, and I now have a better appreciation for why we communicate in the manner we do. If I would like to investigate other modes of communication in the future, my classmate Alyssa Davidson posted a link to an article "7 free apps for keeping parents and teachers connected" (McCrea, 2013) that recommends apps like Remind101 and BuzzMob. I teach high school students, so mostly my concern with communication is helping my students learn to communicate effectively with me and build independence. Communication with parents is an important aspect of my job, though, and I will continue to search for ways to communicate in an effective manner.

References:

Briggs, C. (2011, February 5). The difference between digital literacy and digital fluency [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.socialens.com/blog/2011/02/05/the-difference-between-digital-literacy-and-digital-fluency/

McCrea, B. (2013, June 11). 7 free apps for keeping parents and teachers connected. THE Journal. Retrieved from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/06/11/7-Free-Apps-for-Keeping-Parents-and-Teachers-Connected.aspx?Page=1

Starkey, L. (2010). Evaluating learning in the 21st century: a digital age learning matrix. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 20(1), 19-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2011.554021

Thompson, B.C., Mazer, J.P., & Grady, E.F. (2015). The changing nature of parent-teacher communication: mode selection in the smartphone era. Communication Education, 64(2), 187-207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1014382

Olmstead, C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools. TechTrends, 57(6), 28-37. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=91587612&site=ehost-live

Authentic Lessons and Assessments (ISTE Standard 2)

My question for this module: How can I incorporate more technology into my assessments, particularly to help students access the skills in ISTE-S 1, using technology to get feedback?

When I wrote this question, I will admit that I was envisioning, perhaps incorrectly, mainly looking into summative assessments. I did find some resources to tackle this, but mostly addressing writing skills or projects, rather than the standard paper-and-pencil unit tests I use now at the end of units. A New York Times article called "Blogs vs. Term Papers" (Richtel, 2012)recommends that students write blog posts or other publicly shared pieces of writing to further student engagement. The NMC Horizon Report (Johnson et al., 2012) supports this idea, stating that "as [more and more] learners are exploring subject matter through the act of creation rather than the consumption of content," (p. 14) assessments and teachers need to make a corresponding shift. I continue to struggle with the idea that students must share their work on a global scale for the work to feel meaningful, but I can see that even giving students more access to peer review can create more buy-in with the assignments. This year I used Turnitin.com's digital peer review tools to create a guided peer revision assignment. The students had more opportunities to look at other classmate's essays, and they could spend time outside of class reflecting, rather than the rushed ten or twelve minutes in class. Having an audience helps students take more ownership of their work.

Most of the resources found by myself and my classmates to address ISTE 2 refer to formative assessments. I really enjoyed reading an article found by Michaela Clark called "Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment" (Beatty & Gerace, 2009). This article details the creation of a framework for the incorporation of technology in classes, similar to TPACK, but specifically for formative assessment. My understanding of the importance of formative assessment was reinforced, as "an assessment-centered learning environment weaves formative assessment deeply into the fabric of instruction, providing continual, detailed feedback to guide students' learning and instructors' teaching" (Beatty & Gerace, 2009, p.152 ). This is especially important to me as an IB teacher. The students are responsible for a lot of reading and content knowledge and I need to know what they understand and what needs re-teaching. I need to incorporate a lot more formative assessment into my classroom, and I could make better use of the resources available to me as a teacher at a one-to-one laptop school. Some interesting sites I found are: Socrative.com, SALG for teacher feedback (but which is mostly for the college level), and Virtual Training Suite tutorials for learning about website validity.

Overall, I came away from this investigation with a lot of questions. Formative assessment is great, but I think I really need to start shifting a lot of my units to more inquiry-based, even in the 9th grade, to be able to better build authentic learning experiences. My students struggle with understanding the relevance of history, and inquiry helps with this immensely. Also, it helps build student confidence and bolster the student-teacher relationship. "From Corn Chips to Garbology: The Dynamics of Historical Inquiry" emphasizes that "in order to facilitate powerful and authentic student inquiry, the teacher must be a learner too" (Kalmon et al. 2012, p. 14). The global, interactive nature of Web 2.0 removes the teacher-as-expert model. As stated in ISTE 2, technology should allow for increased creativity and personalized learning. If I am directing all activities and learning, this cannot happen. Students need more freedom, but that needs to start with a solid foundation of teacher-created activities supported by focused formative and summative assessments.

References:

Beatty, I., & Gerace, W.J. (2009). Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18, 146-162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10956-008-9140-4

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2015-k-12-edition/

 Kalmon, S., O'Neill-Jones, P., Stout, C., & Sargent Wood, L. (2012). From Corn Chips to Garbology: The Dynamics of Historical Inquiry. OAH Magazine of History, 26(3), 13-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oahmag/oas024

Richtel, M. (2012). Blogs vs. Term Papers. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html

Inspiring and Innovating with Technology (ISTE Standard 1)

My question for this module, based on ISTE Standard 1, was: How can I design experiences that will allow my students to be innovative and inventive in their learning? Working in a one-to-one laptop school, technology is a part of my students' daily lives. We integrate effectively, but I wanted to research how to be more innovative and really transform my classroom. What I noticed in reading several articles was a consensus that having so much technology at our fingertips allows students and teachers to more readily move beyond drilling and into higher-level thinking. I agree with this sentiment, but it still comes down to how technology is used.

