EDU 6600 final reflection

When I began this course I did not see the title, “Communication and Collaboration,” as reflecting the emphasis placed on professional development. I was surprised by how much of the course was about professional development, and not necessarily in a positive way. My previous experience with professional development has generally been negative, especially when such activities were organized by the school district. My initial reflection and most of my initial discussion group posts were about my dissatisfaction with my experiences in professional development.

“I have taught at two different schools and I have seen two different models, neither of which has been particularly effective, of delivering professional learning. I have experienced an overabundance of professional learning with no common theme, and I have experienced too little professional learning.”

As I progressed through the course and developed an understanding of adult learning, I began to see why my previous experiences had not worked: I had never been in charge of my own learning. Dalellew and Martinez (1988), as cited in Zepeda (2013) state that adult learning is more self-directed, but I did not direct any of my own professional development until recently. My districts have required trainings for a variety of reasons: to introduce new programs, to reinforce old programs, or to satisfy the union contract. I may have found some of the sessions interesting, but those were rarely followed up on with practical classroom applications; the needs of the classroom have always been so great that I rarely found time to follow up myself.

The examination of different learning models brought attention to my limited and poor experience with professional learning. Honestly, one area where I wish I would have done more with was my experience as an academic coach early in my career. I spent two years sitting in an office because I did not know any better. Had I known the benefit of coaching, and had I been coached on how to coach, I could have taken advantage of this valuable opportunity to learn. My problems were not unique; Johnson and Donaldson (2016) reported a study that found that second-stage teachers in these leadership roles had challenges that discouraged teacher leadership. What was missing in my experience was leadership at my school; I had two principals during my coaching tenure, one of whom was transferred midway through his first year, the other who was coasting toward retirement. I did not know how I fit into the school’s plan, and according to J. C. Maxwell (2008), “one way to add significance to the lives of the people you lead is to show them the big picture and let them know how they contribute to it” (p. 86-87).

Another aspect of my professional learning has been through professional learning communities, both in California and Washington state. Neither has been an ideal situation, but then I never viewed them as vehicles for professional learning. In California we were prescribed by administration to accomplish certain tasks (take minutes, discuss data, etc.) and in Washington the groups were more for planning curriculum than looking at data. Some of my PLCs were more collaborative than others, and those I found more beneficial to me as a teacher, regardless of the tasks we accomplished. What I strive for is the collaboration cited by Angelle (2016) when she writes that “to ensure success for these teacher leaders, the school culture must value their work, the school principal must support their work, and their teacher colleagues must be willing to work alongside them as they strive for a more effective school” (p. 107).

By looking at my own practice through the lens of professional development, I now see where collaboration and communication come in. My previous experiences lacked those components, and when I reflect on my more positive professional learning, collaboration and communication are the highlights. My best training sessions have been Advanced Placement summer institutes, and those have been highly collaborative. In the Seattle Pacific teacher leadership program, I have collaborated and communicated with my cohort and have found it highly rewarding.

As I move forward into larger roles of teacher leadership in my career, I will keep those two aspects of professional learning foremost in my mind. I must be willing to collaborate with my colleagues and keep open all lines of communication. I must keep the door open, literally and figuratively. That will do the most to bring up myself as a teacher and my colleagues as well.

References

Angelle, P. S. (2016). Teachers as leaders: Collaborative leadership for learning communities. In E. Blair (Ed.). Teacher leadership: The “new” foundations of teacher education (p. 101-108). New York: Peter Lang.

Johnson, S. M., & Donaldson, M. L. (2016). Overcoming the obstacles to leadership. In E. Blair (Ed.). Teacher leadership: The “new” foundations of teacher education (pp. 157-162). New York: Peter Lang.

Maxwell, J. C. (2008). Mentoring 101: What every leader needs to know. Nashville, TN; Thomas Nelson.

