All the techniques and methods I have listed thus far are situated within the assumption that my instruction is guided by rigorously planned, backwards design. As I reenter the classroom this fall, I will be taking the planning templates and guidelines I have gained from CNM's ATL program and folding them into my daily practice as a teacher. McTighe and Wiggins' UbD framework is also being furthered by the scholarship of cultural and linguistic responsiveness and the psychological and social influences to how, why, when, and whether or not our students learn.

As this class comes to a close, I am still processing a lot of information in regards to the aforementioned subtopics of educational scholarship. I feel very lucky to be entering this field because I know I am standing on the shoulders of countless educators, administrators, and scholars who continue to reimagine and design what effective teaching looks like.

In short, all of the techniques and pedagogical practices I have included in this FWSP are centered around meeting the diverse needs of my students. I am also working to ensure my students that my classroom is a safe, positive, and productive learning environment where they should expect to be challenged and treated as full humans. The integrated roles of classroom management, CLR, backwards design, and high-quality and research-based instructional practices can be overwhelming to consider in its entirety. However, I know I am never alone in this work.

I have incorporated a lot of culturally and linguistically responsive practices into this FWSP and I am excited to continue to grow my CLR toolbox as the year go on.

Below are a few CLR practices I will implement in my classroom:

1. Call and Response Attention Signals ("When I say listen, you say up!")

2. Whip Arounds where every person in the class has to respond with a brief answer

3. Validating, Affirming, Building, and Bridging students to high-expectation academic culture all day, every day

4. Choosing culturally relevant texts and resources in my curriculum writing

5. Avoiding negative and neutral words and terms like "right way" "wrong" "tolerate" and "next time" and focusing on positive ones like "honor" "value" and "empathize"

6. Using resources (such as Native-land.ca map below) created by Indigenous peoples to inform our understandings of settler colonialism and land dispossession

7. Bilingual letters home to parents (and multilingual depending on my student family home cultures)

8. Sentence stems and sentence frames to support all students but especially English learners with a lower proficiency level

9. Three R's and Three P's - Rapport, Relationship, and Respect / Positive Proactive, and Preventive Procedures as part of my behavior norms and response to behavior

10. Incorporating New Mexico's complex cultural and historical context into my curriculum, with a focus on how our intersectional identities inform and convolute how we understand ourselves in relation to status like nationality and citizenship, race, class, and gender.

Gosh... I've learned so so much this semester. This class has really helped me fill some mental gaps between designing quality curriculum and implementing research-based instruction. I have always known the power of creating norms in the classroom (see A Lesson From Summer Camp on Positive Behavior Expectation page for more), but this course took that understanding to another level on how to include, and center, my students' voices in that process. I also liked learning about mentioning voice levels and being explicit about what voice/noise level I am expecting for any given activity. And of course with that, thinking about how to apply Lentfer's Voice-Movement-Task model in my lesson planning and classroom layout.

The list below is taken from my digital notes of this class to showcase the scope and variety of things I have learned and will continue to develop my understandings around as I move forward:

1. Class norm ideas

2. Effective teachers 10 tips on what works and doesn't

3. Identity lessons

4. Community building activities

5. Rings of culture

6. 50 strategies to boost cognition

7. Project Zero thinking routines

8. Climbing out of the gap

9. CLR and the mind / Ready for Rigor framework

10. What is classroom management?

11. Standards and Norms

12. CLR Chalk Talk

13. How to turn powerpoint onto ebook

14. Routines and procedures

15. Culture of learning video notes

16. Oracy framewrok

17. Punitive or Restorative

18. School Climate

19. VABBing

20. Effective Praise

21. Kids do well if they can

22. Restorative Justice practices

23. Mapping behavior

24. CLR and family engagement

25. Writing your teaching philosophy

26. Reflecting teaching

27. Lifelong learning PD opportunities

There are so many areas I would like to continue to grow professionally. Some of the main areas I want to work on are:

• Developing project-based units and assessments

• Incorporating Abolitionist teachings into my curriculum and making authentic project-based assessments that include community based initiatives to address the ongoing harms of the prison-industrial-complex. One way I have been aiming to develop this specific interest of mine is by attending a few webinars hosted by the organization Abolitionist Teaching Network that was founded a year ago by author and educator Bettina Love. I hope to be able to attend in-person conferences hosted by this organization in the future.

• Applying restorative justice practices in my classroom management and student advocacy

• Getting a Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages endorsement

• Supporting English learners in a multitude of ways building off my understandings gained from the book "Unlocking English Learner's Potential" by Fenner and Snyder

• Honing a variety differentiation techniques to improve my ability to offer accessible and rigorous content for ALL of my students

I worked my butt off on this First Weeks of School Plan, especially for the six sections in which I received an "Innovating" grade on. I would estimate that I spend an average of 6-8 hours each week just on constructing the class context, teacher intro, positive behavior expectations, routines and procedures, culture of learning, and family communication plan respectively. There isn't much else to say to why I think I should receive an A in this course beyond the fact that I followed the directions and rubrics and really strived to create truly innovative and thought provoking content this semester. Further, my instructor, Jennifer Chavez Miller, gave me amazing feedback on my work this semester. With that being said, I am going to let her words on my work speak for itself.

Innovating sections with instructor feedback:

1. Class context

"Hi Adam - this is the most comprehensive review of students in New Mexico that a student has put together. It helps to tell part of the story of who we are/ who are students are in NM.

With your experience as a teacher, you've identified key sources and strategies from which to draw to learn about your students.

Yeah, I'm kind of speechless, reading through this document. Thank you for your work to put this together.

Kudos on completing this first FWSP component!"

2. Teacher Introduction

"Hi Adam - thanks for putting together your teacher intro in multimedia and bilingual formats (and the quiz! I'm curious about the answers!) It's nice to learn more about you, too.

I appreciate your reflection on the rings of culture and your taking time to think through each ring. I appreciate, too, your orientation as an abolitionist educator, I'm a fan of Bettina Love and the liberatory framework that we can bring to our classrooms.

The decisions we make on what information to share with our students is deeply personal in many ways, just as students make decisions what to reveal to teachers/ classmates at school. This self-awareness is the intention behind this reflection.

Excellent work here!"

3. Positive Behavior Expectations

"Yeah - this is amazing. Engaging, practical, ambitious, compelling and even provocative.

The liberation of failure!

Gorgeous work here. Truly."

4. Routines and Procedures

"Hi Adam -

Your classroom and routines procedures plan looks great! It is detailed, thorough, proactive, positive, and even engaging.

Kudos, again!"

5. Culture of Learning

"Adam - I'm always compelled and rather captivated by your advocacy for liberatory pedagogical philosophy.

The routines and protocols you reference here can be brilliant levered on behalf of rigor and collective, community-drive learning.

Beautiful work here. "

6. Family Communication Plan

"This last plan that you'll submit before your final FWSP looks great!

Kudos on working through this and all the other components! You're all set to complete your FWSP!"

'Nuff said...