In years past, I wrote a lot about this topic often as I was trying to determine what components made up my job. I was looking for greater definition.
I've noticed that State initiatives and system-wide evolution have better defined my job, and there are more supports in place. For the most part, this has been a positive step forward.
Communication
The state website has always been good, and now it is getting better. Almost any information I want related to standards, learning design, Statewide initiatives, and future plans can be found there. The Commissioner writes an update once a week which I find serves to lead my work in ways that match the State's direction.
Further, my building principal also writes a weekly memo which helps with respect to staying on top of the work that is expected.
My partner teacher and I also write a weekly memo to our learning/teaching team. We host the newsletters on a website for easy reference and share. Most of my colleagues do this as well, and I can catch up on what is happening in the school by reading their weekly memos. I also find it interesting to think about how the newsletters vary with regard to voice, content, and format. By reading colleagues' memos, I find ways to improve my own outreach.
Communication is good, and I even long for more share as I believe the more everyone knows about the initiatives, values, and direction a system or State is moving in, the better we can align our work and effort to those goals.
Support
After many years of change, our support model has taken shape with regard to personnel and scheduling. For example all teaching teams belong to a professional learning community (PLC) that meets once a week--that's the time when most of the big grade-level issues and initiatives are discussed amongst teachers, leaders, and coaches.
Our coaching model has taken shape too. For English Language Arts, the coaches both teach and coach teachers, and for Math, the coaches mainly work with teachers. Recently our curriculum leadership teams created websites which I find very useful as I navigate the standards at a new grade level. Professional development is taking on more focus with the introduction of SRSD and other specific approaches related to learning. Progress monitoring is embedded into our yearly routine with a number of standardized tests and more informal reviews. Of course the move to PARCC this year will bring more change, but the fact that we have teams and structures in place will make that change smoother than past changes.
My Role
My role clearly includes the following:
Create Classroom Community
It is up to me and my partner teacher to support an engaged, happy, empowered classroom community. Through individual, small group, and whole class coaching in a number of ways we can support this goal.
Teach the Standards in Engaging, Empowering Ways
The community I teach in and the educators I work with clearly support a standards-based curriculum. Everyone wants students to do well on standardized tests. I have studied the standards with some depth and I do believe that the standards at my level lead to a solid academic foundation for students. The challenge here is how to teach those standards with depth and care so that students are learning in dynamic, student-centered, brain-friendly, engaging, multi-modal ways---ways that respond to the large variety of learners in our midst. This is where knowing the students well and apt learning design becomes paramount.
Learning Design and Feedback
When I'm not on task with students, my main directives are to design learning well and provide focused, supportive feedback. While teaching, I provide a lot of feedback, but I also need to respond to student work on a regular basis. I will mostly do this with projects and assessments. My feedback will help students understand what they've learned to date, and what their next steps are?
Contribution to the Learning Community
Since I'm part of the school community, I have an obligation to contribute. We have numerous teams at our school, and I will take part in some of those as one way to contribute. I also share my research on a regular basis in writing and via conference presentations. This year, however, since I've changed grades and room, most of my professional learning time will be devoted to learning the new curriculum and serving my students well as that's my first charge.
In the past few years, I've shared many ideas for school community growth and change. Some ideas were embraced and adopted, and others were not accepted. I'm glad I did this because the changes that have occurred have helped me to do a better job, and as for the ones that were not accepted, you're not always going to get your way, and if those ideas remain important, in time, I'll share again.
Our PLCs offer a time to learn of other teachers' ideas for positive change, and that's one aspect of PLC I look forward to each week.
Well organized learning/teaching communities with clear roles, research and development efforts, good communication, opportunity for contribution and voice from all members of the learning team (families, students, educators, leaders, citizens), regular meetings and share, and continued growth are dynamic organizations for student learning. These are the kinds of organizations where both teachers and students thrive.
