The renewal process is a detailed, reflective process not unlike the new Massachusetts' Teacher Evaluation system--a process that calls you to think about your commitment, work, and efforts as an educator.
So, as I responded to multiple prompts and gathered evidence, I thought a lot about where I'm heading in the profession and what I hope to do.
First, it became clear as I worked that my global PLN online and in real time has truly been a professional lifesaver and beacon for me. The books, talks, interactions, and ideas that have most powerfully impacted my work in the last five years have all come from dynamic collegial share. Hence I will continue a routine of daily reading/blogging/commenting, weekly chats, and monthly learning events such as edcamps, conferences, and more.
Next, I realized that my own learning which has accelerated over the past five years has given me a first-hand view of what my student learners face each day. As a learner in the past five years I've tried out new ideas, tools, and processes regularly which has built my speed, resilience, and willingness to reach. I know what it's like to risk, make mistakes, fall down, and pick myself back up, and I know that all that learning really benefits from the help of great coaches, mentors, guides, and leaders. Hence, as a teacher of young children, I want to continue to strengthen my ability to coach, mentor, guide, and lead students as I also continue to learn and grow.
After that, I recognized the significant improvement in my day to day teaching due to a more detailed emphasis on specific goals, strategies, assessment, response, and efforts. The details of our daily work make the difference, and our thoughtful, caring, focused time on task with each student also makes the difference. In this next leg of my teaching career, I hope to focus more on the important details of teaching well--details that inform wonderful learning design; details that help to match students with just-right learning tools, strategies, and processes, and details that create a dynamic classroom culture and learning choreography.
Further, the area of collaboration continues to be a challenge. As I mainly work in isolation with still very little time for meaningful collegial collaboration in a system that still mostly represents a traditional school structure, adequate time and openness for meaningful collaboration still does not exist. Yes, we have time to meet, but the old time structures prevent what we could really do to boost our schools as collaborative teams. Educators need more time to hear each other in the school setting. We need to stay focused on learning, benefit from each other's knowledge and strengths, and support each other's challenges. Research related to what's best for children has moved way past the factory, assembly-line school model of learning, and it's necessary for schools to think outside that model to foster the best possible education for every child with purposeful collaboration. We have to look more deeply at our collaborative work and cull the essential elements that lead to apt student service and growth, and eliminate the elements that do not serve our work well.
My role in this regard will be continued advocacy, effort, and creativity as I look for ways that I can contribute to better collaboration and model changes--changes that will bring about more dynamic collaboration and teaching. This year, our school did model what's possible with a well planned, collaborative, multigrade effort related to writing. The elements that made the writing focus succeed included the following:
- meaningful, purposeful focus on student learning
- solid, backend planning
- lead time and focused time to collaborate
- the help of a qualified, respectful consultant
- a beginning to end, multi-day plan, not just a one-session share
- regular online collaboration and share
Finally, as I wrote, I realized that my goal for the next leg of my career continues to focus on serving children well. With that in mind, I will focus on the following actions:
- Classroom choreography and learning design to best meet the standards and students' learning needs and interests.
- Continued research and learning about the science of learning.
- Continued outreach to outside agencies, experts, and ideas to grow the classroom program.
- Increased attention to STEAM efforts in the classroom.
- A focus on the details that contribute to successful teaching and learning.
I hope my renewal application is well received. After multiple hours of crafting the essays, collecting evidence, and reviewing my work, I must say I was a bit dizzy by the end of it. One can only assess one's one work so much, and I reached a stopping point in that regard. Hopefully, it's a stopping point that satisfies the reviewers, and leads me to another ten years as an NBPTS certified teacher.
Note:
In the fall of 2014, I happily received notice that my NBPTS certification was renewed.
Note:
In the fall of 2014, I happily received notice that my NBPTS certification was renewed.
