EDUC 638 Screencast for CTP

EDUC 638 Professional Development Growth Plan

Transcript:

Today I will be discussing my professional development growth plan. As I have journeyed through my current career, I have seized numerous opportunities for professional development. I use technology for most of them. I use sites such GCFLearnFree.org and Lynda.com. These resources have allowed me to learn and gain knowledge and skills that will help me be a better educator. As new software and apps are added to GCFLearnFree.org I will continue to use this site to learn new skills. I use and will continue to use the internet to search for webinars and online learning resources that help me further gain my knowledge in the education field. I would like to one day present a workshop at a national conference. In a previous class I had to identify a conference that I would like to submit a research document to. I hope to one day have various articles published to help future educators gain skills and acquire knowledge. Technology will definitely help me achieve this goal. I can use the internet for research. I can create my document using google docs and share my link with editors, so that they can critique my work. If I was unable to attend a conference, I could still present through telecommunication. I will continue to utilize my blog and twitter accounts as professional learning communities. I will research other professional learning communities as well. Bates, Huber, and McClure (2016) believe that “Professional learning communities unite individuals around topics of interest and inquiry.” (p. 99) These authors also believe that professional learning gains strength, when teachers collaborate and inquire about ways to provide solutions for students that are effective.

My timeline for a professional development growth plan is always changing. I try to participate in two professional development webinars a month. I recently registered for three webinars and they are only fifteen minutes each. I plan to graduate in May 2018 with my Master’s. I will take a year or two off from school before pursuing my doctorate. During my “school break” I will continue to develop professionally and have at least one article published in a journal. Technically I will be taking a break from course work, but not research. I research for a living so that will not stop anytime soon. I hope to be able to attend a national educator’s conference during my break as well. I look forward to the skills and knowledge I will gain. I would also like to present at a local conference or even at my job. I have been given the opportunity to teach courses for our newly established Professional Development Academy. I am really looking forward to helping others develop professionally, while I grow professionally as well.

Reference

Bates, C. C., Huber, R., & McClure, E. (2016). Stay connected: Using technology to enhance professional

                learning communities. Reading Teacher, 70(1), 99-102. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1469 

EDUC 638 Communication/ Public Relations Plan

Transcript:

Developing a communication/public relations plan for a school district is imperative to the success of the school. Communication is the key. In the plan I created the number one communication platform was an alert system. The system would be used to notify students, teachers, staff, and community members of school closures or incidents. The alert system would alert each person by a text message through their cell phone, an e-mail, and a recorded telephone message.

                For news and “school happenings” the school district would have a Facebook page and Twitter page for each school. The schedule for athletic events and other events such as picture day, Winter extravaganza, grading periods, school calendar etc. would be posted on these social media sites for students and parents. I would encourage teachers to supply parents with an email address that they could use to communicate with them. Each schools’ newspaper as wells as the local newspapers would print a list of school activities as well. I would encourage teachers to have students submit articles for print in the school newspaper. Thomas (1932) believes that public relations is not about securing publicity for the school, but telling the community facts about the school so that the community itself can gain from them.

                It is important to have various means of communication. Not everyone will want to utilize all communication options, but if they do have these options they can be sure to know what is going on in the school district. The pros to having various forms of communication is the option feature. People can choose how they would like to be contacted. The con to using all communication platforms to be contacted is that notifications will become too numerous. One of the pros of social media is that a lot of school age children have access and accounts to these platforms and they stay connected. A con to social media is the many distractions that can occur while on social media sites. Having an alert system is a benefit to the school, because it allows one message to be sent to multiple people via multiple ways all at one time. A con to an alert system is that everyone will not sign up for it and there is no way to make them sign up for it. The benefit of using the school newspaper and the local papers to communicate is the number of people it will reach. The con is the cost of printing and having something printed in the paper.  Teachers should be very cautious when communicating with parents through email. It is very easy and quick, but it should be monitored. Parents can become a problem if they contact the teacher to often. It also may cause the teacher to be adding to their already busy schedule. It is important to have communication and providing options helps ensure that the community stays connect to the school.

