Hwai Lin - ILC

Articulating the Intangibles of Teaching: Aligning Your Purpose and Practice for Instructional Leadership

The course “Articulating the Intangibles of Teaching” at HGSE is a GREAT professional development for me. This course helped me to traverse the multiple layers of teaching and pushed me to say it out loud in a transparent and clear way about my mission, my vision framework, my teaching routines, and my thinking process. In week 2, we were introduced to the TRU (Teaching for Robust Understanding) framework developed by Dr. Schoenfeld and we were encouraged to develop our own vision Framework and decide the main domains that contribute to the classroom that we’d like to see. In week 4, we continued our learning with Dr. Bondie to examine our own instructional bases that support our every in-the-moment decision-making process.

I'd like to create an engaging classroom supported by the four domains: The content, Formative Assessment, Equitable Access to Content and the Environment. As for my instructional Base, I have two main categories. One is the Knowledge Base which includes content, pedagogy and tool knowledge. The other is Awareness Base, which reminds me about the importance of relationships.

I think the graphic I created here captures the interconnectedness of teaching in my class.

Teachers Mentoring Teachers: Practices for Powerful Professional Communities

This is the second course I took in the ILC program. What motivates me to participate in this course is my experience of being a mentor in the mentoring program in ACTFL. This experience pushes me to pursue a more professional path to be a supportive mentor.

In this course, we explored what it means to be a mentor. We started from reflecting on our own personal experiences, and then learned research-based theories to polish our skills. And at the end of the course, we built up our own mentor identity and shared resources to expand our own PLN (Professional Learning Network).

My biggest takeaway is to use the cycle of inquiry to train our listening muscles - listen to fully understand. I’ve also developed my own Theory of Action in the course:

If we want to maximize the mentorship experience, then we should focus on both professional and personal growth and needs.
If we can build a self-transforming mindset, then the mentorship can bring out the best of both mentors and mentees. (Through reflection, this is definitely an area that I can continue to work on.)

This chart is a reflection showing how my cultural identity and PLN intersect with my mentor identity.