As educators, we need to model what being comfortable with being uncomfortable looks like and acts like. The way it feels is different for everyone, but as we show them how we respond when things get messy, they can see a way out. It reminds me what a classmate of my masters' program, Danny Hernandez, said in a discussion: "If we ask for rain we must also prepare for the mud." The picture on the left is the runoff creek connecting to Clear Creek, pictured on the right, when the raining finally stopped after Hurricane Harvey. Sometimes, the rain is overwhelming. Not only is there mud though with the rain, there can be lightning, flooding, tornados, the works. We have to remember though, THE STORM ALWAYS HAS AN END. The clouds will clear, the sun will come out, and a rainbow might even be the cherry on top. Having faith in the storm that fighting through it will lead to the end can keep us going. It also doesn't guarantee that there won't be another storm, but we can learn how to handle these storms and mud for the future. Students will follow a teacher's lead in how they respond to a situation. Earlier this year, my projector's bulb went out and when the technology support came to fix it, a piece broke off inside the projector so it wouldn't register a lid closed and therefore never turn back on. This required dismounting my projector from the ceiling, ordering a new one, and installing it. That day, I was supposed to cover graphing. Now imagine, trying to graph on a whiteboard... not ideal. Did I panic? No. Did I throw my hands up and say oh well, since that lesson is for our calendar today, we just have to wait? No. We just did lessons "out of order" and guess what, we still learned! Students didn't panic or ask if we would have a free day, they just reacted to my calm reaction: "this is a first-world problem... if this is the worst thing that happens today, then today is a good day". Now, there are other times when it is much more serious than a projector bulb going out. A few years ago, our school went into an actual lockdown because a student reported her older ex-boyfriend threatening to hurt her, that he had access to a gun, and he was seen on campus. Having a retired police officer and retired ER nurse for parents, I learned to stay calm in these types of situations and assess my surroundings. Here's me dressed up like my mom for "career day" at school, my mom at Christmas, and my dad acting like a bossy firm teacher at my desk the first year I started teaching high school. We went through the lockdown protocol and sat in silence. Initially, I thought it was just a drill, but five minutes turned into ten, ten into twenty. When the shadows of police officers with bulletproof vests and AR-15s could be seen outside my classroom windows, I knew this was serious. Students started to quietly ask, "is this a drill or is this for real?" and it turned into a teachable moment. Yes, it is for real but let's consider what we see and hear and how we could act. We see officer presence, we don't hear any screaming or weapon fire, we will remain calm and quiet unless we need to defend ourselves by throwing chairs, laptops, desks at anyone who tries to enter. Were we uncomfortable? ABSOLUTELY, this was only something we saw on the news happen to other people. Did we learn how to be a tad more comfortable in that moment? Unfortunately yes. We cannot plan for everything that happens but hypothetical situations do arise for us to consider how we might respond. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable means understanding the world around us from our previous experiences, recognizing that a new situation is in front of us that we may not have experienced yet, considering and analyzing how we can use our past to adapt to the present, and move forward. This is why I strongly identify with a cognitivism learning theory. This also means relying on the past experiences of others can really enhance our response. If I did not have parents with the service professions where they saw disorder, lawlessness, and trauma almost daily, they would probably not have had the experience to teach me how to consider responding to these situations, and then I would not have responded the way I did in the classroom. When we look at our classrooms and students as part of a community that can support and enrich each others' lives, then we all benefit. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable makes life that much sweeter when we get the rainbow after the storm. References Magee, J. (2020, December 14). Friendswood applies for $78 million grant for local drainage project. Community Impact. https://communityimpact.com/houston/
pearland-friendswood/government/2020/12/14/friendswood-applies-for-78-million-grant-for-local-drainage-project/
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Considering my own journey, my why, and where my head and heart meet, I am a lifelong learner. For as long as I can remember, I have loved learning and actively sought after and found opportunities to push out of my comfort zone so I could learn and grow. This mindset has gifted me with such tremendous experiences that I know I will continue to add to the Living Museum of Me, Math, and More. Starting my career in education, not much has changed in regards to my admiration for learning. Even my blog's title, "I Learned Something New Today!" speaks for itself. Because of this intrinsic desire to learn and grow, I model for students what it looks like to be a lifelong learner, but why stop there? When I submitted my first letter of intent for department lead, I expressed the desire for the role to "allow me to continue the passion I feel to serve and support others to be the best versions of themselves for students and colleagues. I can balance what is best for teachers and their students with administrative responsibilities and I have the capacity to appropriately push people out of their comfort zone in a way that causes them to reflect and adjust their practice for the better." Every two years, the position opens up, so when submitting my second letter of intent, I clearly stated that "for me, a more critical piece (of the department lead position) is the impact on teacher growth, especially in the coming years with adapting instruction and practices