It is reassuring that education is made better for all of your efforts. The revolution has begun. Ken Robinson would be proud.
Almost finished. The end is in sight. This has been an incredible journey. I want to say thank you to everyone that made this last year possible. Napa Learns underwriting the program definitely helped. Thank you Peg Maddocks, Mario Piombo and the team at Napa Learns. I want to thank Dr. Susan Craig and Dr. Redmond for keeping my feet to the fire. And thank you to Lisa Gottfried and Marie Zorn that took impossible tasks and broke them into bite size pieces that made it possible to finish. Lastly I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all my critical friends who cajoled and prompted me to work just a little harder. Going forward I hope that we can find time to enjoy one anothers company in a more relaxed setting. Please stay in touch.
It is reassuring that education is made better for all of your efforts. The revolution has begun. Ken Robinson would be proud.
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As I have learned how to wield the many tools requiring a modicum of transliteracy, I have realized the critical need for professional development. Before the pandemic, I was free to pick and choose professional development as I followed my students’ interests and needs. When I spoke to my colleagues about the professional development the district required, my colleagues explained the flavor-of-the-day aspect of required PD. Some told me to take what I liked and leave the rest. I tried to use what I had learned with fidelity at least until I had internalized the learning. Some teachers stuck to the methods that they had always used.
After the shelter-in-place order was received, I realized that my professional development needed a major upgrade. I needed to be much more transliterate if I was going to navigate the virtual classroom. I would have to engage my students with tools we could share in the online space. I needed tools that allowed me to assess student participation. Similarly, my colleagues were also challenged. I was always surprised as to the different tools and professional development each teacher used. I worried that our teaching would not be cohesive across grade levels. I questioned whether equitable access was being addressed. I felt alone. Transliteracy has helped me collaborate with teachers online. I have been inspired by teachers that shared ideas, strategies, and feedback. Through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, I have learned about tools I could use in my classroom. My transliteracy is growing daily. Next, I plan to dive into Instagram and TikTok. I may even brave the world of video gaming. Why? Because it will help me connect with my students. 21st-century skills are constantly being developed, and my students will need transliteracy, and I must lead the way. My capstone message addressed the impact of professional development on student achievement. Valid data was not easy to collect during this school year. Students and assessments were in a state of flux. I struggled to get teachers to respond to my surveys. I was learning how to analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. This was part of my transliteracy learning curve. Once I learned how to present my action research project in an academic paper, Tasked with learning how to share my journey with stakeholders in the visual space, I had to learn how to design an infographic, website, logo, poster, and video presentation to share my learning. As it stands now, I have become more transliterate than I ever could have imagined. Yet, I feel that I am at the very beginning of my transliteracy journey. I want to polish my skills and learn more to motivate my students and my colleagues to reach for the stars. I am eager to apply my transliteracy skills to my personal life to share with my family, friends, and community to help grow a better tomorrow. I am grateful for my cohort and my teachers for pushing me to take this journey. Thank you! And now I need a nap. Interprofessionalism requires collaboration between colleagues to promote identified goals. Typically, practiced in healthcare settings, promoting interprofessionalism in the educational setting was at the core of my research. John Hattie noted in his research the importance of collective teacher efficacy. In other words, teachers collaborating in groups to focus on teaching and assessing students. Professional Development could support teachers working together to promote interprofessionalism and student achievement. Teachers attending professional development while collaborating on new skills promote a sense of community and support social relationships integral to adult learning. I plan to work with interested individuals in the school district to develop a Professional Development Curriculum that can be adapted and utilized each year. I have promised to share my findings with all the individuals in my study including my principal and colleagues. I have so many people to thank for contributing to my study. Through heir generosity, expertise, and professionalism, they have earned my respect for their inherent value, integrity, and individual dignity. Once we have a committee working on Professional Development Curriculum, I hope to share our work on Twitter and on a Facebook group dedicated to NVUSD teachers, thereby building a culture and community that promotes intellectual inquiry, discovery, and a passion for lifelong learning. My focus will be on making a change to the administration of Professional Development that will positively impact my classroom as well as every classroom in the district. Through the promotion of interprofessionalism, it is my goal is to make Professional Development aid teachers in the following areas:
As I go forward, my plan is to make my research available to those interested and be of service to my colleagues as we start modifying our current curriculum to address equity and inclusion within our classrooms. Acceptance and appreciation of diversity drive my teaching. Keeping my focus on a student-centered education while demonstrating compassion, is my contribution to society and the greatest service that I can provide. Practically, this will require me to connect with my students and my colleagues to build relationships to create an environment that promotes these values. Are you ready to join the team to build a new vision of education? This program has challenged me in ways I never thought possible. I have had to find out how to navigate technology to create blogs, videos, lessons, logos, infographics reflections, statistical analysis, and a webpage. Previously, I had gone to classes to learn professional development, but they were isolated episodes of learning where I could rarely share my learning journey with my colleagues. It felt fragmented, and I struggled to bring what I had learned to the classroom. Through the Master’s of Innovative Learning, the instructors taught a cohesive curriculum where all lessons built upon one another. My colleagues in Cohort 19 supported one another as we practiced the 4-C’s. Critical friends collaborated and communicated to create meaningful work that we could apply in the classroom or our personal lives. This program has been transformative! I have confidence that I can tackle projects while exhibiting a “can do” attitude. I have learned to search for solutions on the internet and reach out to colleagues when I need help. I have been inspired by the creativity of my colleagues and have enjoyed their positivity and friendship.
