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As a classroom teacher for nearly twenty years, I have polished my practice through self-reflection and taking advantage of a multitude of learning opportunities. In that time, I have also become a teacher leader, demonstrating my expertise in a myriad of ways. My motivation for doing this is my belief that every student is entitled to a highly qualified teacher in their classroom.

Teacher Effectiveness

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For the past several years, I have coordinated Professional Learning Communities in two different settings, first at Northwest High School, and then in the Multiple Pathways program. Coordinating teacher learning in this way requires knowledge of the staff, knowledge of instructional strategies and impact, student needs, and understanding of areas of need for staff development.

Professional Development Presentations

Coming into a new staff, I took a good part of a year to learn more about the team of teachers I was working with and took a very collaborative approach to developing teams and collective goal-setting. Going into the second year, staff taught me they are interested in student engagement and instructional focus for activities and learning objectives involved how teachers impact student motivation and engagement. In addition to coordinating with two other PLC facilitators, I gave 2 presentations on the topics of student motivation and engagement.

Entering a new staffing environment, many teachers were resistant to change or self-reflection. Before one presentation, I overheard one teacher tell another something about how it was time to listen to some “psychobabble bull*” but by implementing the very strategies I advocated for utilizing in the classroom with students, by the end of the presentation, all participants were actively engaged in dialogue about instructional practices that increase student outcomes.

As a result of this professional development day and the follow-up in the fall, I noticed a greater acceptance with the staff to participate and actively engage in professional development.

Literacy and Assessment

ELA Common Assessments

One of my driving values is that literacy is the great equalizer in our society. Through reading, writing, and speaking, we all become better humans and citizens in our society. My work as a leader to improve literacy learning in the Omaha Public Schools is evident through my work on the ELA Common Assessments. The common assessments are to occur in each English classroom across the district to assess each student’s reading and writing skills based on the Nebraska State Standards. I worked with a small committee to write and revise these standards and establish means to assess the information we collect through the process and create a common language for teachers when evaluating student work. This project is intended to help normalize the grading practices throughout the district while increasing student proficiency in literacy tasks. We received feedback from district teachers at Curriculum Day in the Fall of 2022 and were able to take that feedback to revise the assessments before fully implementing the procedures at the end of that semester.

 

Throughout this process, I learned the importance of implementing change with feedback from teachers. By allowing teachers to review and have a voice in revising the work, they were more inclined to see the value of the task and implement it effectively in their classrooms.

 

Future steps for this project will include implementing common assessment practices. This should be accomplished by implementing some collaborative scoring to ensure equality in grading practices across the district. Model papers from each level of the rubric can also be provided to teachers to ensure the district assessments continue to be graded consistently across the district and from grade level to grade level

Nebraska State ELA Assessment Writing

In the summer and fall of 2023, I worked with the Nebraska Department of Education with the 8th grade English Language Arts standards to write 8th grade State ELA assessment questions.

 

The process included working with the testing publishers and teachers from throughout the state to analyze the state standards and the texts that were selected by prior groups. We worked in teams to write questions in a variety of complexity levels to cover each of the state standards.

 

The process continued in the fall to analyze the assessment questions for biases that may impact the way students across the state perceive the questions.

 

Throughout this process, I was pleased to work with and learn from extraordinary professionals from across the state. We were able to develop strong professional relationships that allowed us to work together to write strong assessment questions for the Nebraska State Exam.

Digital Literacy and Instructional Technology

As a result of the pandemic, I was required to implement technology into my classroom on a large scale. While I was never opposed to technology, I was always cautious to only implement what would further my instructional strategies, keeping teaching and learning at the heart of my lesson planning. I have been able to not only implement core technologies but also have learned to the extent that I can instruct other teachers on how to implement technology that enhances learning.

Enter the presentation to click on links to examples of my tech accomplishments.

OPS Tech Leaders

Throughout the 2022-23 school year, I participated monthly in the OPS Tech Leaders group (or OTL), learning about important tools and applications used by the Omaha Public Schools.

 

Through this organization and training, I was able to network with people inside the OPS technology teams and across the district. The group asked us to set the intended objectives for our year and post them to the group. My goals were to learn how to utilize technology to differentiate specifically for my special education students. I also wanted to improve my own technology skills to enhance engagement for all students.

 

Participation in this group was greatly helpful my own personal edification and as a result, I have been asked several times to assist with technology training for the district, specifically new teacher onboarding sessions in the fall of 2023.

