Caring, Collaborative Leadership

URBAN LEARNER-TEACHING RESIDENCY REFLECTIONS -  
Week 8 - Triad Two

Monday 11/19/12 to Friday 11/23/12, 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM

Leadership, Collaboration and Ethics

Area of Concentration:

Specific SEPT Element – Area of concentration: Leadership Collaboration, Ethics
Culturally Responsive, Collaborative Urban Classroom Leadership


"Schools must forge greater relationships with the wider 
community, parents and other schools. Too many schools 
are working in isolation. Schools need to share their power 
with students and the wider community."

-- Fullan and Hargreaves

 

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better, it's not."

-- Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

Leadership
(Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium)

Leadership, as defined by InTASC Standards refers to attributes of the teacher that include but are not limited to:

1) a view of the teacher’s role in education as multifaceted;

2) a keen sense of ethical responsibility to advance the profession while simultaneously advancing knowledge, skills, and opportunities for each learner;

3) a deep commitment to teaching
that includes a willingness to actively engage in professional development to expand knowledge about teaching and learning;

4) a willingness to take on the mantle of leadership in the classroom and among colleagues without a formal title;

5) a recognition of when to lead and when it is appropriate to allow others to lead;

6) knowledge of when and how to marshal a variety of stakeholders to work toward a common cause;

7) an ability to regularly garner resources, both human and other, for the betterment of the students and the school; and

8) the ability to make sound decisions based on the appropriate use and interpretation of quality data and evidence. Teacher leaders function well in professional communities, contribute to school improvement, and inspire their students and colleagues to excellence.


Critical Dispositions Matrix

This week’s experiences highlighted five critical dispositions related to Leadership, Collaboration and Ethics:

• Teacher actively shares responsibility for shaping and supporting the mission of his/her school as one of advocacy for learners and accountability for their success.
  
• Teacher respects families' beliefs, norms, and expectations and seeks to work collaboratively with learners and families in setting and meeting challenging goals.
  
• Teacher takes initiative to grow and develop with colleagues through interactions that enhance practice and support student learning.
  
• Teacher takes responsibility for contributing to and advancing the profession.
  
• Teacher embraces the challenge of continuous improvement and change.

Culturally Responsive Framework

Four markers that align Culturally Responsive Teaching to Leadership, Collaboration and Ethics have been underscored by this week’s experiences:

• Develop creative and effective ways to learn about student’s lives and interests.
  
• Adopt a “cognitive coaching” stance to teaching; model and highlight -- in course readings and discussions -- the thinking, ways of making arguments, and use of academic rhetoric.
  
• Use self-assessment to engender student understanding of their attainment and on-going development toward competence.
  
• Monitor Progress and Plan Interventions

Implications for Practice

Week 8, the final week of this practicum’s second triad, was a good week for reflecting on the aspects of education leadership that take the teacher out of the classroom. I find great value in the opportunities to interact with people in after-school and community activities.  The teaching demands of the practicum do not leave much time for these sorts of things, so organization and pre-scheduling is critical.

The practicum would likely benefit from a permanent, four-day teaching schedule with one day set aside to pursue outside community involvement.

Key implications toward a practical
Framework for Excellence in Urban Classroom Leadership:

• Build relationships of respect
  
  
  
• Forge Relationships with families
  
  
  
• Expect excellence and reward it
  
  
  
• Support students in goal setting for projects

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Learning Strength, Patience and Passion

URBAN LEARNER-TEACHING RESIDENCY REFLECTIONS
Week  7 - Triad Two

Monday 11/12/12 to Friday 11/16/12, 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM

Learners and Learning:
Student Learners

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

-- Harriet Tubman

Area of Concentration: Student Learning

Developing the adolescent urban learner’s strength, patience and passion -- in order to bridge the education and opportunity achievement gap

Specific SEPT Element – Provide learning opportunities that support a student's intellectual, social, and personal development.

Report on specific control students – SOUL Focus

Critical Dispositions Matrix

This week’s experiences highlighted four critical dispositions related to Student Learning:

• Teacher respects learners' differing strengths and needs and is committed to using this information to further each learner's development.
  
• Teacher is committed to using learners' strengths as a basis for growth, and their misconceptions as opportunities for learning.
  
• Teacher takes responsibility for promoting learners' growth and development.
  
• Teacher values the input and contributions of families, colleagues, and other professionals in understanding and supporting each learner's development.

Culturally Responsive Framework

Three markers related to Culturally Responsive Teaching and Student Learning have been underscored by this week’s experiences:

• A respect-filled learning environment where all teachers and subjects "reflect a multicultural perspective"
  
• Instructional planning that accounts for multiple literacies and supports linguistic diversity
  
• Learning strategies that activate and celebrate cultural knowledge

Implications for Practice

Week Seven of my practicum was one of my hardest and busiest weeks. I anticipated that, so I was very prepared. . . . Teaching all day is very emotionally exhausting. What I am learning is that progress is slow – so slow it’s hard to see at times. Here, patience isn’t just a virtue, it’s a tool. Patience must be wielded and artfully employed!