Looking back over this year of teaching has made me appreciate my growth. I am planning to utilize my skills to promote equity and access in the classroom. I am very interested in developing a cohesive plan of Professional Development to aid teachers in working smarter, not harder. I want to foster the same set of skills that I have learned in this Master’s program. Divergent thinking has to be kept in balance with convergent practice. We need to focus on our goals if we want to achieve them. As I reflect on this journey, I have found that I like to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I see my students in my classroom as global citizens whose futures are still to be determined. I see myself as a member of many communities. I am part of my 4th-grade PLC, part of the 4th-grade CoP, and a Napa Valley Unified School District teacher. Ideally, each of these groups should reinforce and support the other. I have learned that needs and benefits of social interaction drive adult learning (andragogy). Furthermore, if the school district continues to use a top-down management style, teachers will have too many bosses to answer to and burn out. Teachers promote the 4 C’s in the classroom, and the school district would be wise to do the same. Our collective innovation and creativity have yet to be tapped. We are ready to develop a better education model that values the skills needed in the 21st century. To quote the visionary Sir Ken Robinson “For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail. It’s just the opposite: we aim too low and succeed.” We are in a unique position to re-think education from the ground up as Linda Darling Hammond noted in her book “The Flat World and Education”. Time to roll up our sleeves and get started. Children are depending on us. If you define a single step as progress, then I am making it happen. I need to put some exercise in my routine to replenish my energy resources and hopefully I will have the time to complete my tasks. I am hoping that I can complete everything by the end of class. Does prayer count? I wish I had thought of using that project management software before I started this program. As it stands now, I am going to just keep going and hope to get everything finished. In fourth grade I would normally ask students to stay in so I could help them finish. I would also take things off their plate if I saw them struggling. (hint, hint…) I am happy with my Logo and my Infographic. My mini-documentary is coming along and I have the rough draft of my executive summary finished. I need some help with my paper and then I will tackle the capstone poster. As for my students, they struggle with creating their own work. Many prefer to copy because it is easier than thinking. I can relate. All I want to do is get out a coloring book and color. I think I need to add more art to my lessons! My TPACK journey began when I discovered professional development available through NapaLearns and the Digitial Innovators Program. I found the workshops useful and fun. I enjoyed teachers’ camaraderie while learning about cool tools and teaching strategies that I could use in the classroom. My fourth-graders have profited from my learning which has led me to explore the role of adult learning (andragogy) in professional development. During the Pandemic, Teachers had to learn Distance-teaching tools at a scale and pace that was overwhelming to many. I wanted to know how teachers were navigating this learning. How do teachers internalize what they have learned during professional development and how does that knowledge impact student learning? Attempting to answer this driving question became the focus of my Master’s Action Research Project. Through the Touro University Masters of Innovative Learning program, I studied the following Professional Development delivery vehicles, namely Professional Learning Communities (PLC), Workshop (WS) model, and Communities of Practice (CoP). The magic of TPACK is the point where technology, pedagogy, content, and knowledge intersect. This synergy creates an energy that drives education. It is where teaching becomes an art. As Tim Minchin has said, “The arts and sciences need to work together-- to improve how knowledge is communicated.” All three Professional Development vehicles support teacher learning. Although, the PLC model is the only vehicle that simultaneously tracks student learning. So determining the efficacy of Professional Development in light of student achievement needs to be further refined. I do not like to see or hear myself. I like to incorporate other media as much as possible in my classroom. I find plenty of times where my students and I can laugh at my foibles and trepidations. They have watched me do a FlipGrid on the fly for the first time. My students are fantastic at helping me learn with tech. It was incredibly challenging not to sound or look like I was reading. I was so nervous in front of the camera, and I couldn’t remember my lines. I struggled with reading. I thought someday I would like to make a TED talk because I have so much I would like to share. But I don’t think I am cut out for video. I think I will stay safely ensconced in my classroom with a captive audience that has not outgrown my Mom jokes. My students also struggle with making presentations and sharing out in class. I encourage them to keep practicing. “Things get easier with practice.” I use the same strategies as a swim coach; I try to say five positives for every correction I offer. I always