Developing:
Working on the Reflective Practice I have grown through my experience in the TLI practice on how to work with my team to be more reflective in their own practices. I have the opportunity to car pool with one of my team members and through modeling I have been able to get her to look to her practice instead of at the students. We have been able to team to teach summer school and reflect on the skills our students need at the fifth grade level and bring them to the students we are working with to build their knowledge base. My second team member was able to reflect on the struggles of students we have sent on to the middle school in the past and came up with an idea to have a panel of past students from our school give advice and answer questions from our classes. I contacted the administration and we worked together to put the panel together and set up the presentation. I like to think I have moved to a firm Developing in this area. I believe the work I did to build relationships helped to create the conditions to encourage reflections among my colleagues. Although we did not use data to develop strategic plans when reorganizing the orientation visitation we have each year, we did use informal data of past students visitations. These informal visits consisted of them telling us what they wished they knew before transitioning.
Communication
Emerging- Developing
I believe I have improved in this competencies in that I have been able identify the leadership style of my colleagues which has helped me to encourage them to find their voices and work more as a team. I have used ideas they have hesitantly expressed to me and by giving them credit I have helped bring them to fruition. We have a much better collaboration and have worked as a team to get data and behavioral information to the middle school about the incoming fifth graders. We have worked as a team instead of relying on one team leader and have gone to our grade level meetings as a working unit. We showed this by showing a 14% increase in our assessment scores by sharing instructional strategies and encouraging not only each other but the students outside of our own classrooms.
How does the capstone plan regularly engage you in your chosen Pathway Competency?
The capstone plan regularly engages me in my chosen Pathway Competency, Instructional Leadership, by continuing the value I place on professional growth when it benefits not only my personal students but the students of the entire fifth grade and eventually a system which will benefit the school and community. I have worked this year to reflect on my interpersonal skills to establish a trustworthy environment where we can exchange ideas and work together for the best educational opportunities for the students. I have seen this not only with my fifth grade team but also with my instructional coach who has opened up to discussions she usually shut down.
The capstone plan regularly engages my in Collaborating Purposefully due to my colleagues and I having scheduled monthly grade level meetings, monthly grade level meetings with our literacy coach, and impromtu meetings after school. Due to the fact the two teachers I work with are from different places than I grew up, all three of us have had to develop an appreciation and acceptance for our differences in dealing with situations and communications. We have worked together to create better learning environments for our students by valuing their culture.
• How did you personalize the plan for your ongoing professional learning and skill development? I have personalized my plan for ongoing professional learning and skill development by enrolling in some classes focusing on social emotional issues and trauma with students in poverty. In addition I have implemented a Social Wellness curriculum in my classroom so I can work with my students on their behavior to avoid having to work with a team that at this time is not ready to support the students. I find students at my school, and recently I have discovered staff, who lack good examples at how to work through emotions, whether it is happiness or anger. Our school use to have a behavioral specialist but lost her last year and I believe it is an addition to our school that is very necessary and an area I think needs to be focused on in order for our staff and students to be able to feel confident in learning and in understanding each other.
I completed the classes I enrolled in to build my knowledge on socio-emotional issues and will be continuing building my understanding of Trauma Informed and Restorative Justice this summer. I have begun to put together reflective practice lessons for next year as I continue to develop mindfulness and Socio-emotional health through art. I have taken a class to integrate the Indian Education for All Framework into my classroom. I will be attending conferences this summer to develop my scientific knowledge to better integrate it into all areas of my classroom since I know my students do better as active learners.
How do your personal biases and values affect your work and your interactions with others?
My students are facing many struggles that are causing the behaviors and I try not take it personal. I see my job as one of teaching the entire child due to the failure of the family to provided healthy examples. I am presented with push back on this many times because the administrations spends an exorbitant amount of time trying to place blame instead of facing the problem and holding individuals responsible. I believe this is what causes the behavioral team to struggle because many topics that are in the periphery of the student are brought up as the reasoning behind challenging behavior. My value system toward students and my strategy of making connections and understanding students is not always easily accepted and I am working on articulating my belief system in a way that the Native teachers do not feel threatened or that I am argumentative.
I do not believe I have altered my belief system when it comes to personal biases. I still work with students who have trauma and drug affected lives. When they come through my classroom, although I would like for them to brush off the stress of home, they can ‘t. I can only add a support system and an understanding that sometimes life stinks. I work hard to let them know we all experience difficulties in life and I need to be an example of how to deal with stress in a positive way.
As I stated above, I have worked to develop my communication skills with my staff and I work on my communication skills and have moved forward with the middle school to share the importance of student centered goals in instruction and policy outside of the social media they are currently relying on due to the fact the Native families do not have access to many internet devices.
