Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Tag: teaching

  • Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams

    If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn – Charlie Parker
    Ok, it’s way about time I take a good hard look at my wishes, hopes, and dreams. How can I move towards a better future unless I define what I wish, hope, and dream for it?

    I know that I can be a good leader. I’ve been floating for the past month or so though. I’ve been letting things slide in my classroom, I’ve been hiding from my work, I haven’t been digging deep into the planning of what my students need or what I need.

    On Monday I will be back to teaching after this holiday break, and on Tuesday I will be back in the classroom myself as I begin my PhD studies.

    My wishes, hopes, and dreams?

    Courage – to keep pushing the envelope with my kids and myself. To not let ourselves get too comfortable because I know that true learning needs discomfort. And to stand up tall in the discomfort and plug away even harder.

    Strength – to keep my vision clear and to not let it be chipped away by criticism (“that’ll never work”)

    Structure – to keep my focus I will need to build and maintain a solid structure to help balance my PhD work, my work with the kids, my personal life

    Fun and Laughter – without that, all else is useless :)

    buddha watching over Fern

    I’ve also been thinking of a recent conversation I was in over at EdTech Journeys about coaching. I love the coaching I receive from my online community, but I also feel the need for some personal interaction – a phone call, a meeting over coffee…on some days over something a bit stronger.

    One of the wonderful things about blogging is communicating with others all over the world. I realize, though, that I have not encountered anyone else from Montreal here! It’d be lovely to meet with some of my blogging friends in person, to add another dimension to the reading/writing relationship that I cherish, to add depth to the conversations, to add some soul.

    I’ll leave this post now, thinking about how to turn that last dream into something real…and welcoming any other suggestions…feeling reflective at the beginning of this new year
    Tracy

    Metamorphosis, no better metaphor for this.
    ~Invincible

    mp3 No Compromises originally downloaded from: FREE THE P! Palestine Takes NYC’s East Village by Storm, article by Remi Kanazi, The Electronic Intifada, 17 October 2005 is from www.freethep.com compilation which is a fundraiser for the film Slingshot Hiphop ! Many thanks to Invincible for allowing its use here.

     

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  • Collaboration for student success: teachers and para-educators working together

    **Kartoo Visual search for paraeducators**
    (type paraeducator in the search field, click on the mindmap key)

    The idea of extra help in the classroom is becoming more and more a reality for many classroom teachers. As we move away from stand alone resource room models towards inclusion for students with needs there is a recognition that para-educators play a crucial role in improving student achievement and success in the classroom (NEA).

    Though I believe we are moving further away from the traditionally accepted role of the classroom teacher as the ‘sage on the stage’ in his or her classroom, we are far from able to say that the role is historical fact. It still exists in many classrooms. And even when it doesn’t, it can be very intimidating for a teacher to have someone come into their classroom. It is hard to share a classroom with another educator.

    Last year I worked with a group of educators – teachers, teaching assistants (para-educators), and administrators – from different schools in Montreal in professional development sessions under the heading, Collaboration for Student Success/Travaillons Ensemble pour un Meilleur Rendement Scolaire. Here are some of the ideas we generated as we explored how to guarantee successful teacher/paraeducator collaboration.

    We looked at Context.

    • Quebec curricular reforms place the student at the centre of the curriculum and teachers are expected to differentiate their instruction based on the student profiles in their classrooms.
    • We are talking more and more of teaching teams where, under the Quebec Education Act, the teacher is the ‘premier intervenant’ – or the first speaker – for a student’s educational rights.
    • Our classrooms are becoming more and more diverse, with a variety of needs (from special to gifted and everything in between).


    The context led us to develop an Essential Question

    How can I, the teacher, make an effective intervention in the lives of the students in my classrooms with the tools I have (and by the way, just what are those tools?)

    This question led us to develop some Common Definitions. Most importantly, for this discussion, we spoke of the tools that were available to us and we decided that the most important were people: our colleagues and consultants. We also searched for a common definition of collaboration and we decided that in order to effectively collaborate we had to have a shared vision for the classroom. We had to begin to pay attention to the same things in our classroom in order to be able to learn from the phenomena in our classrooms and to be able to plan accordingly.

    The first Plan of Action that arose from these definitions naturally formed itself around how to establish a shared vision amongst the classroom teaching team (the main players being the class teacher and the para-educator(s)).

    We decided that it could only grow from conversation.

    We also came up with essential conversations around Expectations.

    Teachers are ultimately responsible for curriculum, evaluation, and reporting. The para-educator facilitates the delivery and activities around this.

    Conversations at the beginning of a teacher/para-educator relationship could be facilitated by asking questions such as:

    • What are your expectations of me as a para-educator?
    • How can I best help this classroom?
    • What is most important for you in regards to classroom management? being on time? how I intervene with a student or group of students?


    Teachers also noted that it was important for them to know how their para-educator worked best, what his or her strengths were, so they could plan accordingly.

    Our favourite resource to facilitate teacher and para-educator collaboration is available through ASCD and is called:

    A Teacher’s Guide to Working with Paraeducators and Other Classroom Aides
    By Jill Morgan and Betty Y. Ashbakar (ASCD, 2001)

    There are some really clear and spot-on question sheets that teachers and para-educators can use to clarify their relationship in terms of the roles and responsibilities of both educators. I will go so far as to say it is essential reading for teacher/paraeducator collaboration.

    Basically this is what we decided was key – it is essential for teachers and para-educators to have a clear and common vision of what each of their roles and responsibilities are towards the classroom and the students in it. The only way this can happen is by talking about it.

    Some other resources:

    Getting Educated: Paraeducators

    Project Para: Pareducator Self-Study Program

    Special Connections: An Introduction to Working Effectively with Paraeducators

    Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future

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  • “Put technology where it can be best used… In the classroom!”

    [cross ranted as a comment at Stephen Ransom’s EdTechTrek] [and slightly elaborated]

    I am starting to think that because many teachers and administrators
    still do not know exactly what we can do with technology there is a
    reluctance to put it in the classroom.

    Example – today the Internet had, for some reason, stopped working
    in the west wing of our school. I was at the computer lab with one
    other teacher. She packed her kids up and went back because she only
    books the computer lab for the last period of the day so that her kids
    can ‘play on the internet’.

    For her, technology has nothing to do with learning, it is a form of
    entertainment. I stayed with my kids and used the time to work on our
    Science vocabulary while teaching them how to hyperlink in
    presentations. They were linking their vocabulary words to comments and images made by their peers, creating a collaborative learning network around the new terminology they are learning in Science. (Not bad for a wing it activity, eh ;)

    For some reason, this teacher has not caught on yet that technology
    can be much more than a way to waste time. I can understand the frustration of the new teachers that Stephen mentions in his post, but
    until the more experienced teachers and administrators at schools begin
    to use technology as a learning tool, really use it, and demand that
    good forms of it be available in the schools, it isn’t going to happen.

    I can also understand the frustration of the more experienced teachers who are
    expected to use technology but who aren’t really given the time to grow
    less afraid of it and to experiment with what can be done. There is a huge divide between our students who live and breathe with technology as part of their daily lives and the teachers who don’t. Huge. and while
    there are still administrators who don’t use technology in their daily lives and who don’t champion for its appropriate use and availability in the school, let alone the classroom…well…that divide can only be expected to widen.

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