• Reflections on Leadership Course
  • Who I Am
  • Why “Learn Always”?

Learn Always

~ A blog about teaching, learning, and leadership by Jennifer Rimnyak

Tag Archives: professional learning network

One Word for 2015 – Creativity #oneword

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by jenpieon in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

creativity, goals, growth mindset, instructional practice, leadership, professional learning network, reflection

So I’m definitely a little late to the game (if I can call it that without trivializing the conversation), but tonight I feel inspired to craft my #oneword blog post. I first saw Sue Dunlop’s post on New Year’s Eve, then Aviva Dunsiger’s entry, followed by Vicky Loras, and most recently George Couros. I know there have been other blog posts as well as Twitter statuses by many other educators sharing their #oneword, but these are the four that stand out in my memory so far in terms of diversity of word choice and explanation.

Without much further ado, my word for 2015 is Creativity.

My goal is to continue to be creative in my teaching practice and to push myself even further in this pursuit. My timetable for semester 2 is entirely comprised of courses that are new to me, so this is the perfect opportunity to try new things.

With my leadership course at HWDSB and my participation with my PLN on Twitter I am also hoping to be more creative in a professional and leadership capacity. I am learning creative ways to be a leader and to share my thinking and my growth as a teacher and as a leader with others through conversations, face-to-face or virtual, and more frequent blogging.

Finally, since my students are at the heart of everything that I do, part of my #oneword is to foster creativity in my students to a greater degree. It comes naturally when I teach drama, as it is one of my 6 C’s at the core of the course (Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Concentration, Control, and Confidence). However, I will be teaching different courses next semester and so will be searching out new strategies to encourage creative thinking. I already know that differentiation and student voice and choice will be major factors in this part of my goal, but I am also seeking outside input and ideas for my quest to encourage student creativity in Grade 10 French Immersion and Grade 11 Health and Physical Education.

Thanks to all the #oneword sharers so far, and to all, bon courage with your 2015 goal.

Collaborative Inquiry – Reflections on my Sixth Session of Leadership 1

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by jenpieon in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cross-panel connections, inquiry, instructional practice, leadership, OLF, professional learning network, reflection, shared leadership

For once, I’m actually completing a timely reflection blog post, as sessions 6 just occurred this afternoon/evening! Tonight’s session was radically different for me from Session 5 on Leading Change. While the fifth session was mainly new information and concepts that are somewhat removed from my daily classroom and school experience, session six was firmly rooted in my experiences so far in my teaching career. We explored Collaborative Inquiry, the School Effectiveness Framework, and the Instructional Core, all of which I have been engaging in/with for multiple years now.

The learning for me tonight came from the cross-panel and inter-school discussions of the different forms that Collaborative Inquiry and School Improvement Planning are taking from school to school and from elementary to secondary. As well, tonight’s discussions really pushed me more toward the system view and vision of collaborative inquiry through the lens of the instructional core. My group kept coming back to all of these processes beginning with the students – with student need and with student voice. We drew a bidirectional arrow between the classroom level and the school level of the Instructional Core: student learning need informs teacher learning need which informs school leader learning need and School Improvement Plan; SIP in turn informs school leader practice and teacher instructional practice which comes back to student experience and learning in classrooms. Continual re-evaluation and readjustment are necessary, which is why inquiry is a cycle meant to have multiple iterations, in order for student needs to be addressed.

We also watched a short clip of Dr. Steven Katz on curriculum.org in which he talks about intentionally interrupting the status quo in your instructional practice in order to identify and address student learning needs. Our facilitator shared that the school leader can be that interruptor – he or she can provide the time and space for teachers to be reflective about their instructional tasks and to plan with purpose, always keeping the student at the centre.

After tonight’s session, I’ve realized that I need to revisit my developing final project, which is my personal leadership journey based on the OLF, SAT, and my strengths and growth areas. Although it’s my journey, I definitely have not put students and their needs in the forefront of my thought and initial creation of this personal growth plan. It’s been so energizing to see how much this course makes me think, question, and re-evaluate.

Why Leadership Now? Reflections on My First Session of Leadership 1

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by jenpieon in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cross-panel connections, goals, growth mindset, leadership, professional learning network, reflection, shared leadership

Going into my first night of Leadership 1 through HWDSB, I honestly had no idea what to expect. The facilitators had shared some documents electronically prior to the session that I perused, as well as a list of the groups we would be working in for the duration of the course. Upon first glance, I almost felt disappointed or unsure about my group, as there was only one other secondary teacher, and my group facilitator was to be an elementary principal. My first reaction was worry – would my interactions in this group be relevant enough for my situation? But I took a step back and realized my bias. Cross-panel relationships and connections could be so fruitful and interesting to enrich my perspective, and it is an area in my personal practice that I have not yet truly explored.

