April 2018

Reflections: The Growth is in the Journey

Two short years ago, I sat in my high school Media Coordinator’s interactive space to learn all about the power of Twitter, one of her many “Technology Tuesday” opportunities that she hosted as floating events to weave technology into our staff’s everyday teaching methods. Not only did she share a variety of instructional strategies with me, she shared how the NCDLCN experience had transformed her as an educator and encouraged me to participate the subsequent year.

A short blog post will never provide justice to impact that NCDLCN has had on me. During my year as a participant, I worked with an incredible mentor whose wisdom and experience was invaluable as I stepped out of my classroom into a lead teacher position. My assistant principal, who oversaw my department and served as my liaison for my NCDLCN project, aligned me with opportunities at both the building and district level to lead PLCs, lead professional development in technology, and develop blended professional development in a variety of areas.

In each NCDLCN event, I gained content knowledge, curated resources, and expanded my network of educational professionals who served as critical collaborators, ready to offer their expertise and input on any idea. Through this, my vision for what building level professional development could look like came to life. Armed with a #sketchnote and an example, I pitched my idea to our leadership team. From there, magic happened. In a true collaborative effort, our building leadership revealed a year-long professional development program that targeted academic rigor immersing teachers in a continuous improvement cycle.

Prior to NCDLCN, professional development in my building was delivered in a stagnant, sit-and-get method. NCDLCN encourage us to creatively turn PD upside down. Our goal was simple: Innovative Building Transformation through Shared Leadership. Our three-phase approach highlighted innovative, academically rigorous, heavily differentiated practices by incredible teachers in our building. In each phase (divided by level of academic rigor), our leadership team modeled the use of technology in their instructional methods, allowing teachers to experience the technology through the lens of a student and learn an instructional technique for blended learning.

In addition, teachers participated in Learning Walks, opening the door for the sharing of ideas across grade levels and subject areas. As we advanced our capacities in technology, our Learning Walks evolved so that they, too, were delivered in a digital format.To celebrate the risks that our teachers embraced, they were awarded Badges that were proudly showcased on posters beside their doors, email taglines, and social media. In a true learner-centered model, we asked for teachers to jump in where they felt the most comfortable – aiming for 25% participation in our first year. We understood that each teacher is different – with different time available to learn more about digital technologies, different comfort level with technology, different interest levels, and different needs for support. By allowing teachers to move at their own pace, we established a system that allowed for tailored, individual support for each teacher.

What makes our year-long professional development plan innovated? Our plan is:

Aligned with our school improvement plan and revisited often through teacher professional development growth progress monitoring charts
Intentionally embedded in consistent professional learning that targets rigorous instruction, best practices, and student engagement.
Modeled by our leadership team (pedagogy and use of digital tools)
Accessible and attainable.
Tiered, with expected participation at the Novice Level and encouraged participation at the Apprentice and Practitioner levels.
Celebrated in print, email, and social media.

To date, 272 badges have been awarded that span from engaging in professional chatter on Twitter to creating infographics with their students. 95% of the teachers in our building have earned 7 of the 8 available badges – a statistical success that we did not expect in August. The most impressive result has been how the teachers have embraced technology tools to creatively and innovatively transform an area (or multiple areas) of their practice.

This entire building initiative started at an NCDLCN January brainstorming session with my building leader. Over time, this project evolved into where it is today – with many voices contributing to its path. While I am proud of our current product, I am more proud of the growth that took place along the journey. NCDLCN’s Professional Development days provided me with rich educational content, instructional delivery methodology, and opportunities to collaborate with passionate educators. Each moment provided insight – an idea, a tweak, or a spark – that improved this initiative in some way. While our effort was to instill a continuous improvement cycle with our classroom teachers, this focus on reflection started with NCDLCN.

NCDLCN has empowered me to take risks, use my voice, and dream big. My vision started as a penciled sketchnote and evolved in 272 issued badges in a small school. While the original sketch is long gone, the vision is not. More important than a vision is the journey to bring that vision to fruition. I am excited about the new relationships, opportunities for collaboration, deep reflection, and continued growth that the next leg of my journey affords. Above all, NCDLCN taught me that the growth is in the journey.

Resource: NCDLCN: PD in your PJs

What Teachers Need

43 days. There are a short 43 days left in my instructional year. As I ponder how I will continue to engage my students during those 43 days, my mind wanders to what will engage me – as a professional – during the last stretch towards the finish line.

I teach in a building with 45 other educational professionals. While we are independently responsible for our own rosters of students, we are a team focused on the same goal – preparing students for the next leg of their life journey – academically and socially. This time of year, we are challenged to maintain high expectations and continue learning, even when the students might prefer to be outside in the beautiful spring sunshine. Teachers are using every educational strategy to engage students as we review for exams.

What about the teachers? Teachers are feeling the stress of exams and the end of the year frenzy just as much as the students. What keeps a teacher going when kids would rather relish in the spring sunshine, the “to do” list gets longer while the number of days gets shorter, and everyone seems to be in a rush to check boxes as “complete”?

Image result for quote a who feels appreciated

This quote speaks to me – particularly this time of year. I use this philosophy with my students to spark a stronger work ethic. I appreciate their work – so they give me a little more. I appreciate their attention to manners, to guidelines, to meeting expectations and to maintaining the same principles that we have had all year. By appreciating their efforts, both in large groups and individually, my students continue to surpass my expectations, even with 43 days left.

