Teachers link professional growth to their professional goals.

I have always loved to learn. As a teacher, I want my students to experience that learning is truly fun! I want them to be lifelong learners, so I let them see me in this role as well. I share with them when I have professional development training and when and how I collaborate with teachers to improve my teaching skills for them. Recently, I shared with them my plans for next year: I am excited to begin working towards NBCT and a Master's degree - M.Ed. in Language and Literacy. I want to instill in them a sense of "continuous self-improvement and growth;" so it is important to me that I am a model for my students.

This year, in addition to participating in high-quality professional development and regular PLT collaborations, I have focused on improving the impact of my ESL PLT to increase student achievement; increasing the digital competencies of myself and my students to meet the needs of CoVid-19 instruction, post-pandemic learning, and 21st century instruction; and building my capacity with the content that students need to know entering into high school in order to strengthen my content knowledge and improve my skills as an academic language development specialist while remaining up-to-date on ESL best practices. Here are the some of the texts I have read recently (this year) to build my own capacity as an academic language teacher:

• PLC+ Studies

  1. PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, by Fisher, Frey, Almarode, Flories, Nagel

  2. The PLC+ Playbook: A Hands-On Guide to Collectively Improving Student Learning Grades K-12, by Fisher, Frey, Almarode, Flories, Nagel

  3. The PLC+ Activator's Guide, by Fisher, Frey, Almarode, Flories, Nagel

  4. Adaptive Schools Foundation Seminar: Learning Guide

• The Complete Middle School Study Guide: Everything You Need to Ace _____ in One Big Fat Notebook

  1. ELA

  2. Math

  3. Science

  4. World History

  5. American History

• ELA required student readings for grades 6-8

• Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain, by Zaretta Hammond