Leadership Style

We have been focusing on leaders and leadership in our masters program.  One leadership activity that I have enjoyed is a book study.  I choose the book, "Nice Bike," by Mark Scharenbroich.  It is about how to make meaningful connections as a leader.  The book is made up of the author's different experiences with people who are leaders and are making a difference in their own way.  I really like having the opportunity to discuss the book with others and share our own experiences and opinions about the book.  Many of the stories are just quick moments in time where a person is kind and does something to help someone and make them have a better day.  This type of leadership really resonates with me.  My leadership style is not one where I am the one who has the big game day motivational speech that pumps everyone up.  We do need those types of leaders, but we also need the people that do the small things that improve our surroundings.  I like to sit back take in a situation and then help to summarize and support people to solve a problem together.  As a teacher and an educator, I want to be approachable and have people feel they can always come to me for help.  When I walk through the high school halls during passing time, I make eye contact with as many students as possible and smile at them to just do something small to improve a child's day.

Another leadership activity that we did was identify our leadership style.  My style is adaptive assertive.  Some of the things that describe this type of leader are dependable, hard working, and highly organized.  The opposite side of these types of leaders is that they can be compulsive and unimaginative.  For the most part, I think this leadership style matches me.  I don't like to be the leader in front of everyone, I like to be in the background helping everything work smoothly.  I think others see me exhibiting this style of leadership and are able to come to me when they need help or want to know how I have taught a lesson or implemented something in my classroom.  The article describing adaptive assertive leaders give some interesting ideas for this type of leader to consider.  One thing that it says these type of leaders can do is to tolerate chaos and go with the flow.  As I teach longer, I am getting better at allowing controlled chaos happen.  Knowing my leadership style can be helpful as a leader in my classroom and the school because I know my strengths and can apply them in areas that are needed.  Taking the leadership survey was interesting and helpful to see how there are different types of leaders and for communities to work well there needs to be all kinds of people that contribute.

Engagement and AGAPE

       
This semester I am going to improve the engagement in my classroom by involving the outside community in my math and engineering classes.  Students see us each day and we start to become "old news" and separate from what they experience in the outside world and what they see as their future.  In my engineering classes, I would like to bring in electrical engineers for Digital Electronics and pilots or engineers for Aerospace Engineering.  We take two different field trips to the community airport in Aerospace class and it is very beneficial, but so far, I have not done any field trips in Digital Electronics.  Electrical Engineering is a bit of a mystery to many of the students and so if I can give them the experience of what happens in the outside world, they can get a better idea of what it is about and if they would like to pursue that path in college.  In my math classes, it is harder to think about how to involve the outside community.  If I can just start small by using Skype to talk with someone who uses math in their lives, maybe that can grow into something bigger.  I have found that it is much easier to find videos and clips about Aerospace Engineering topics than Digital Electronics or Geometry or Algebra.

Engagement is the final part of the AGAPE framework that we have followed throughout our masters program.  AGAPE has helped me change my frame of mind as I view my classroom.  There are so many different aspects that go into teaching and it is hard to focus on just one thing to improve or change.  By looking at the classroom through each of the five different views in the framework, it has helped me create short-term goals for my classroom.  Instead of trying to make many changes at once, I have chosen just one category to work on and then after that change becomes a habit and part of my everyday teaching, then I move on to another category and make a new improvement.  I think this positively impacts my students because education is always changing and they can experience those changes in a more controlled environment. 

School Schedules

            A classroom practice that I believe should be changed is high school schedules.  Our school district is currently on the trimester schedule where each student takes five classes per trimester.  Each of the core classes (Math, Science, English, and Social Studies) are taken for two out of three trimesters.  I teach in a typical math classroom and also in the engineering program, which is a magnet program within the normal school day, so students are placed together for math, science, and engineering electives at various points in their high school career.  As a program we are able to change the schedule and manipulate it in any way that we feel best serves the students.  I feel I can serve as a leader to move the idea of an alternate schedule forward in this aspect of the high school schedule. 

            One of the problems that we encounter as teachers in the trimester schedule is the student’s schedules have to change radically after each trimester.  A math student almost never has the same teacher from one trimester to the next.  This only gives us about 3 months to get to know each student’s learning style.  I believe the teacher-student relationship is one of the most important parts of student success and this is not enough time to really understand each of our students.

            Another problem is that students only have the core classes for two-thirds of the year.  It may happen that a student has math 1^st and 2^nd tri one year and then 2^nd and 3^rd tri the next year.  Math has a very specific scaffold and it is difficult to take a break from it for 9 months and then continue on at the same level.  

            A final problem is that there is no time built in the school day for intervention.  The students who are struggling just get pushed through the class until they fail or barely pass.  If they are unable or unwilling to come in before or after school, it is very difficult to give them the attention that they need. 