Common Sense Media

In the fall of 2022, I went through the Common Sense Media training to become Common Sense Media certified. The Common Sense Media organization stresses the importance of digital literacy for young people and families. In the process of learning more about digital literacy, I was able to assist our program to become Common Sense certified as well as create awareness of digital literacy for our students.

In the fall of 2023, I helped celebrate Digital Citizenship Week at Independent Studies. Students could scan a QR code to watch a short video related to digital safety and citizenship, then complete a short reflection to be entered into a drawing. This activity was well received by students and we were able to have excellent conversations about the impact of technology on our lives.

My connections with Common Sense Media extends to the district level. I was able to connect with the district Common Sense Media representative to present the messages of digital literacy in the Advanced Academics Summer Symposium conference presentations. Many students benefitted from the presentations in the summer of 2023 and similar offerings will be available in the summer of 2024.

 

With the increase of misinformation and AI enhanced images and texts, it is more important than ever that teachers, students, and parents are informed how to use technology with care and digital media literacy is an essential aspect of education in the future.

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Digital Citizenship Week at ISP: Screen Time

Implementation of Canvas

The OPS district is moving toward implementing Canvas as its primary Learning Management System for secondary schools. In preparation for this move, I was instructed to create professional development for our program by utilizing our PLCs to acquaint teachers with utilizing Canvas.

 

My process began with personal learning. I utilized the training offered by Canvas and the Nebraska Canvas Consortium to understand how to best implement Canvas to positively impact student learning. Then, I created PLC lessons in manageable sections for teachers with minimal understanding of technology and LMSs, taught the PLC facilitators for each of the other locations, and then implemented the PLC at the Independent Studies location, following up with the exit tickets from all the programs along the way.

 

By the fall of 2023, we reviewed the learnings from the spring of 2023, and the Multiple Pathways program has been utilizing Canvas as our primary Learning Management System all school year, at least a year ahead of the district timeline.

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iPad Training

In the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, I saw a need in our staff to better utilize the tools available through the district-assigned iPads. While all students are assigned an iPad as their one-to-one device, many teachers were hesitant to adapt. Through the course of my networking, I became acquainted with the district’s Apple Trainer and introduced her to my Program Director.

 

I recommended training for our staff on the integration of the iPads into the instructional process. As a result, the Apple Trainer has returned multiple times over the past several years for enrichment training for our entire staff. The initial email to my program director as a follow-up to a conversation is to the right.

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We have specifically been able to utilize Apple Classroom to monitor the student progress on Edmentum, the credit recovery curriculum. Apple Classroom allows teachers to monitor student screens, lockdown browsers, and over ensure the integrity of the credit recovery process. Throughout this process, I have served as a resident trainer for our staff as they test out implementation on a day-to-day basis.

Nearpod Certification

In keeping with the intention to use technology as a means of supporting instructional strategies, I also utilized my time to become Nearpod certified. Nearpod allows for interactive teacher-led or student-paced instruction and Nearpod certification allowed me to implement more differentiation in my instruction. 

Through the course of my internship project, Executive Leadership Training, I utilized Nearpod as an engagement tool for students and participating staff. This, in combination with Microsoft Sway, allowed for a paperless delivery of information as well as facilitating discussions by giving students an opportunity to "Think-Ink" before we "Read-Share" their responses.

 

Another example of utilizing Nearpod, while teaching a Career Foundations course, I was able to create a digital choice board for students to explore careers through self-paced Nearpod presentations with the Next Gen Personal Finance curriculum. This provided more differentiation for students in this course. This model has been able to be duplicated for other instructors teaching this course.

These uses for Nearpod were helpful for increasing student engagement and engaging fellow educators in a new form of technology. I also used Nearpod to facilitate interactive digital discussion in PLC meetings, modeling for teachers how technology can enhance student engagement and content learning.

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Future Work

The website Canva has offered countless ways to visually engage learners and I have solely relied on Canva for digital presentations, flyer design, social media posts, and more. In the future, I wish to further my use of Canva and seek more ways to utilize this tool.

 

I also hope to work more with Apple Educators to learn more about improving my iPad skills to further understand how I can improve student instruction with technology and teach other teachers to do the same.

Regardless, as an instructional leader, I want to learn and teach that technology integration should support learning, not be the be the learning in your classroom, meaning we should focus more time on teaching content than how to use the technology. The use of technology should also make sense with the lessons and enhance the student experience, so like any instructional tool, it needs to suit the lesson and the activity. This is essential work for all current and future educational leaders.

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