Teachers are students, too. With budgets dry and limited hours, what can be done to appreciate teachers so that they, too, will continue to exceed expectations during that last month of school? While I cannot speak for all, this is what motivates me:

Get to Know Me

Relationships are the number one ingredient in my educational environment. In my class, we start building those relationships on Day #1 – and, I work diligently to overcome barriers that surface throughout the year. As a teacher in the building, I thrive on that same camaraderie with my administrative team and colleagues. When an administrator knows me – what is important to me, can identify my strengths, help me strengthen my weaknesses and celebrate my growth – I am willing to be innovative, am resilient to failures and am confident in my efforts. There will be times when our conversations are challenging. However, if we have a relationship that is built on mutual trust with a focus on the same goal, we minimize the level of awkwardness, allowing us both to move forward in the best interest of all stakeholders.

Model Innovative Practices

Be just as innovative in leadership as you expect me to be in my classroom. Just like I am expected to be organized, current, thorough and collaborative with my student/parent communication, I expect the same from my administrative team.Talk to me about ways that I can professionally grow and collaborate with me on how to reach those goals. Allow me to share areas that need improvement in our building – as, if we are going to embrace a student-centered, growth mindset, then no area of our learning environment is immune to that reflective practice, including building leadership. Evaluate every meeting agenda, audience and expectation – how can these be more efficient? In evaluating efforts, be open to recommendations about every practice. What dated practices can be revisited and revamped? For example: can we rethink the “End of Year CheckOut List” where teachers spend hours trying to find someone to sign a document – only to learn that person is off-campus for lunch or not back until Tuesday. Isn’t there a better way to do it? Innovative methods are not just for classrooms.

Involve Me

Students appreciate being kept “in the loop”. Teachers are no different. When thinking about school improvement, consider teacher voices. ALL teacher voices. While some teachers exercise their voices louder than others, I promise that ALL teachers have thoughts on student discipline, professional development, instructional evaluations, school schedules and teaching assignments. By building bridges between leadership and faculty, opportunities surface for all teachers to have input on improvement. Exercising a voice in the decision-making process may result in a team of teachers more open to building changes and innovative initiatives.

In stepping away from this post, I recognize a common thread:
The importance of relationships.

Talk to me. Collaborate with me. Involve me.

In turn, I will move mountains for you.

Together, we really are better.

Understanding Giftedness

For fifteen years, I taught advanced science courses in an independent, college-preparatory school. With a degree in Biology and Chemistry, I felt confident with my content and could easily deliver advanced concepts to students who were academically driven, trained in traditional educational methods and had the support of parents who valued education. While the content and pace of the courses were challenging, the actual teaching was not.

Fast-forward three years: After a move to a new area, I find myself in a local public school teaching a ninth-grade honors-level science course. After one semester, it was clear that my fifteen years of traditional methods were not working for anyone. I longed for ways to stretch my gifted students while engaging all students. I was unsure how to write true, differentiated lessons plans using data from my classes while still being a wife and mother. After all, I only have 24 hours in each day!

About that time, I received information about positions available in a new Gifted Education Certification Program. If accepted, I would enter into a cohort of teachers who would, together, complete the graduate courses required to add “K-12 Gifted Education Certification” to our teaching licenses. Four short weeks later, I entered my first course towards certification. My, how my classroom has changed since then.

In my first Gifted Education Class, our instructor taught our content through methods that work well with a gifted population. As I learned the characteristics of gifted students, I realized that she was describing the very same students in my previous school who was I able to connect so effortlessly. Surprisingly, she was also describing me.

Throughout middle and high school, I found “school” easy – and, I’m sad to say, boring. A few teachers – Ms. Kincaid and Mr. Grogan – lit intellectual fires for. However, by and large, school was mundane. It was not until I entered upper level science/math classes or challenging math competition teams that my brain fired on all cylinders. I was the kid who completed advanced logic puzzles for fun. I read the unabridged books and the anthology of Edgar Allen Poe. For fun. I was different. Uncomfortable. Always outside of the circle.

My 15 years as a teacher in a college-preparatory, independent school placed me in a classroom with dozens of students just like me. I easily taught them, because I identified with them. I am those students – 20 years later. Only, I did not realize this until I started to study gifted education. Interestingly, the gifted coursework was easy because I live it every day. I am sensitive to the social and emotional needs of these learners and can help them grow in weaker areas – as I share these needs and areas of growth. I understand how to gently challenge these students for I can envision how I would need to be gently challenged. I empathize with their uncertainties, need for perfectionism, desire for acceptance and overwhelming stress that accompanies a brain that seems to never rest – for my brain, too, works like that.

The courses in Gifted Education tied everything together for me. And, in doing so, turned my classroom upside down. Gone is the “one size fits all” instruction. My classroom is now filled with powerful student voices, self-pacing and lots (and lots) of educational chatter. In our learning space, we work in small groups, move, write on desks and use technology every day. Expect the unexpected.

I read this tweet today:

If your students aren’t influencing what you are doing, you are doing it wrong.

This is why I challenged myself to earn an advanced certification in Gifted Education. Students – through their silence – were speaking volumes.
I listened.

Our students need us to participate in additional professional development.
Our students need us to learn new strategies and methodologies.
Our students need us to continue to grow so we can meet their ever-changing needs.

Years ago, teachers listened to me silently express my needs.

Are you listening?