based on the rapidly evolving technology." I have always sought to provide others opportunities to blossom, so they can create significant learning environments for their students too. Before creating a presentation, I considered who my audience would be. Initially, I thought about including the entire administrative team at my school. I also thought about presenting to the Director of Advanced Academics and GT Services, the Secondary Math Curriculum Coordinator, and the Superintendent (who was, at the time, the principal who hired me). While these people are important, it made more sense to start at the core of what I do, which is serve students and serve the other math teachers in my department. The two people who also include this in their work are the Dean of Instruction and our Instructional Coach. I also have worked with them closely to support teachers in other ways in my department lead role, so that culture of improvement and collaboration is solid. With this focus, I knew how to move forward. When creating these resources, I really wanted to let pictures capture my small audience and give them stories they can directly relate to. They know and have worked with Mikayla and Monica personally (you will see these two women in the presentation), so capturing their hearts with people we mutually love and respect made sense. After that, getting into the research I did was necessary. Our Dean of Instruction is data-driven; she loves looking at statistics, comparing our progress with the progress of other campuses in our district, area, state, and nation. She has a heart of gold, but her analytical mindset is hooked with objective information. On the other hand, our Instructional Coach, who also is such a vital support to our work, is hooked through the opportunity to serve others and help them grow. She has witnessed current teacher struggles with providing impactful instruction, especially with a decline in student efficacy, so including how her role can offer her another structure where she can coach teachers to bring strategies into the classroom and really serve them to reach their full potential also needed to be included. This meant reading through a number of articles and reports that compared our current state of professional development with the potential of effective professional learning. Anything that captured my attention and/or would capture my audience, I recorded in a notes document. From there, as I considered the progression of my presentation, I included information from these resources if it followed the narrative I was seeking. Below is a picture of my screen where I have my notes I am going through and the slides I created with the script underneath. The PowerPoint document Effective Professional Learning for Teachers - Pilot is the presentation I would give to my Dean of Instruction and Instructional Coach. The PDF document Effective Professional Learning for Teachers - Pilot NOTES underneath the presentation contains my script that I would practice and use when presenting. The embedded document below contains both the slides and the associated script. My plan is to go through the presentation live with my Dean of Instruction and Instructional Coach, using the script with what to say during each slide while using a clicker to advance the slides on a projection screen. This script allows me to give context to the slides, rather than put it all the text on each slide and just read it to them. I followed strategies included in Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen and Nancy Duarte's Resonate, which highlight the story-telling aspects of presentation through engaging the audience early and setting a clear vision for change (Duarte Inc., n.d.; Reynolds, 2014). If I had chosen any other audience, my presentation would be drastically different. With the relationships I have built over the years with my Dean of Instruction and Instructional Coach, I believe that after this presentation, they will be inspired and respond with "let's get started now". I am excited to see where this journey takes us as we collaborate together to bring teachers effective professional learning. References Duarte Inc. (n.d.). Resonate®. Duarte. https://www.duarte.com/resources/books/resonate/
Goodwin, B. (2015). Research Says/Does Teacher Collaboration Promote Teacher Growth? Educational Leadership, 73(4), 82–83. Retrieved from http://www.ascd. org/publications/educational-leadership/dec15/vol73/num04/Does-Teacher- Collaboration-Promote-Teacher-Growth%C2%A2.aspx Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/ 2013-176_ProfessionalDevelopment.pdf Hill, Heather. (2015). Review of The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT-Hill-TNTP.pdf Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Kane, T. J. & Staiger, D. O. (2012). Gathering feedback for teaching: Combining high-quality observations with student surveys and achievement gains. Seattle, WA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Pope, C., Beal, C., Long, S., & McCammon, L. (2011). They teach us how to teach them: Teacher preparation for the 21st century. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 11(4), 324-349. Retrieved from http://www.cite journal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/v11i4languagearts1.pdf Reynolds, G. (2014). Presentation Zen. Presentation Zen. https://www.presentationzen.com/ TNTP. (2015). The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development. Retrieved from http://tntp.org/publications/view /evaluation-and-development/the-mirage-confronting-the-truth-about-our-quest-for-teacher-development Toikkanen, T. (2016, June 30). Learning Despite School. Retrieved August 1, 2016, from https://medium.com/lifelearn/learning-despite-school-d0879be9464f#.f6roydrfs Wei, R. C., Darling-Hammond, L., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad. Technical Report. National Staff Development Council. Retrieved from https://learningforward.org/report/status- professional-learning-2/phase-professional-learning-learning-profession/
A lot of my master's program requires reading articles and reports, watching videos and presentations, and then synthesizing this information into our innovation plans and classrooms. Not only that, we learn a lot about ourselves as teachers and as people.