Reference

Thomas, J. S. (1932). The principal’s plans or public relations. Education, 53(2), 69-73.

Fullan's Six Secrets of Change

Transcript:

Michael Fullan (2008) wrote a book entitled “Six Secrets of Change”. He lists the six secrets as 1. Love your employees. 2. Connect Peers with Purpose. 3. Capacity building prevails. 4. Learning is Work. 5. Transparency Rules. And 6. Systems Learn. Love your employees should focus on enabling staff to learn continuously. Encourage staff to develop professionally and provide opportunities to do so. Connecting Peers with Purpose should focus on working in learning communities. For instance, using twitter as a professional learning network. Capacity building prevails means link data on learning to instructional practice. This means to use student data to modify, create, or eliminate certain forms of instruction. Learning is the work goes back to loving your employees and allowing them to learn constantly. Learning is the work supports day-to-day learning of teachers. Leaders should always seek ways and opportunities that allow their staff to better themselves professionally. Transparency Rules is about observing and being observed. Allow staff to shadow you as a leader too. When observing make sure that feedback is research based and not opinion based. Systems Learn is about developing many leaders in the school. That is why colleges have deans as well as heads of departments. People in these role are leaders, but they also learn from each other.  

I would like to focus this discussion on how learning is the work and how it means you love your employees. A very simple example is teaching my son new things, because I love him enough to encourage him to learn new things. Leaders should encourage their staff to learn, learn, learn. 2^nd Timothy 2:15 teaches us to “Study to show thyself approved…” (KJ21). We must continue to learn to enhance our knowledge. At my institution we are offered many opportunities for professional development. Some opportunities are institution wide, while others are department specific. Every evaluation I’ve had; I was required to indicate what I did during that year to develop professionally. As staff we are required, when attending professional development conferences to provide staff members that were unable to attend the information that was presented at the conference. This can be done by a presentation at an on-campus workshop, a video, or even a course set-up in our knowledge base system. I enjoy and look forward to professional development workshops. I come anticipating and eager to learn new skills and gaining additional information. I know that the information I learn I would more than likely never learn if it was not for the conferences and workshops I attended. Educators should be just as excited to learn as they are to teach. Educational leaders should encourage and provide incentives to promote professional development. My institution is creating a professional academy for staff, that will allow them to earn continuing education credits. I am happy to report that I will be instructing a few of these courses. Not sure which ones yet, but being an effective leader will definitely be a topic.  

Reference

Fullan, M. (2008). Six secrets of change. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

EDUC 638 FALL 2017 (D) Introduction

Transcript:

My name is Tiffani Pope. I live in Virginia. I am pursuing a Master of Education Degree in Teaching and Learning with a focus in Leadership. I am glad to say that I am very close to the end of reaching this particular short-term educational goal. I will be graduating in May. As far as my long term educational goal, I am in the middle. I will be working toward a doctorate degree after a year or so. I returned to school after having my son. He will be almost three and a half when I graduate in May. I have accomplished a lot since he was born. I finished up my undergrad degree, earned a graduate certificate this past summer, will earn another certificate at the end of this semester and my master’s in May, so I am going to take a little break. It goes without saying that he was definitely my inspiration and it is a joy to share all of these accomplishments with him.

I currently work at Tidewater Community College (TCC) in the Joint-Use Library. My most important role is supervising the student workers. I just started supervising this semester and it is going well so far. My supervisory rule, well really my life rule is the “golden rule”. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31, NIV) I try to always treat people the way I want to be treated. In my role as a supervisor I have to provide feedback in a respectful way. Before I meet with a student worker to address a concern I always think about how I would want my supervisor to address me if dealing with this issue. I try to do this with everyone I work with everyone I encounter, especially my son. Just because I am his parent does not mean that have the liberty to disrespect him and not treat him with dignity. Above all else each of us are God’s children and should be treated as such.

