Hwai Lin - Stanford World Language Project

SWLP: Lesson Design, Thematic Unit Design, Assessment, Technology, Leadership

During my interview, I asked the Department Head (and later my mentor and a very darling friend to me), Lauren Schryver, what would you suggest for PD. She encouraged me to start from SWLP - the Stanford World Language Project. Ever since then, I’ve participated in SWLP every year and now it is like a second PD family to me. In SWLP, local WL teachers choose a strand and a topic to work on and then spend 5 Saturdays together for a year. We learn, bring our own questions, share resources and encourage each other in this path.

I started from Strand A, which is about Lesson Design. I learned about all the fun and engaging magic interactive activities. That was my first time learning about The 3 steps: Into (setting the stage, comprehensive input, check for understanding), Through (guided practice and Independent practice), and then Beyond (Application and Extension).

The second year, I continued with the Assessment strand. Different from the previous one in which we learned a lot of classroom activities, in the Assessment Strand, the instructors keep throwing out thought provoking questions - Should students get a zero? Should participation weigh in the grade book? If so, how much then? What will the grade book be like when we choose the standard based approach? What are pros and cons for each different rubric? We exchanged our thoughts and refined our skills to be able to make the assessment meaningful and informative. And of course, IPAs.

The third year, I chose Thematic Unit Design Strand. In this strand, we focus on backward design and use it to develop the units. Kind of connecting to the Assessment Strand, we also put a lot of work on designing IPAs from the summative one to the mini ones. In this strand, I used Yu Guang Zhong’s beautiful poem 台東永遠在前面 and developed a mini reading lesson which I always see a lot of student engagement in the class.

During the summer right before I started my 4th strand in SWLP, I received an email from the director and was asked if I’d like to participate in the two-year Invitational Leadership Strand. Though I’ve been teaching for quite a long time, I’ve never seen myself as a leader, I was so thrilled and answered yes without any hesitation. Participating in this strand means a lot to me. First, the cohort is amazing. I met so many master teachers who are passionate, caring and knowledgeable. We continue our professional friendship till now. Second, this strand does help me see things in a different perspective. We tried to find our leadership style and explore different ways to support others. It was in this strand that I decided to work on contributing as a presenter and as a mentor.

The sixth year, we've encountered the pandemic. Things have been changing rapidly - the teaching style, motivation, activities, assessments. I’ve realized that I need to update my knowledge on technology to be more efficient, so I attended the Tech strand. The instructors systematically introduced different tools for 3 modes. I am not a fan of technology, and yet I still push myself to try out some new useful tools including Edji.