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

PLC's vs. lesson study

My school uses the learning community model as its primary mode of collaboration among teachers of same subjects. Specifically called professional learning communities after the Dufour model, the groups meet weekly or biweekly to discuss curriculum and student data and collaborate on future lesson planning. The groups do share the school’s vision of learning, and they “work toward common goals that enhance professional and personal development” (Zepeda, 2013, p. 83). Each group has a PLC leader that coordinates the groups, but the responsibilities attached to the title generally include administrative tasks such as setting the agenda, writing minutes, and sharing feedback from the school administration. Where my school occasionally differs from the model is in the role of the principal. Zepeda (2013) cites Marks & Printy (2003) as saying that a principal should be more of a facilitator than an inspector in a learning community. Administrators at my school, however, are often seen as looking to hold teachers accountable for doing the work rather than facilitating the work being done.

One model that I could see being implemented at my school is the lesson study process. It already contains elements of the learning community format (Zepeda, 2013). Both study curriculum and develop goals. Both involve planning lessons. Both demand reflection. The major difference is that lesson study conducts research, and there are certain groups at my school that would be advanced enough to engage in that component. The transition from a standard learning community to a lesson study group would not be difficult, but it would require commitment from the teachers involved and the administration. More time would be needed for the study and planning elements, but as our district has a teachers contract that encourages teachers to collaborate outside of the contract in exchange for hourly pay, this would be a strong incentive. The administration has already supported learning communities that have engaged in observation of other teachers, so having teachers conduct research through observing other teachers would not be hard to get approved.

Teachers tend to be strong lifelong learners, and the ability to work with colleagues on research into their own practice would be hard to pass up, especially if there’s extra pay involved. The obstructions are strong, however. Zepeda (2013) cites several. The argument that “this is the way I have always done it” (p. 228) gets in the way, but as teachers we ask our students every day to think differently; why can’t teachers change, too? The lack of time is another impediment, but again that extra pay component, if worked into the proposal, would provide the incentive. A team that is already effective would overcome the challenge of not having specific goals, as their effectiveness is already tied to having those goals. The challenges cited by Zepeda (pp. 228-229) would all be easily handled in my building, I believe.

The next step toward implementing lesson study would be for an established learning community to put forth a proposal to the administration. The proposal would have to be clear as to its goals, and it would have to align to the objectives already laid out for learning communities. The trust already established by administration with certain groups would come into play, and assuming the group carries out the objectives of the lesson study, effectiveness could lead to implementation by other groups.

I worked with professional learning communities at my previous school before moving to Washington state, and I never felt that they were fully implemented or effective. We had vocal support from administration, but added responsibilities reduced our effectiveness. Too often the focus was on data, and not on the reflection required to adequately use that data to influence instruction. At my current school, my experience is that PLCs are used more for planning units rather than looking at individual lessons. There is a movement toward more specific objectives, but as I no longer part of a content-specific PLC, I have not seen how that has been implemented. I feel lesson study would be more effective for certain, established groups of veteran teachers, and I look forward to suggesting the idea.

Most teachers start their careers after a period of training that includes student teaching or an internship. As students they take classes, observe other educators, then gradually work themselves into their student teaching role, always under the guidance of a master teacher. Eventually, they move into the workplace with that little bit of experience.

Not me. I had a year of substitute teaching, with no training, and they threw me into an English classroom with an understanding that I would start my classes in a year. It’s a wonder that 14 years later I’m still in the profession. Somehow I learned the skills necessary to not only survive as a teacher, but to thrive as an educator and professional. As I read about adult theories of learning, I realized that most of my education did not come from the classroom. I learned how to be a teacher informally, within the context of my particular assignment that first year, which included three different preps, an intervention class among them. I had colleagues who listened and offered suggestions. I had a paraprofessional who guided me through that intervention class, giving me tips on how to handle different students and situations. I had a wife who was a new teacher in her own right, albeit one who had the standard training before she got her first job. I learned how to be a teacher through self-directed instruction, informally, and in the context of my work experience.

Hansman (2001) relates a similar experience in which she learned how to be a writing teacher “in the unplanned intersection of people, culture, tools, and context” (p. 44). Teachers in these situations often live day-to-day, and we learn what we need to get through that day’s situation. We do not plan these experiences; they happen when other teachers stop in our classrooms after school and ask how we’re doing. Through those conversations we get ideas that we can use to implement the next day’s lesson. As time goes by, we slowly add skills to our multilayered toolbox: classroom management, lesson planning, curriculum development. This context-based learning happens in other ways. I joined the National Council of Teachers of Education shortly after getting my job; Hansman (2001) notes that membership in such organizations “can also provide adults with the cultural context, tools, and social learning to progress in their fields or professions” (p. 49).