An important aspect of the internet (or Web 2.0 as a lot of academic articles call it), is that it is constantly changing. I noticed this while reading "Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age" (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009) because many of the apps or sites mentioned in the article I had either never heard of, or I had and I knew they had been replaced by something more current. I have experienced this in my own classroom because I do a project where my students make a Facebook page for Alexander the Great, using an online tool by Classtools or on a poster board, and I have decided I need to find a new form of social media for Alex next year. Too many of my students think Facebook is for old people, or they just never use it themselves.

The most important part of technology, though, is how it is used. While it is fun to make social media pages for historical figures, "a well-designed lesson should meld content development with digital literacy" (Shand, Winstead, & Kottler, 2012). In reading about the concept of digital literacy standards, it sounded very much like goals I would have for my social studies classroom anyways- being able to do higher-order thinking. With this goal in mind, I did a little more research into the concept of flipped classrooms. In an article posted by a Alex Perry, according to Page (2015), a flipped classroom "arrangement allows greater personalization, freeing class time or teachers to help individual students or small groups while other students work on exercises." This provides ideas for answering my question, because a more personalized learning environment helps with student creativity and opportunities. In an article by Mazur, Brown, and Jacobsen (2015), flipped classrooms are held up as a strategy that fosters inquiry-based learning, which I feel can be difficult in a social studies classroom. It can be hard to stop students from simply googling questions, so designing deliberate, thoughtful strategies for engagement is a must. I tried to incorporate an inquiry-based unit on China last year in my junior history classroom. The format of inquiry-based learning does give students a lot of choice in what they want to research, and computers give them the tools to both find a lot of useful information and to share it in an innovative way. My students use the collaboration space of OneNote to work together on research and writing for this project. I hope to be able to be more deliberate in my planning this year to better integrate technology and further my students' learning.

One area where I still have questions is the emphasis I often see on sharing information on a global scale as a definition of innovative use of technology. Why does posting a video on the internet have more meaning than a video for classmates? Why does use of a wiki (which I usually encourage my students not to use as a source for research because it was put together by students like them) seem more innovative than a poster project? After this research, I feel like I have a better understanding of how I can help my students collaborate and can better direct inquiry in the classroom. But, I still want to learn more about how to better use the wonders of technology I have available.

References

Greenhow, C., Robelia, B., & Hughes, J. E. (2009). Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age. Educational Researcher, 38, 246-258. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09336671

Mazur, A.D., Brown, B., & Jacobsen, Michele. (2015). Learning Designs Using Flipped Classroom Instruction. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 41(2). Retrieved from http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/26977

Page, S. F., ed. (2015). Innovative Schools in Michigan. Connect: Making Learning Personal, 2, 1-6. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558046.pdf

Shand, K., Winstead, L., & Kottler, E. (2012). Journey to Medieval China: Using Technology-Enhanced Instruction to Develop Content Knowledge and Digital Literacy Skills. The Social Studies, 103, 20-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2011.559434

Initial Reflection Assignment- Acc. Teaching

Individual and Collaborative Reflective Practice

As far as individual reflective practice goes, this is an area I find difficult, and I will discuss this more in my later section on the challenges I face in teaching. For collaborative purposes, I am the only teacher at my school who teaches my specific classes, so it is difficult for me to engage in collaborative reflective practice. I have really enjoyed working with my department members on areas other than specific units, however. Over the past few years, we have worked to implement a scaffold for historical writing that allows our students to build their skills each year, culminating in their major International Baccalaureate papers (if enrolled as an IB student) or seminar paper (if enrolled in the Matteo Ricci seminar program). We have compared techniques and requirements that we each use in our individual classrooms to create an essay that we can modify to fit different expectations for each grade level.

First and foremost, Forest Ridge is also a Sacred Heart school, and the schools are each on a 5-year cycle of reflection network-wide. We are in the midst of the second year of our current cycle. Last year we met several times as a whole faculty and staff to celebrate the ways that we are living out the goals and criteria of the organization, and to discuss ways that we might be falling short. This was rendered into a document that will be sent to the Sacred Heart network, and we will be evaluated. This year the high school at Forest Ridge meets to do the same with the IB program. There is an intentionality to how we run our programs, and this is facilitated by having an interim head of high school. We are questioning each aspect of our school community, and it is inspiring me to think about how I run my classroom.

Personal Strengths and Challenges in Teaching

I think that my strengths in teaching are my enthusiasm for my subject and my rapport with my students. Working at an all-girls school, and being just under a decade removed from high school myself, I find it easy to relate with my students and to balance professionalism with a sense of caring and fun. One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I find joy in sharing my knowledge of history. I hear from so many people that they hated history class- and I can understand why because it is very easy to turn history class into a march through time. I love the scenic detours of personal stories, and I help my students see this through research projects and my own experiences. I have the good fortune to be relatively well-traveled, so I can share what it is like to visit some place you have learned about in history class, and the incredible feeling you get when everyone else is staring at the guidebook and you already know why this place or painting is so important. I have had several students come back from summer vacations after going to Greece or Italy or somewhere else we studied in 9th grade Western Civ class and share how much they were able to connect my class to the actual place.