I ran with this idea when I arrived at the session and we were asked to contemplate our intentions in registering for this course. Looking around the room, I was easily one of, if not the youngest teacher in the room. So why would a teacher in only her sixth year in the profession be sitting in this course? Here are some of my responses to the questions of Why Leadership? and Why Leadership Now?

1) Networking

Beginning with joining Twitter in October 2012, I have been striving to build a strong PLN. Through the face-to-face contacts made in this leadership course, I can diversify my PLN with cross-panel and system connections.

2) Informal Leadership Roles

I have engaged in some informal leadership roles over my first few years of teaching. I have participated on committees for Numeracy and AER, and I have facilitated PD sessions with small groups and with a whole staff. I am hoping to find more of these opportunities and learn how to better engage other colleagues in the process.

3) Experimenting with Shared Leadership

Coordinated, shared leadership is part of the strategic directions of the HWDSB, and it is a skill that I know that I personally need to further develop. I had several roles as a student leader in university, and as stated above, I have engaged in some informal leadership as a teacher, but my comfort zone is individual leadership. I grew up much preferring to work alone than with others. However, collaboration and working within a team of leaders is essential and is part of today’s educational reality. I hope that through my experiences in this course I can reorient my preference towards shared , team-based leadership.

I am certain that with further reflection I would generate more responses to this question of Why Leadership? , but I landed on the above reasons at the end of my first session. To really address my second question, Why Leadership Now? , I think I would reply that because as a student, I was almost always in leadership positions, and it has felt unusual, and dare I say unnatural, to not be in consistent leadership roles as a professional.

New Semester Resolutions

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by jenpieon in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

goals, instructional practice, learning skills, parent communication, professional learning network, study habits, tests, twitter

In general, I’m not the resolution-making type. I was raised to continually set new goals whenever the opportunity arose and to celebrate my successes along the way. Moreover, January hasn’t held the strong sense of a new beginning for me. Having been a student and now a teacher, I’ve lived on school time for virtually my entire life. For me, September is the month that provides the strongest feeling of beginning, and to a certain extent, February does as well with the start of the second semester in secondary school. The first three years of my teaching career, February was just as much the opening of a new chapter as September because I moved to new schools for each of my first seven semesters. This year (halfway through my fourth year) is the first time I will experience staying at one location for an entire school year, and hopefully put down some roots.

Even with this particular February having less new-ness to it, this time of the year for teachers is like January for most people. With first semester courses wrapping up, we welcome new courses and new crops of students for the second half of the year. It is a natural time to reflect on our practice; our greatest successes, our wishes for do-over lessons or interactions with students or parents, and our thoughts on improvements in our teaching practice should come to the forefront as January draws to a close. Since I am without the distraction of starting at a new school in February and needing to focus on learning new routines, meeting new staff, and finding my niche in an unfamiliar environment, I can for once focus on my own professional practice and how to better myself as an educator for the coming semester. Following are my three resolutions for semester two in the areas of professional development, communication, and instructional practice/AER.

1. Professional Development: Craft a Blog Post once each month and Broaden my Professional Network on Twitter

I started a food and music blog this past August with good intentions. Once September rolled around, it got lost in the sea of teaching three new courses in a new building. I found it again this month and have been posting semi-regularly. My resolution with this new blog project is in the hope that I won’t let it fall by the wayside as I did my food blog in the beginning. I have just started reading education blogs this school year, from which I have learned countless new strategies and techniques in all the domains of teaching, and I have had many of my own practices reaffirmed as being effective. I believe I have something of value to contribute to the online education conversation, and I think that authoring this blog each month will be an opportunity for more regular reflection and personal growth.

As well, as part of my Annual Learning Plan for 2012-2013, I signed up for Twitter with a teacher account. During first semester, I mainly utilized the platform as a method of communication with students. I posted location changes for classes (eg. library, computer lab), reminders about upcoming tests and assignment due dates, and for general positive reinforcement and praise (eg. congratulating my HPE class on their enthusiastic participation that day, or expressing my excitement about my drama class’s monologue performances). Toward the end of the semester, I started following more administrators, colleagues, and professionals in the fields of my subject areas, and in just two months, I have seen the power of growing a professional network. My goal for this semester is to seek out more people in the Twitterverse and interact with them more frequently as opposed to simply reading and learning from their tweets.