 I have a close knit family and we like to spend a lot of time together. Most of us attend the same church as well. The approaching holiday season offers many opportunities for us to gather together and celebrate.

Upon completion of this course I would like to have learned how to create, implement, and evaluate an educational technology plan/model that could be used all over the world and modified to fit all learners.

The actress I would chose to play my life would be Raven Godwin. She is not a very well-known actress, no major movie roles. She plays alongside Gabrielle Union as Mary Jane’s niece.  I want the actress to look as realistic as possible. She is pretty and plus-size, and would fit my character profile.   

Best Practices Blog

Catalano, A. (2014). Improving distance education for students with special needs: A qualitative study of students’ experiences with an online library research course. Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, 8(1-2), 17-31. doi: 10.1080/1533290X.2014.902416

Vasquez, III, E., & Serianni, B. A. (2012). Research and practice in distance education for K-12 students with disabilities. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 31(4), 33-42. 

Chapter 13 Review

Does Practice Make Perfect

Summary

“Practice makes perfect”, is a cliché that everyone has heard, but is it really true? In Chapter 13 of e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning, by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer, the authors discuss whether practice makes perfect. The authors explain five principles to correctly address this statement and they are; Principle 1: Add sufficient practice interactions to e-learning to achieve the objective, Principle 2: Mirror the job, Principle 3: Provide effective feedback, Principle 4: Distribute and mix practice among learning events, and Principle 5: Apply multimedia principles. Clark and Mayer (2016) point out that practice alone does not achieve perfection, but practice with effective feedback does.

Having students practice problems and indicate their comprehension of material, repeatedly, is a must according to Clark and Mayer (2016). In Math, when learning multiple concepts, it is best to present examples of all concepts and then assign students practice problems that mix the concepts up, instead of grouping all practice problems with individual concepts together. The authors recommend this practice, which they refer to as mixed practice. Clark and Mayer (2016) define grouping problems with the same concepts together as block practice.

Clark and Mayer (2016) believe that effective feedback is vital. They recommended using different types of feedback. All feedback should allow for improvement over time. Feedback should provide explanations to students who answered questions incorrectly. Clark and Mayer (2016) warn educators to stay away from praise feedback, such as “Well Done!”. The authors feel that this type of feedback draws attention away from the task and puts it on the ego. The authors also encourage self-monitoring that is related to the task and assigning peer feedback.

Reflection

            Providing feedback is very important. As educators in order for our students to improve we have to explain what they did incorrectly and how to correct the problem. The problem could actual be a math problem that they had to solve or an undesired behavior. I agree with the authors that feedback should be effective. I know that I perform better on an assignment when I have been given feedback on what I have done wrong on the previous assignment. It bothers me when I do not get a perfect score on an assignment and there is no feedback. The average student would like to know why they missed the mark. Showing how to solve a problem correctly or mirroring the steps needed to take to achieve a desired goal are important when providing feedback.

 I do disagree with the authors when they say to stay away from praise feedback. I think boosting a student’s confidence is helpful. If the student believes they can they will try their best to achieve and pass. If they are not told “Good Job!” or “Well Done!” and only hear feedback when they need to be corrected, then their confidence level may decrease. Educators should try and build students’ confidence and at times that may require praise feedback. In online learning most feedback will not be given face to face. Whatever platform is used to provide feedback; educators must be mindful of misinterpretation of tone. If an email starts out with “Great Job”, I believe that feedback that is given is better accepted.  

            In my opinion practice does make perfect. Sometimes there will be no or little feedback. Some concepts are not like riding a bike. A person may need to go practice concepts over and over again until they grasp the information or skill. It is important that while students are practicing they receive feedback so that over time they become better and more accurate. Overall, I can agree that practice does make perfect with effective feedback.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). e-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven

guidelines for consumers and designers fo multimedia learning. (4^th ed.). Hooben, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.