9. Professionalism, Leadership, and Advocacy

In my Collaboration and Communication in Special Education Class, we were lucky enough to work with a group called Critter Barn. This is a farm that serves as an educational and hands-on place for people of all ages and abilities. My job was to help with fundraising to make the farm more inclusive for individuals with disabilities. For the purpose of this, my group and I created a PowerPoint/video to spread awareness of what Critter Barn is and how the public can help to fundraise the improvements being made on it. I also put together a fundraiser at my work so that proceeds would go towards Critter Barn. It felt so good to be able to help a place that was put together for a good cause.

This project connects to standard 9, "The competent teacher is an ethical and reflective practitioner who exhibits professionalism; provides leadership in the learning community; and advocates for students, parents or guardians, and the profession", because I worked with the community around me, as well as workers from Critter Barn in efforts to fundraise money and spread awareness about what Critter Barn is all about.

From this experience, I learned that teamwork goes a long way. I had a great team to work with and my group came up with a lot of great ideas. It was a good feeling to be able to help the community around us and help and establishment that does so much for individuals with disabilities.

Elim Christian School Poster

and Presentation

Last year I got the opportunity to present information on how Remote Learning affects Students' Mental Health. It was presented to teachers at Elim Christian School as part of professional development. I created a poster, as picture above, and also a video where I talked about the information I included on the poster. This was during COVID19 where many students were still learning remotely, so I felt it was an important topic to research.

This project relates to standard 9, "The competent teacher is an ethical and reflective practitioner who exhibits professionalism; provides leadership in the learning community; and advocates for students, parents or guardians, and the profession", because I was able to help fellow teachers understand and become informed on a topic that they might not have been up to date on. This not only was helpful for teachers but also parents of students who were learning remotely. Mental health is an important topic so I wanted to bring more awareness to it, especially in the field of education.

From creating this presentation, I learned more about how much of an impact COVID19 had on education and students. I also learned how to present in a more professional way since I had a pretty big audience to relay this information to. It was a good learning experience and I'm glad I had the opportunity to present on a topic that's of such great importance.