Student-teaching requires the academic skills for self-directed study and a ready capacity for active reflection. Preparation and practice of this specific skillset has never been addressed in the teacher prep program. Certainly, acquiring these personal learning skills is equal in importance to grasping education psychology concepts or theories of student learning.  Just as there are diverse learners, there are diverse learner-teachers. Very few students are naturally self-directed, active reflectors.  The practicum experience could be an overwhelming, or even threatening learning environment for some people.

Written reflections are only useful if they lead to action. The action is only useful if it empowers more thinking – through websites, reports, graphs, slideshows, etc. By pre-planning and “preflecting” on specific urban teaching standards and practices, and associating them directly with the production of specific artifacts, I find I am able to actively reflect on both process and progress.

I conclude that the student-teaching practicum greatly benefits from this pre-structuring. The TPA assignments should be incorporated – or better yet, abandoned altogether – so that the urban learner-teacher concentrates on the actualization or realization of reflected experiences and events. Each week’s preflection asks, “What can you learn about what you know?” in a particular domain of practice. The answer directs the production of an artifact.

Key implications toward a practical
Framework for Excellence in Urban Classroom Leadership:

• Expect excellence and reward it.
  
  
  
• Be a patient insister and a “warm demander.”
  
  
  
• Recurrently make behavior expectations explicit and assess those established goals.
  
  
  
• Activate metacognition, particularly through use of rubrics and reflection activities.
  
  
  
• Motivate learners with activities that seem pertinent and goals that seem possible.
  
  
  
• Provide goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback.
  
  
  
• Provide Culturally Mediated Instruction.
  
  
  
• Teach the “Hidden Rules” of School.
  
  
  
• Have learners identify their prior knowledge and understandings of key concepts, issues, or content, and how those things are understood in their culture/community.
  
  
  
• Reflection is action!

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Linking Content to Learners

URBAN LEARNER-TEACHING RESIDENCY REFLECTIONS
Week 6 -- Triad Two

Monday 11/05/12 to Friday 11/09/12, 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM

Content - Subject Matter
Relating Content to Diverse Learners

Area of Concentration: 
Specific SEPT Element Subject Matter

A teacher must understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of Communication Arts and be able to create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.

Connect disciplinary knowledge to other subject areas and to everyday life

Evaluate teaching resources and curriculum materials for comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usefulness for presenting particular ideas and concepts

Critical Dispositions Matrix

This week’s experiences highlighted two critical dispositions related to Subject Matter:

• Teacher is committed to work toward each learner's mastery of disciplinary content and skills.
• Teacher realizes that content knowledge is not a fixed body of facts but is complex, culturally situated, and ever evolving. Teacher keeps abreast of new ideas and understandings in the field.

Culturally Responsive Framework

Four markers related to Culturally Responsive Teaching and Subject Matter have been underscored by this week’s experiences:

• Model cultural competence
• Establish ground rules with learners for the discussion of controversial or sensitive topics
• Consistent incorporation of culturally relevant classroom materials
• Enhance meaning

Implications for Practice

My sixth practicum week was very challenging and very rewarding. While I see the constraints in the district’s Focused Instruction model for classroom teachers, I also see a great value in it for the student teacher. Since, creation of my own untested and possibly unsuccessful lesson is not a pitfall in this particular practicum, I am able to concentrate on delivery of content – without fear of failure due to faulty instructional design.

Far from being restricting -- the imposition of a set, unit lesson plan is determined to be a liberating condition, freeing the student-teacher to focus fully on the learners and the learning.

Key implications toward a practical
Framework for Excellence in Urban Classroom Leadership:

• To be engaging, urban learners must see an activity as both, relevant and doable.
  
  
• Use analogies or metaphors from everyday life to help illustrate abstract concepts.
  
  
• Increase the amount of time urban learners spend in collaborative and cooperative group work.
  
  
• Carefully and constantly evaluate curriculum and classroom materials for comprehensiveness, accuracy, and bias.
  
  
• The research-based understanding of motivation (Lambert and McCombs, 1998) is that it is part of human nature to be curious, to be active, to initiate thought and behavior, to make meaning from experience, and to be effective at what we value. These primary sources of motivation reside in all learners, across all cultures.

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Planning on Achievement

URBAN LEARNER-TEACHING RESIDENCY REFLECTIONS
Week 5 -- Triad Two

Monday 10/29/12 to Friday 11/02/12, 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM

Learners and Learning:
Diverse Learners

Area of Concentration:
Specific SEPT Element – Planning Instruction

Preparation of lessons that are clearly based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, and curriculum goals.

Planning instruction includes:

o    Planning for Diversity
o    Planning in Collaboration
o    Planning to Maximize Learning
o    Planning for Adjustments

Planning instruction involves using contextual considerations that . . .

o    Bridge curriculum and student experiences
o    Accommodate individual student learning styles and performance modes
o    Link to student needs and performance


Research source: Focused Instruction

Understanding by Design
UbD
(Wiggins & McTighe, 1998)

Critical Dispositions Matrix

This week’s experiences highlighted four critical dispositions related to Planning Instruction:

• Teacher respects learners' diverse strengths and needs and is committed to using this information to plan effective instruction.
   
• Teacher values planning as a collegial activity that takes into consideration the input of learners, colleagues, families, and the larger community.
   
• Teacher takes professional responsibility to use short - and long-term planning as a means of assuring student learning.
   
• Teacher believes that plans must always be open to adjustment and revision based on learner needs and changing circumstances.

Culturally Responsive Framework

Four core markers related to Culturally Responsive Teaching and Planning Instruction have been highlighted by this week’s experiences:

• Instructional planning that accounts for multiple literacies and supports linguistic diversity
• Curriculum content that avoids bias and reflects the contributions of all cultures
• Learning strategies that activate and celebrate cultural knowledge
• Developing attitude

Implications for Practice

My practicum week was a high quality learning experience. It is an extremely busy but rewarding week. I am learning a great deal about planning instruction for the reality of the urban school schedule.

Student-teaching requires balancing one’s own academic and professional concerns with concern for the learners. Three months is a goodly amount of time and strong relationships with learners are established. The students come to know you and expect you to be in class with them. There is a natural tendency to want to help the dozens and dozens of learners in need. However, fulfilling the practicum and licensure requirements is also a central need – and there simply is not enough time to do everything.

I find that I am forced to be very selfish with my after-school time. I know I would greatly benefit from exploring after-school classes, PTA meetings and community activities. But my schedule will not permit it. “Burning the candle at both ends” and skimping on sleep is absolutely not an option. Working with young people is physically, emotionally and mentally draining. In order to pass any and all tests of patience, the urban educator must be well-rested, healthy and emotionally whole.

While a sustained, 12-week practicum makes a certain amount of sense in terms of occupational evaluation and workplace suitability, it is actually counter to the overall professional teaching purpose: linking content to students and the deepening of student understanding. A three or four-week classroom visit allows student-teacher, cooperating teacher, and learners to limit their involvement. Beyond a month or so, the practicum visitor is forced to engage as a permanent part of the learning community. One is not just a substitute teacher, or college assistant, but a trusted resource and good friend. Unfortunately, the practicum schedule is not student-friendly. In a few months, I will drop out of their classes and out of their lives.

Out of the blue -- a young African American male student asked me: “Are you coming back next week?” I said, “Of course I’ll be back.” It broke my heart when he asked, “Are you ever not coming back?” A few other students have begun to ask questions about if and when I would leave them. I interpret them to be judging what level of commitment they should be making to someone who is with them every day now and who is clearly more than just a visitor or temporary assistant. They rightly want to know if they can continue to depend on me.

In their report, Responding to the Needs of At-Risk Students in Poverty (http: www.usca.edu/essays/vol172006/mckinney.pdf ), SueAnne McKinney and Charlene Flenner write: 

Concentrated poverty, family instability, and early exposure to violence are but a few hardships typical of growing up in an urban environment. From an early age urban children are confronted with a series of obstacles in their attempts to meet academic, personal, and social success. Urban teachers need to be conscious of and understand the ecology of the environment that has a profound influence and impact on the urban child’s success in school.

Research tells us -- urban learners need stability and continuity. In order to grow and learn, they need to feel safe. A safe environment is a predictable one.

Popping into these learners’ lives for a quarter and then disappearing, is contrary to best practices. Two short sessions – with a few weeks off in-between, for reflection -- would be a far more advantageous schedule for the pre-service and cooperating teachers, and most especially, for the learners.

Children are not lab mice – available for experiments and research! This is real for the students. This is their sixth grade year. They will advance and achieve and connect this year – or they will not. Whole families, neighborhoods, and even whole communities may be changed by the connections made by any one of these sixth graders! The last thing quality urban educators want to do is have young folks start to see their educational institutions as a place where people they trust, come and go – a place where taking risks doesn’t pay off because nobody is consistently there for them.

In support of my firm belief that the personally-directed and occupational advancement-driven 12-week practicum should be – at least – halved into two, 6-week internships, I cite the following language from the Code of Ethics for Minnesota Teachers - Standards of Professional Conduct:

A teacher shall not use professional relationships with students, parents, and colleagues to private advantage.

I further cite the following factors of Henderson & Milstein’s (1996) “resiliency wheel” which serves as an outline for the process of building resiliency: supportive bonding among members; consistent caring and support; the provision of opportunities for meaningful participation.

Key implications toward a practical
Framework for Excellence in Urban Classroom Leadership:

• Urban teachers need to model resiliency and “. . . move from the knowledge of their own resilience to the practice of building resilience in the classroom” (Dill & Stafford-Johnson, 2004, p. 2).
  
   
• Provide complex, authentic opportunities to explain, interpret, apply, shift perspective, empathize, and self-assess.
  
   
• Employ effective curriculum development that reflects the three-stage “Back-Mapping” design process of standards tied to activities and assessments.
  
   
• Conduct regular reviews of results (achievement data and student work) followed by targeted adjustments to curriculum and instruction.
  
  
  
• Remain aware that teacher expectations can and do affect learners’ achievement and attitudes
  
  
  
• Practice “active teaching” -- teaching that is responsive to learners’ needs and interests

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