Introduction

For the Fall semester 1 in 5313 and 5389, I worked with Lola, Stacie, and Lorena. I collaborated with these ladies the semester before and continued to this semester. All four of us have busy schedules as teachers and additional responsibilities with our families. We work together to complete assignments accurately and submit them on time.  I am blessed to work with such energetic, positive, and determined ladies. 

Key Contributions

We all uniquely contribute to the group. Stacie is like the leader of the group; she takes the initiative. She is the first one to check blackboard for updates and notify the group. Lola is our writer. She takes our writings and makes them better by adding words or phrases to them. Lorena is energetic; she brings lots of joy to our learning. Then there is me; I like to stay ahead and remind everyone of the assignments and discussions. I took the lead in making infographics for our e-portfolios. 

Last semester we set a goal not to finish assignments on the last day. We have improved our timeline for completing projects a day earlier. We did not start with finishing assignments ahead of time, but we kept reminding each other. This is still an area that I need to improve on so that we have more time in other areas. Another area I can improve on is by participating more in class discussions and asking for clarifications on assignments. Someone else may be thinking or wanting to ask the same thing as me. I completed all class discussions on time, so my classmates could see my posts and comment on my reflections. Reflecting on my Creating Significant Learning Environment coursework, I translated the Growth Mindset and Power of YET into Spanish. I did this because I am a bilingual teacher, and to foster an appropriate CSLE, students must feel comfortable in my class. During Developing Effective Professional Learning for teachers, I reflected and started participating actively in my district’s PLs. By doings this, I learned new teaching techniques from other teachers and shared my success stories with them. 

Supporting Contributions

Stacie starts the collaboration page, and I contribute to organizing the class information into tables with the class. I arranged another table with our names and e-portfolios links. I added links to our collaboration document to other e-portfolios that we look at as examples. 

While working on assignments and looking through examples, I placed links to the e-portfolios on our collaboration page, along with notes of what was intriguing to us and specific notes from class that the professors specified for us to do or not to do. This was helpful because we could refer back to it anytime while working on the assignments; it kept us organized. I noticed last semester that we had difficulty finding documents from previous projects, so I linked them to our collaboration page for easy access. 

I am also part of Dawn’s Group Me collaboration group. In Group Me, classmates post questions, clarifications, and e-portfolios. I take the time to read the messages and respond to the questions I know the answers to or refer my classmates to where they could find the answer. I also posted my discussions on blackboard, replied to classmates on time, and posted in APA format.  I would change in the future to go back to the discussions, check if anyone responded to my post, and do a follow-up. 

Although Lorena is not in 5313 with Stacie, Lola, and me, she was available for questions and any clarifications we had on the assignments. Lorena took the time to show us her work and other exemplary e-portfolios.

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My story is that I want to know and grow and show others so that they can grow to achieve their goals. Realizing that my story needs more details is a good start for my audience at the moment. Developing my story is hard for me because I do not know where to start or how to start. I know that it must be my story and it must hit softly in people’s hearts. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if the presentation execution is not on point, people will not join your cause. Mediocre ideas with a great story and presentation that hits you right in the heart and just keeps throbbing all throughout are the ones that people remember and take with them. Those ideas are the ones that are supported. This takes me back to something that I learned a few years ago, it is not the programs that make people successful it is the people in the programs that make people successful. Nancy Duarte gives us Five Simple rules for Creating World Changing Presentations:

1. Treat your audience like royalty

2. Spread ideas and Move People

3. Help them see what you are saying by providing visuals and limiting the text 4. Practice design not a decoration in your presentation and

5. Cultivate healthy relationships by making good eye contact with your audience.

You must practice your story before you give it out and over time your speech will become greater and you will be able to pull on those heartstrings. 

References

Stanford Graduate School of Business. (2013, February 19). Nancy Duarte: How to Create Better Visual Presentations [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so9EJoQJc-0&feature=youtu.be 

TEDxEast – Nancy Duarte uncovers common structure of greatest communicators 11/11/2010. (2010, December 10). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nYFpuc2Umk

Simon Sinek – How to present properly(Part 5). (2018, January 10). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msvmLlAkOno&t=336s 

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The teacher I identify the most with is Mark because I know how to use technology and am not afraid to use it, but I need more information. The school and district I work for also want things to be uniform, so if not everybody is doing it, no one should do it. 

I believe my district is not open to making changes, and if they do make changes, it is a slow transition into things that, by the time changes are complete, it is time to make changes again. Changes will need to happen faster and effectively because the district is suffering due to the teacher shortage and not having vacancies in all areas. 

According to the Mirage report, school districts spend an average of $18,000 per teacher yearly on Professional Learning. This is a significantly high number that is spent on teachers when the PL is ineffective.

References

Daniels, K (Nov 6, 2013). Empowering the teacher technophobe. TEDxBurnsvilleED. https://youtu.be/puiNcIFJTCU.

Killion, J. (2008). Assessing impact: Evaluating staff development (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Learning Forward (2022). Professional Learning Plan. Retrieved on August 24, 2022, from https://learningforward.org/

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