            We have looked at a few different options for alternate high school schedules.  A school in a suburb of Chicago has a rotating schedule where each day is different for each student.  It has times built in to each day that are for meeting with their teachers and working on content that they need help with.  Each day is different and each teacher has different office hours during the day that students may drop in and get help.  If they don’t need help there is areas in the school for studying and working on other work.  This has worked very well for intervention within the school day, but it is a complicated schedule and it puts quite a bit of responsibility on the students to seek help when they need it.  I think it could be modified and work well for our school.

            Another model that I have seen is one that the state of Massachusetts has recently implemented is a split of core classes and elective/lab classes.  One week student are in their core academic classes and then the next week they are in lab classes that consist of electives or science, math, and engineering lab classes.  All students take all core classes all year and are able to fit in more electives along with having the support of all-year-long core classes.  This could also be modified to fit our needs at our school.

            There is no perfect answer to the student-schedule question, but I think with how technology has changed, we need to better fit the current needs of our students.  Hopefully I can be part of that change in our engineering program and then help foster the idea as a whole school or district.  

Backwards Design

Backwards Design (BWD) is a method of planning instruction that we have used in the St. Mary's masters program.  It works almost exactly how the name describes it.  Instead of focusing first on individual lessons, you focus on overall ideas for the unit and then the assessment that will be used in the unit and then finally individual lessons.  The most helpful part of BWD for me is the first stage.  This past summer I took an elective class that focused only on the first stage.  It was helpful for me to look at what I really wanted my students to learn in that unit.  I wrote essential questions and overall enduring understandings more thoroughly and made it more clear for myself what I needed to focus on.  The unit I focused on was for my honors geometry class and it is a fairly simple unit that mainly introduces students to introductory vocabulary that is used throughout the class.  It was really nice to take time to think about how I could enhance that unit with better essential questions.  When I taught it this year, I was able to get students to think about two and three dimensions more deeply.  By planning the unit using the BWD method, I was able to better implement critical thinking in the class, which is one of my goals for the year.   

Action Research Abstract

This action research centers around standards based grading and how it improves student proficiency in two Intermediate Algebra classes.  Through research it was determined that standards based grading consists of separating the grade into standards, basing the grade only on academics, reporting the grade using defined levels of proficiency, allowing students to improve their scores, and communicating the grade in a clear manner. 

Standards based grading was implemented in each class by separating the tests into learning targets and reporting a separate score for each target in the gradebook.  The grade was weighted so that 90% was based on test scores and 10% was based on homework.  Work ethic, extra credit, and participation were not included in the grade.  Students were allowed a chance to improve their grade through retaking individual learning targets after each test. 

For this action research, data was collected in multiple ways.  Students and parents were given surveys regarding pre-conceived notions about grades.  Observations were made about student’s on-task time when given a review focused on improving specific learning targets as opposed to a general review.  Data was compiled showing student proficiency on each exam as compared to student proficiency after retakes had been factored into the grade.  Each of these types of data collection helped to give an overall idea about standards based grading and how it improved student proficiency.   

Presence

Presence is the "P" in AGAPE, which is the Lasallian framework that St. Mary's uses for developing the inner life of a teacher.  I see presence as what a teacher uses to develop a relationship with their students.  It has to with how a teacher is connected to their inner-self with a sense of purpose and confidence.  A teacher with presence works to help their students discover their own inner spirit.  

I think presence is appropriate for semester four in our master's program because we are starting the beginning of our school year and we have to start to build relationships with a whole new group of students.  It is hard to start these relationships and I think it helps to project confidence but also be approachable.  When you are present and honest with students, they begin to trust you and will be able to learn even more.  As the year starts, I keep this in mind and work hard to get to know my students and help them get to know me.  I let them see my inner-self and help them to think about who they are and who they want to be.  

Circles of Self

I did a circles of self activity where I had to choose 5 self-identities and then give up the least important identity one-by-one until I was left with the identity that was most important to me.  This activity was difficult because my identities are part of me and make me who I am.  It is hard to think about giving up friends, family, or interests that are central to my life.  

This activity is interesting to think about in terms of our students.  One of the questions that was asked was thinking about if we force our students to give up one or more of their identities when they come to school.  I hope that we never purposefully make a student give up their identity, but I can see how schools or teachers can do that without knowing it.  To change this, we can focus on getting to know our students and allowing them to talk about themselves and be proud of who they are.  

I also look at this activity and how it applies to my classroom in another way.  Students come to us as teenagers who don't necessarily know themselves.  We, as teachers, have the opportunity to help them decide what is important and what their identities are.  We can tell stories about ourselves and our lives and show our true identities and encourage our students to think about how they want to live and what they want their lives to be like.