asked them to do what I wanted to see. My swimmers and my students respond to directions that tell them what to do rather than what not to do. This project has made me keep repeating the affirmation, “Everyone has to start somewhere. We are all beginners at something.” It has become my mantra. Before I teach, I try to do the problems that I ask the students to do--then I look at the answer key. This can help me see the stumbling blocks that students encounter. As for the learning pit, I have fallen in, and I feel I may never again emerge. However, I will keep going, knowing that “nothing ventured nothing gained.” So before I could begin to analyze the NVUSD Mission statement, I needed to clarify what a mission statement is intended to accomplish. According to Wikipedia, a mission statement needs to define why an organization exists, who is their target audience, what are their primary goals and what is the geographical territory of the organization. In the case of a school district, the mission statement supports a vision and communicates direction and purpose to employees, students, their families, and stakeholders. Let’s look at the NVUSD Mission statement: Transforming lives by instilling and inspiring lifelong learning in every student. NVUSD’s reason for existing is to--transform lives. Transforming lives means different things to different people. In this context, it seems a little vague. Whose lives? Perhaps they are addressing their target audience that is made-up of school-age students. I think they need to be more explicit. The mission statement spells out the primary goal as --instilling and inspiring lifelong learners. Inspire and instill are semantically related and may be used as synonyms. So what is so important that it had to be said twice? What’s more, how do we as an organization know when we have affected our target audience in this way. It seems that if we are to follow our mission statement, we should have a priority standard that clearly defines this as a goal. I am not sure how we would assess such a broad, all-encompassing standard. To continue our examination of the mission statement, we need to determine who needs to be inspired. A closer look at life-long learners presents more ambiguity. Precisely when do we determine that a student is a life-long learner? Is the student’s life over at graduation? Some think graduation is the beginning of life. Again the mission statement provides no clear direction. Words like providing, offering, and supporting do not automatically yield inspiration or instill lifelong learning. Including NVUSD in the mission statement does spell out the territory as Napa Valley, a collection of hamlets that range from American Canyon in the South to Yountville in the North. Once again, a broad geographical area that includes a diverse population, each with different academic needs. Does the mission statement lend itself to policies that will accomplish this lofty albeit indeterminable goal? NVUSD spells out six goals: Goal 1: Student Learning, Achievement, and Access Goal 2: Effective Employee Relations and Resource Management Goal 3: Robust Communication, Community Engagement, and Advocacy Goal 4: Tactical, Proactive, and Efficient Asset Management Goal 5: Equity-centered Leadership and Inclusive Organizational Culture Goal 6: Strategic, Impactful Governance and Policy Implementation Of these goals, none speak to instilling or inspiring. None address life-long learning. Only the first goal mentions the school district’s target audience. Are student learning, achievement, and access separate entities? John Hattie and Michael McDowell both tell us that teacher clarity is paramount to student learning. Yet, goal one does not give me clarity as to what my students are to learn. Once again, the mission statement and goal 1 are much too broad and ultimately unusable. Further, the goals read more like the Table of Contents to an Organization’s Operations Manual. An Operations Manual may cover legal requirements, but it does not aid a teacher in day-to-day decision-making. Lastly, there is no mention of 21st Century Learning. Personally, I prefer goals that are achievable in my life-time. The term 21st Century was au courant in the year 2000. Now we are 21 years in, and we will wear out the term before the century ends. It is time to give us short-term achievable goals. The state of change is accelerating, and it is difficult to determine what will be possible in 5 years, let alone when my 4th graders graduate from high school. The goal will be entirely out of reach in 79 years when the 21st century ends. When the teaching standards were created, they were meant to create cohesion so that students everywhere would learn the same content. Teachers had a clear target as to what they needed to teach. They knew what they wanted their students to learn. Challenging teachers to determine if the students were able to learn what was taught and what they needed to do if the students did not learn or needed more support. Professional Development aimed to provide teachers the tools to accomplish these tasks. Yet Professional Development did not follow up to see if teachers had learned from the Professional Development offered. Teachers that needed support were left to their own devices. Rather than create cohesion amongst educators, professional development was often fragmented and led to widely divergent outcomes. Teachers interpreted Professional development sessions in different ways, and when it was used in the classroom, the impact on student achievement was not explicitly tracked. Ideally, the mission statement should be overarching but directly connected to policies attached to student learning outcomes. Our purpose is to teach our students to learn content and strategies to support their learning in the future. As Michael McDowell says, “Teaching for transfer.” My Capstone Project is difficult for me to bring into focus. I have found myself dreaming about all sorts of possibilities. I keep the pen and paper nearby, on my bedside table, to write down the bursts of inspiration that occur in the middle of the night. Then I struggle with how to communicate the vision I have created in my mind to produce a video that I will place on my Learning Innovation Lab website. My Logo is a work in progress. My Infographic is a work in progress. My life seems to be a work in progress. My only solution is to chip away at each piece of the website and utilize the checklist provided. I have not finished my white paper and I need to dedicate myself to that task. I do not know why I am dragging my feet. All I can say is that I am my own worst critic. I understand that I have help all around me, and I will have to ask for help soon. Watching the mini-documentaries has helped to clarify what I want to create. I loved Gary's Film Noir Capstone Video. I wish I could pull off something like that. I realized that even filming my feet walking for my B-roll was much harder than I anticipated. I am going to enlist my son to help me with shooting some film. I liked how Kenny Stills' film was so personal and informative. Maybe I could create something like that. I like the background, the graphics and the audio to create synergy and continuity. I enjoyed seeing the teacher that created the video, but instead of standing in her garden, I would have preferred seeing her in an educational context. I like different film angles and student interaction. I am not sure how I can create that level of engagement. Professional development doesn't usually include cute photos of children. Each of the videos demonstrated a different stage in film proficiency. I could see a seed of vision in each of the videos. In one I liked listening to the teacher, in another I wished the teacher had been on camera for part of the time. Of course watching students interact are my favorite segments. I am creating this mini-documentary to showcase myself, the master's program, our professors, and NapaLearns. I want to make us all look good. I think that authenticity and professionalism are the most important aspects of the Capstone Project and the video. Hopefully, I will inspire other teachers to embark on the Touro Master's in Innovative Learning that has helped me to see my ever expanding role in education as a means to support students and colleagues. The big reason that I committed to researching the topic of professional development is I loved continuing to learn and develop as a teacher. I felt that every day that I was not the best teacher that I could be, I was letting down my students. I remember when Mario asked me how to increase teacher participation in the digital innovator’s program. I noticed that the same teachers attended the workshops and that there were not many new faces. I had talked up the classes to my colleagues at my site, and most felt they did not have the time. Maybe they were right. My colleagues correctly guessed that I was an empty nester, so I had more time on my hands. But I was energized from interacting with the other teachers that attended the workshops. I thought there must be more to this. So I began my research on professional development and began to learn about andragogy. I also wanted to know more about how teachers learn and how does their learning impact their students. I remember the professional development presented by Michael McDowell. I learned about the positive impact of teacher collective efficacy. It seemed to hinge on teachers that were willing to collaborate. I had not found true collaboration. When I had asked one of my grade-level colleagues to calibrate our grading, he declined, stating that we were all professionals and therefore calibrating was unnecessary. Later upon leaving our grade level professional development regarding report card grading, we were reminded that we needed to have grade-level cohesion. I asked my colleague how we would know if we had achieved grade-level cohesion on the report card. I was told, “not to worry about it”. Indeed my colleague viewed all professional development as a fad that would be replaced shortly by another trend. So take what you like and move on. I knew that when I was working with my students, I looked at data. I asked the following questions:
These are the very same questions that we need to ask of teachers participating in professional development. If professional development is seen as one and done, it is not surprising that some teachers lack engagement. Imagining that I have completed the Master’s program, I want to continue participating in professional development. I want to utilize what I have learned to implement action research to see if my professional development positively impacts my students. Also, I would like to participate in a district-wide planning committee for developing a curriculum for professional development that would grow communities of teachers within the district that would support collective teacher efficacy and cohesion across grade levels. |
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