• How does your knowledge of reflective practice impact your leadership work with others? I completed my National Board Certification almost 20 years ago and learned at that time the importance of reflection in teaching. I am constantly reflecting on my lessons and my students and looking at data to decide how my lessons should be structured and how I can support my learners. Sometimes my biggest flaw is my need to reflect on everything. I have reflected on my reflection process with my students and see now I need to use the same process when working with my teachers. Instead of getting angry at what they are or are not doing I need to ask myself why they aren’t and what I need to do to support them from where they are to where they need to be. It isn’t that they don’t want to do a great job, it’s that no one has shown them that they may need to look beyond the pages of a teacher’s guide in order to meet the needs of the students.
Although it may seem obvious that everyone brings their own educational background to the table I didn’t really take the time to reflect on the past of my students and their culture. My administrator with often talk about the trauma of the grandparents, who are raising the students now, and how it affects their opinion of school. I was under the idea that it was in the past. However it is not in the past and it needs to be taken into account when teaching the students. Delving into the transition from elementary to middle school took me far beyond where I thought I was going. I thought the problem stemmed from the integration into a mixed race school, from a school where not only are all the students native, but they have attended the same school together for at least five years. When I began to talk to parents and students I realized parents, or grandparents, do not understand the system of the school or their students plan for graduation. While I am beginning with the transition at the middle school level, the plan is to bring the stakeholders in and begin the educational pathway with them so they can better support the students.
• How will you assist others in using data and reflective analyses to drive practice, policy and organizational decisions? This is an area I am treading lightly in. My second year at my school I asked for more detailed assessment information than just numbers from a reading assessment because we were not allowed to test our own students. My coach was not able to understand why I would want this and a discussion ensued where my administrator told me I was being argumentative. I have learned that questioning has to be done in a very careful and non-threatening way. Our school likes us to do what the curriculum says and look at numbers. As I stated before I realize I need to start where I can and I will support my team in using their data to look at where we need to focus to support our learners and drive our practice. With the help of another teacher, my team has been able to dive deeper into assessments and categorize the areas the grade level is struggling in and go into resources to support specific areas. Our goal is to bring the grade level below us into the conversation and to our grade level meetings but as of now they have not attended. Personal Effectiveness
This continues to be an area I tread lightly. As I look into the graduation data and the data from the middle school showing student retention and dropout rates I see discrepancies in reporting. The data does not show a percentage of students not graduating because they lose a large number of students in their sophmore year. Discussing the retention and credit system at the schools makes it difficult for students to understand they are not moving forward and they need to go into some sort of credit retrieval. The grades and credit system is one most students must tackle on their own. I am hoping with the new administration at the district level I will be able to acquire more accurate data to help see where exactly the issues lie.
My understanding of Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Competence has evolved over this process primarily through the discussion groups. Although I have many activities I am involved with and I can find a million other things to do than attend a webinare on a Sunday night, I have to say it was the best part of the process. I grew in my understanding of inequality across the country. As I listened to teachers from diverse areas such as Georgia and Mississippi, I grew in my understanding of the challenges we all face when it comes to inequality and socially just learning environments. I understand that the teachers, those in the trenches, are gaining this understanding of the importance of acknowledging students personal identity and cultural background in order to build upon these strengths in the education of the students. However, it seems the stakeholders are the last to be listened to and the teachers understandings are falling to deaf ears behind the idea of increasing test scores and suspending students instead of listening to their struggles. My understanding has grown in that these discussions have led me to engage more in self assessment of what I am able to control and take baby steps to move the administration, beyond my school, forward in their understandings.
Mission and vision statement
I am a wife, mother, and a teacher. The belief that everyone can learn and all children deserve the best education we can provide guides my practice. I live with the belief that I can always be better and believe every child should be given the tools to do the same. I hope to become a leader of fellow instructional personnel and instill upon them the belief that all children are created equal but are unique in their background and learning styles. All students deserve their teachers to understand where they come from and how it impacts their education. Students deserve the best we can give them but we too must strive to be better to make them better. During TLI my goal is to acquire the skills to be able to not only grow in my own skills of leadership but to better support my colleagues in becoming leaders in our school. My core values in education are to always put student learning first and to reflect on my instructional best practices to better meet their needs. My ideal reality would be to work in a school where goal setting will help teachers to reflect on their instructional practices so as to better meet the needs of the students and to do what is best for our stakeholders. l instead of what is best for us as teachers. I believe when we are a school full of reflection and digging deep into the needs of our students we will see our students successful as students as well as human beings and we will see our staff building confidence in their practices.
My mission statement has evolved in that I have focused it more on the specific goal of being a leader for my grade level team in structuring a program where students are supported in the transition process from elementary school to middle school. My goal ultimately being to lead the key players in becoming not only trauma informed but trauma sensitive. I have come to realize I can not wait for others and I must move forward in my own understandings in the impact of stress and anger stemming from trauma.
I am happy that my principal is on board for moving forward and has scheduled training in Poverty and a training for School Climate Restorative Practices/Trauma Informed. I am also very happy that key players from the middle school and high school attended the training.