2. Communication: Make More Contact with Parents

I think this resolution of mine is a common one for many teachers. With so many responsibilities and items on the to-do list, I find that the one thing I consistently push to the bottom is calling a parent. I’m ashamed to admit that, but part of moving forward and changing my practice is about being honest with where I am right now. My plan for this semester is to be more proactive about informing parents about my website (with a calendar for the semester’s due dates) and my Twitter account to keep them in the loop with what’s going on in my classroom. To assist me in ending my cycle of procrastination with making parent phone calls, my plan is to schedule in time to contact parents each month. I give progress updates to my students every month, sometimes more than once a month, because it is important for them to know where they stand and feel like they have some power over their learning and achievement. I just need to add one more step to this process – calling home to inform parents of progress. I can’t just assume that students will tell their parents how they are doing. As a new teacher, I have been hesitant about having meetings with parents. I worry that they won’t take me seriously, or will try to pressure me because I look so young. But I can honestly say I haven’t yet had a poor interaction with a parent. The bottom line is that teachers and parents are partners in the education of our children. It’s my role to include that partner and inform them of the challenges and successes of their son or daughter.

3. Instructional Practice/AER: Spend More Time Teaching Students How to Study

As high school teachers, we assume many things about our students coming in. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but just like with my admission about my lacklustre parent communication, I’m being honest about secondary teachers as a group. It seems understood that students should arrive in high school with not only the knowledge and skills of the curriculum expectations from elementary school, but also with a set of other school skills, one in particular being good study habits. This, however, is not always the case. Considering also the fact that high school tests are usually longer and more complex than those in elementary school, and that students must write exams for the first time, I think we are doing a vast majority of our students a disservice if we don’t spend at least some time reviewing the fundamentals of how to study.

I realized this one early on – during my first year of teaching in fact. I had a Grade 10 Mathematics class, and their first test was a disaster, despite strong evidence of learning on formative assessments throughout the unit. I had a class discussion about what happened, and we got it down to the fact that most of them didn’t know how to study for a math test. So, I took a break from the curriculum the next day and gave a lesson on study strategies. I talked about how different subjects sometimes require different tactics, and different students will find success studying using different methods depending on their learning style. We developed a checklist together of possible ways to study for our next math test, and I gave every student a copy of the checklist the next day. I then added the checklist at the end of each unit test for students to complete for me and for themselves. This forced students to reflect on their study habits and learn which methods were the most effective for them personally, and it showed them a direct link between studying and success on evaluations. This assessment as learning made my students better learners not just in mathematics, but in all subjects as they added to their toolbox of effective learning strategies.

So if I’ve already done this, why is it my resolution? Well, that story is from my first year teaching, and I’m now halfway through my fourth. I’ve gotten away from using the checklist and discussing study habits with students without really meaning to. I could lay some blame on my courses this past semester, as I only had one traditionally academic subject with tests (Geography) and two with virtually all performance tasks and authentic evaluations (Dramatic Arts and Health & Physical Education). I was reminded of the importance of taking time to teach studying at the end of the semester as I saw the stress of my students attempting to prepare for their first ever final examinations. I took some time in my Geography class during review before the exam to talk study tactics, but it’s something I should have been reinforcing throughout the semester.

I’m inspired now writing this post to come up with a list of other school skills that we expect students to have, such as time management, prioritizing tasks, etc. that would benefit from some revision and reinforcement in the classroom. A lot of teachers would argue that there is not time to teach these skills if we expect to get through the curriculum. I would counter that developing these skills in our students makes them more efficient, effective, and confident learners who have a stronger awareness of how they learn. As such, spending time on these skills can actually facilitate “getting through” the curriculum. My analogy is this: as an English teacher, you wouldn’t simply ask a student to write an essay without first teaching them how to write one. As teachers in any subject, why would we ask a student to write a test without first teaching them how to write a test? I think that’s a point worth pondering.

Now I’ve laid out my three resolutions for the coming semester. Assuming I stick to #1, my plan is to write a follow-up post in June assessing my progress and how well I stayed true to these goals. Then, of course, the process restarts for my new adventure in September.

Fellow secondary teachers (or even elementary teachers – it is halfway through the school year for you also): What are your resolutions for second semester?

Recent Posts

  • To Westdale’s Class of 2016
  • My Favourite – Getting Students Talking to Each Other about Math #MTBoS Week 2
  • One Day at a Time: #MTBoS Week 1 Post
  • Staying Inside the Lines: Reflections on Learning from my Adult Colouring Book
  • How do we teach culture?

Archives

  • June 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • August 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • August 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Tags/Topics

#MTBoS assessment assessment as learning building connections conflict conversations creativity cross-panel connections curriculum debate decision-making FSL goals growth mindset inquiry instructional practice instruction practice interviews leadership learning skills math metacognition OLF oral communication parent communication problem-solving professionalism professional learning network professional relationships reflection self-assessment shared leadership study habits tests tools triangulation twitter

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy