M8U11A1

Thu Nguyen

Cohort 01/2016

M8U11A1

REFLECTION ON INTASC STANDARD 10

If professional development has been focused for a long time, teacher leadership seemed just emerging as an important matter in the education field. In this reflection, I am going to share my first year experience in both areas and how it relates to the two articles in this unit.

Challenges

I do agree with some reasons indicated in the Teacher Leadership-Leading the Way to Effective Teaching and Learning (Barnett Berry, Alesha Daughtrey, and Alan Wieder, Jan 2010) why there are some challenges to have teachers actively in leader positions. The salary and bonus, time, peer pressure, and school policy and culture, in my opinion, are considered as key aspects. In almost countries, teacher’s salary is not attractive and so is the bonus and motivation. It might be not the same everywhere but in many schools, teachers have to pay in full or almost expense for their professional development courses, events, and seminars if they are not assigned by the school. On the other hand, teachers’ priority is for and with students, lesson plans, grades, and reports. In my first quarter, I hardly found time for my family and leisure. Being in leader positions for some fresh teachers may become problematic in terms of peer pressure. That is why I totally agree with Marium Rizvi in her sharing about Middle School Teacher at the School of Integrated Learning (MS 354). Experience and long service may be considered for some leadership positions. Finally, the fact is that the portion of teachers in the school board of directors or district policy makers is still modest, as mentioned in the article Teacher Leadership-Leading the Way to Effective Teaching and Learning (Barnett Berry, Alesha Daughtrey, and Alan Wieder, Jan 2010). It is also true in my school, where teachers are only invited to the open session of the monthly board meetings, but the closed session when the decisions are made excluding teachers. Another truth is that out of ten head counts of the board of my previous school, eight of them are parents who had less and no experience in education as well as school operation. In short, the motivation for teachers to lead the changes is limited in many ways. The top-down model still exists in many schools.

Skill enrichment

There is no doubt that profession development is the proper approach for teachers and ultimately for student’s learning. Taking my own case as an example, I see another “I" after taking the Teach-Now course. Similarly, I am able to prepare more properly my lesson plans, to manage better my classroom time and improve my classroom management skills, to address effectively student’s needs, and to maintain my tone and energy throughout the days. After some extra-hour learning about Atlas, Renweb, and Google site and forms, I have completely different perspective towards my work. I see many solutions for many prior doubts and hesitations, and was truly convinced that technology plays an important role in teaching and learning nowadays.

           

Positive changes

While professional development is fundamental that every teacher looks forward to advance his or her profession, joining leadership team is something not every teacher takes it seriously. I do agree with Marium Rizvi in her sharing about Middle School Teacher at the School of Integrated Learning (MS 354) that serving as a leader strengthens skills, enables new ideas and tools provided that teacher owns or is equipped with leadership skills. Even though I do not support the idea of lunch leadership meeting, I really enjoyed participating in this Lower School decision making team. I appreciated the fact that my voice as a representative of my team was listened and some of my suggestions were considered and approved. I saw myself think and act in a higher level than just focusing on my own subject and caring for my own events.

For example, this year Lower school will change the calendar based on my notice that elementary students spent so many times for night school events. We will apply “all in one” monthly performance by grade in which core subject teachers, PE, music, art, language and IT teachers will work with students for their events. The outcomes are to reduce idle time for students in annual music school performance, to have combine music and art skill in their grade assembly, to minimize unexpected distractions and overloaded facility. Similarly, in order to prepare for such a successful night event, after school activity for students and teachers who involve in organizing or performing will be cancelled; and this will be written in the school handbook.

The evidence for the true collaboration was that our specials team including music, art, PE, and IT teachers were helping each other preparing one of the best exhibition and performance in the past Spring where I had to plan for the whole event, the PE teacher led some students making posters, the IT teacher was in charge of the site despite his MAP busy time, the music teacher could concentrate on rehearsals, and we received many offers of help from other teachers. Similarly, special teachers joined the committee team in many other events like Science fair, Character Day, UN day, African American history week, Francophonie week, and Field day. We enjoyed working with each other and planning for school-wide events.

Passion - Patience – and Vision

Sharing the same vision and passion for all and each teacher remains a challenge. What made me so passionate to accomplish many things in a year was because I love this job. Considering a fresh teacher, I had three-year experience in ECC, four-year homeschooling, and one year in PTO. Serving as a leader of the specials team, I brought many perspectives and pragmatic solutions to our weekly leadership meetings, after many-year observation in the view of parents, mother, and teacher. One of my findings was that each change took so long time to be recognized and for decision to be made. Many good ideas exist but not having a strong determination to make them happen and even to have a trial. We talk about technology integration for so long time but my visual art classroom had one computer for the teacher. Waiting for a trial was not my way of working; I provided my own devices despite the current school policy banned elementary students to bring their devices to school and many doubts that I might break the school rule. The determination and passion overcame these obstacles and made our student’s works a hit.

Another factor was found challenging for teachers of the previous generations, at least in some countries in Africa. They may need more time and training to familiarize teachers with computer relating works and reports, as well as new grading, planning, and behavior management systems. One day in-service may not be sufficient and some teachers find intimidating asking for extra help. What I did was that I had exit ticket for them to fill in and made sure I read and answer each question and schedule my time to sit privately with them, especially when the report time was due. In an effort to bring technology to teaching and help teachers feel easier with it, I collaborated with the IT department to modify the report format, skill codes and definition, and behavior codes. I also found out that grading system was not functional well for planning lessons. Until the administration this problem, teachers suffered using two systems for lesson plans, at the end of the year they were truly convinced to use only Atlas for lesson plan and Renweb for grading and report. Why I mention many changes relating to technology and system is because I believe the school board members are not system users and thus should not involve in making decision. They should be informed which system the teachers use, for the transparency reason, but not the decision makers. It must be teachers who daily use systems decide which ones are friendly used and well-functioning.

Last but not least, I believe any teacher should be given opportunities being leaders and I encourage fresh teachers to bring new ideas and perspectives in looking at and finding solutions for existing problems. As mentioned in Teaching students and teaching each other: The importance of peer learning for teachers. NBER Working Paper 15202. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research by Jackson, C. K. & Bruegmann, E. (2009, July):

“A sophisticated new study has found that schools staffed by credentialed and experienced teachers who work together over an extended time generate the largest student achievement gains. Students of less-experienced teachers who had access to the most accomplished colleagues made the very greatest achievement growth gains.”

I have no objection having students guide by experienced teachers, but not necessarily that less-experienced ones show less delivery. It depends on each teacher’s ability and vision. For example, in this first year working as an art teacher, one of second graders won the top-twelve award by AISA Art challenge in January. The fact was that I incorporated this international theme in my curriculum and therefore all elementary students went through a unit called African Inspired Art and each grade produces different works of art uniquely and creatively. At the end of the unit, even we had to form a committee to vote for only one artwork represented the whole Lower School out of 240 ones but we all enjoyed this journey of learning, while my colleague in the Upper School approached her students differently as an optional choice. As its result, there was only one submission and unfortunately it was not awarded.

In short, if professional development changed me into a more effective teacher and a life-long learner who eagerly looked forward to making changes, then serving as a leader made me more reasonable, mature, and patient. I truly enjoyed this challenge and opportunity.