My formal teacher training eventually gave me the background necessary to succeed, but I constantly sought training in different areas of practice that I felt I needed to excel. This self-directed training involved mostly learning through books and texts that I sought, but the application of that learning gave me the biggest gain. At one point, I researched whatever I could about teaching The Crucible just so I could make my unit more engaging. I sought out colleagues, I consulted online forums, and I read reviews of plays. I was able to apply the knowledge to my unit immediately, and the results showed more students involved and discussing the themes presented in the play. This action matches what Merriam (2001) describes as characteristics of a self-directed learner.

My most important learning has happened informally. In the fifth year of my career, I was given an assignment as an English-language arts coach, and while the two-year assignment came with little direction or objectives, I learned greatly simply from observing and talking with other teachers. Through these discussions and conversations we reflected on our practice, and my style of coaching developed to one of asking questions, rather than providing answers (as a fifth-year teacher, I often wondered whether I had any answers). Marsick and Watkins (2001) refer to research being done on informal learning that studies “how teachers learn informally through reflection and action” (p. 26), and my work as a coach followed that model consistently.

Even today, much of my learning is informal. I sit at my desk and wonder how to better teach a particular skill, turning toward my bookshelf and pulling out resources until I find something that will work in my context. I teach, I reflect, and I change my practice as necessary. No classroom lecture taught me how to do this.

EDU 6600 Initial Reflection

In my teaching career professional learning has rarely been organized around a common theme applicable to all teachers in my building. I have taught at two different schools and I have seen two different models, neither of which has been particularly effective, of delivering professional learning. I have experienced an overabundance of professional learning with no common theme, and I have experienced too little professional learning.

At my first school in southern California, the district was compelled by outside forces to provide a wide variety of professional learning, but I never saw an organized effort to make it effective. An agreement with the teachers union required the district to offer paid professional development days before and after school, and these often served as fillers, such as teaching vocabulary, learning a new behavior protocol, or checking for understanding. As the school year progressed, these skills were emphasized less and less, generally in favor of professional learning being forced from the county and the state in response to low student performance. At the same time, professional learning communities were required to assess students, analyze data, make adjustments, and prepare instruction - all with little extra time to do so, and often with demands to incorporate the latest training into our practice. Teachers attended professional learning for the money and had little incentive to change their practice.

At my current school, professional development for the most part has been left to the teachers’ discretion. The district has begun an effort to provide leaders of professional learning communities with training, and some departments have improved their practice as a result, but this has been sporadic among all departments and sections.

Presently, the professional learning communities I am involved with do not have research-based components that would facilitate the development of a plan for incorporating social justice learning in our school, as determined by Hirsh and Hord (2010). An advantage we do have is that questions of social justice are being raised schoolwide, and many teachers are starting to seek knowledge in how to address these questions. Staff and administration have demonstrated a sincere effort to learn more about our students and their particular needs. Most of this work at present happens outside of our professional learning communities, although a recent discussion in my Advanced Placement professional learning community focused on strategies to increase involvement in the AP program by traditionally underserved students. The discussion is in its early stages, but for now, with a group that has no common curriculum, social justice issues are what we do share and what we can address.

Standards-based Assessment: Final Reflection

Teacher Leadership Program Standard No. 11: Utilize formative and summative assessment in a standards-based environment

Background

In my previous work with professional learning communities, I have experienced the stress of formative assessment. The formal PLC model advocated by Rick DuFour includes a component on how teachers will know whether or not their students have learned. When I worked in California, my school district required that formative assessments, the “how,” must include measurable data that could be shared in our teams. The prominent form of this assessment came in multiple choice tests, and during the early years of my career, this is how I viewed formative assessment: it was another test to give students. All of my professional development on formative assessments focused on this attribute, and rarely did I view formative assessment as anything other than a multiple choice quiz.

The “how” component is critical, but the heavy emphasis on multiple choice blinded me to the potential and benefit of formative assessment. Upon starting a new teaching assignment in Washington state, I worked with colleagues and a school district that viewed formative assessment differently. It did not need to be formal, but it still needed to answer how I would know if the students had learned. Colleagues shared tools such as exit slips and questioning, many things that I had done for years but had never viewed as formative assessments. Entering my Standards-Based Assessment class, I had a small collection of tools and a general idea of what they were good for.