A place I feel challenged in teaching is my reflection and lesson design skills. While I always start out with great intentions, and I do tweak lessons that failed miserably, I know that I could be much better about changing small elements of lessons to make them better. Sometimes when I end a lesson that I feel didn't come out quite right, I feel lost because I don't really know how I could make it different, and I'm not sure where to go to get better resources or ideas. This leads into my challenges in lesson design. While I try to hit on different strategies and techniques to better engage all students, I know that I tend to get stuck in the way my brain works, and I sometimes struggle to modify lessons. I try to get students to tell me how their brain works and to encourage them in that direction, but I would like to be more intentional about it myself and better modify my lessons. I look forward to finding resources that will help me in these areas, and also about standards-based grading. This is an area of interest for me because I think that standards-based grading helps both me and my students to be more intentional about the work that we do in and out of the classroom.

Understanding of TPEP Framework (Danielson)

I have very little understanding of the Danielson Framework, nor do I know if it will be the framework used by my school going forward. Beyond my student teaching, I have never worked at a public school, so I am unfamiliar with a lot of the current standards and practices that schools in public districts deal with. My experience with teacher evaluation has been for administrators to drop by my classroom at various points in the year to give me some feedback on whatever they happened to observe. At the end of the last school year I received an "annual snapshot" that gave notes in three areas: Teaching and Learning, Community/Professional Responsibility, and Leadership. I feel like this  hits on three of the Danielson areas: Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Professional Responsibilities. However, this wasn't very useful to me on a day-to-day basis as I planned my lessons and assessments. Throughout the course of this class, and this program at SPU, I hope to become a more reflective and informed teacher so that I can back up what I "feel" to be good or what seems to be working in my classroom with actual evidence.

Program Standards

Program Standards 

Seattle Pacific University

Master of Education in Teacher Leadership

Program Standards

Competencies: The Seattle Pacific University Master of Education in Teacher Leadership will center on the following program competencies aligned with the Washington State teaching criteria but also serve as a foundation for teacher leadership:

1. Continuous improvement of teaching and learning, promoting student growth
2. Commitment to high levels of achievement for all students
3. Development of safe and responsive community schools
4. Commitment to the moral, ethical, and professional practices that characterize leadership in education

	Standard	Course	Product/artifact/portfolio exhibit
		Foundations and Research
	Teacher Leaders…
1	model ethical and moral behavior.	EDU 6085    Moral Issues in Education (3)	A document that articulates the moral piece of a vision as an educational leader that can guide the student as they proceed in their professional career.
2	analyze learning to promote student growth.	EDU 6979   Action Research in School Settings (3) EDU 6528 Accomplished Teaching	Review of educational material for specified group of students.  Analysis of classroom practices/environment for student engagement.
3	improve teaching and learning through the use of educational research at the classroom and school levels.	EDU 6979    Action Research in School Settings (3)	Initial action research project – classroom level
		EDU 6980    Applying Research in School Settings (3)	Article critiques and data analyses connected to both primary and secondary sources
		Teacher Leadership Focus
4	engage in analysis of teaching and collaborative practices.	EDU 6528     Accomplished Teaching (3)	Analysis of teaching and collaborative practices that support improved instruction. Video segments of classroom and coaching strategies.
5	establish a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students.	EDU 6525     Culturally Responsive Teaching (3)	Plans for improving the cultural sensitivity of an educational setting.
6	communicate and collaborates with a variety of stakeholders	EDU 6600     Communication and Collaboration:  Parents, Colleagues, Community (3)	Educator Professional Learning Plan connected to SIP
	communicate and collaborates with a variety of stakeholders	EDAD 6589   Engaging Communities (3) EDU 6600   Communication and Collaboration (3)	CEP – Community Engagement Plan Educator Professional Learning Plan connected to SIP
7	utilize instructional frames to improve teaching	EDAD 6580   Leadership in Education (3)	LEP – Learning Environment Profile Analysis Introduction to the Professional Growth Plan
8	present professional practice for the review of colleagues	EDU 6990     Teacher Leadership Capstone (3)	Presentation of reflective capstone project – end of program reflections aligned to all TL standard areas.
		Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Focus
9	evaluate and use effective curriculum design	EDU 6524     Curriculum Design (3)	Curriculum maps or analysis of curriculum alignment
10	understand effective use of research based instructional practices	EDU 6526     Survey of Instructional Strategies (3)	Analysis of implementation for several classroom-based instructional strategies
11	Utilize formative and summative assessment in a standards based environment	EDU 6613     Standards Based Assessment (3)	Comprehensive formative and summative assessment plan for a classroom-based unit of study.
12	evaluate and use technology for teaching and learning	EDTC 6433   Teaching with Technology (3)	Student and teacher tools, strategies, products demonstrating effective use. (ISTE standards)