Learning and applied practice

Dylan Wiliam’s (2011) book Embedded Formative Assessment has been helpful in the process of learning about the role formative assessments play in my classroom. Wiliam’s definition of formative assessment emphasizes that it happens during learning, and this has had a tremendous impact on my thinking. Stopping instruction to give a test was counterproductive, especially if the results of that test were not analyzed until a later date. By the time my team had gone over the results, the class had moved on to another unit. We knew that was a problem at the time, but we plowed ahead anyway, following a school district mandate. Wiliam’s practical techniques open up the toolbox and allow the assessments to occur naturally and at appropriate times to allow the teacher to influence student learning.

Through the process of writing the assessment into action paper I discovered even more resources. The idea of writing workshops has me excited, as my students can choose the type of feedback and assessment they want through that process. I learned about Kaizena, an app that allows students to record questions and attach them to their papers and allows the teacher to record feedback. These are two of the elements I will incorporate into my practice this year.

Issues encountered

For my present teaching assignment, one dilemma for me will be the lack of a colleague to work directly with. I will be the only AP English Language teacher, so any discussion of how my students are meeting the learning expectations will have to be in the context of vertical or cross-curricular alignment. Fortunately, I have options in this area. By identifying the specific skills students are lacking, I can take those skills to other English teachers and solicit their input. Across the board, English-language arts skills generally are the same at the secondary level, so strategies that work in one class will transfer to another class with different content.

Supported by research

Wiliam’s (2011) book will be critical to my future practice. I appreciate his practical approach to formative assessment and his classroom applications are simply explained and varied in their use for elementary and secondary environments.

Shelby Scoffield’s (2016) article on Edutopia about writing workshops has strongly influenced my approach to giving feedback. This has been a bone of contention for me for years, the ingrained idea that I have to write comments on every paper, but the knowledge that students do not read them. Scoffield’s ideas about organizing writing workshops will help me provide my students feedback they can actually use.

Finally, the ideas about peer feedback I learned from Gielen, Tops, Dochy, Onghena, and Smeets (2010) will help me develop peer review sessions. Their findings showed that students improved when they were given writing prompts to use for peer feedback, such as “I paid attention to,” and “I found it difficult to” (p. 152). I can incorporate these sentence frames into feedback forms that allow me to clearly see how my students are doing.

Overall impact

I didn’t think formative assessment was an area of need for me, but after this course I appreciate the opportunity to grow in this area. I enter the school year with a lot of ideas that I can incorporate into my practice immediately.

References

Gielen, S., Tops, L., Dochy, F., Onghena, P., Smeets, S. (2010). A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback and of various peer feedback forms in a secondary school writing curriculum. British Educational Research Journal, 36:1, 143-162. doi: 10.1080/01411920902894070.

Scoffield, S. (2016). Creating a writers’ workshop in a secondary classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org.

Wiliam, D. (2011). Embedded formative assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Significance and uncertainty as part of my theory of action

As part of my action research project, I created a graphic reconstruction of my theory of action. In the next step of determining research questions I first determined the significance of the different aspects and relationships of my theory of action. Those are visualized below, with an S showing a significant aspect or relationship.



The second walkthrough determined my confidence in the assumptions of my theory of action. Those are visualized below, with a U showing that I am relatively uncertain about the aspect or relationship.

Graphic reconstruction of action research plan for revision instruction

Priority pie for action research project

For my students to take time to revise their writing before submitting a final version, they will need direct instruction and feedback from me. I must teach them how to reflect on their writing. I must teach them to understand the prompt. I must teach them to recognize and construct a logical argument. I must teach them to write clearly.

The most critical element is being able to construct an argument. But because my issue is with revision, this presents a problem as constructing an argument is necessary to write the first draft. It’s a critical skill, and for revision it’s necessary because students will need to be able to identify a poorly constructed argument in order to correct it. I really should increase the importance of reflective writing, as it is most relevant to my achievement target. The two most important skills I want students to have through this process are constructing an argument and writing clearly. That’s worth two-thirds of their time.