Angela Lee Duckworth gave a TED Talk in 2013 I've viewed many times in multiple professional developments about grit. Naturally, with this presentation being over ten years ago, I was curious about what Angela was up to now. Her website https://angeladuckworth.com/ highlights her successes in publishing a New York Times Best Seller, but then I stumbled upon Character Lab and started perusing through her tips articles, especially since they provide "sixty seconds of actionable advice, based on science" (Character Lab, n.d.). Something that stood out was an article called No Need To Wait How to beat procrastination. I am a recovering procrastinator who relapses from time to time! In previous personal learning, trying to figure out why I continued to procrastinate when I knew it only led to more suffering, I discovered that procrastination is the brain faking you out. Chemical signals are sent saying DANGER DANGER and we go into fight, flight, or freeze mode, often choosing flight or freeze. Is there a real danger? No, of course not, but our brains naturally level down to the biological survival mode. How do we counteract that? We just start the task, ignoring the "danger", and within five to ten minutes, our brain stops sending that signal. Usually, this is when we have the realization that the task isn't so bad. This typically happens for me when it comes to grading, the bane of my existence. My students procrastinate all the time too! This is great! For students, it is usually when they are met with a task they do not feel they can be successful at or they do not see the value yet in their lives. Christopher Bryan, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin wrote about Tough New Growth, introducing a synergistic mindset that acknowledges and addresses the feelings of stress that come with a challenging task but reframes those feelings away from avoidance and procrastination towards action and progress. If you are a recovering procrastinator like me, let's continue this journey together forward and get stuff done! If you are a current procrastinator, consider this your sign to make a change and grow. You will make mistakes and relapse along the way, but as long as you continue to improve with a growth mindset that you will not always be a procrastinator, think about all that you will accomplish. In an upcoming lesson, my goal is to provide students the opportunities to explore these articles and videos to discover how this obstacle can be turned into a tool for moving forward.
References
Bryan, C. (2022, October 23). Tough New Growth. Character Lab. https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/tough-new-growth/
Character Lab. (n.d.). Tips. Character Lab. https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/ Duckworth, A. (2013). Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8 Gillihan, S. (2023, January 22). No Need to Wait. Character Lab. https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/no-need-to-wait/ TED-Ed. (2022, October 27). Why you procrastinate even when it feels bad. Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWTNMzK9vG4 We have globally moved from the industrial age to the digital age, but our educational system relies heavily on industrial age techniques. Classrooms mimic the factory-model process where, according to Thomas and Brown, “learning is treated as a series of steps to be mastered” (2011). When students are addressed as though they are machines achieving repetitive tasks as efficiently as possible, success is defined by the results they produce through standardization of assessments and grades (Thomas & Brown, 2011). One thing that remains constant in this world is that it is always changing, but our educational system attempts to force an outdated approach in this new environment and reality. Rather than trying to play catch up, we need to grow and adapt with the current digital age. Part of this requires adopting a new culture of learning. One reason teaching high school mathematics can be challenging is because of the instilled societal mindset: people are born good or bad at math and there is nothing one can do to change that, so why invest one’s time into something they will “never” be successful in? While a yet mindset can address this concern, incorporating a wider set of characteristics and skills that all people need, regardless of their choices in life outside of the mathematics classroom, bridges the connection between one’s passions, desires, and dreams for life with the academic knowledge. Yes, a significant amount of math content is explicit knowledge, “content that is easily identified, articulated, transferred, and testable” but despite that, according to Brown, “the pool of unchanging resources is shrinking, and that the pond is providing us with fewer and fewer things that we can even identify as fish anymore” (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Math is important, don't get me wrong, but as math teachers we need to be realistic and consider all of the other skills students can learn beyond the math content. How many students are going to be graphing transformations of functions and writing the key attributes domain, range, intercepts, etc.? Not many, but how many of them are going to have to analyze visuals and draw information and conclusions from these visuals? Plenty. Rote memorization only serves a small group of students, holistic approach serves all. Teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics requires the new culture of learning approach, which heavily relies on adopting its two essential elements simultaneously: global connectivity and structured environment. With the world and information at our fingertips, society has “unlimited access and resources to learn about anything” (Thomas & Brown, 2011). There is, however, a need to be able to discern between what is valuable, relevant, and appropriate, and what is not. The focus should not be on just answering prefabricated questions, but using these answers to generate more questions because this continuous cycle fosters the mindset of life-long learning. It shifts our view to not valuing what we already know but embracing what we do not know yet and allowing us the opportunity, the time, and the space to discover and create new ideas and perspectives. Critical and analytical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, and metacognition are all 21st century skills that current and future employers seek because our world is experiencing new problems and questions we could not fathom even five, ten years ago. All levels of companies and brands need innovative employees to think outside the box and really utilize and adapt the current reality to fit the needs of the future. These skills are only taught through experience. The analogy of learning to ride a bicycle comes to mind. One can watch others ride a bicycle, get all the safety gear and training wheels, have someone coach and guide them through staying balanced, but you only know you have learned how to ride the bicycle when you fall, get back up, keep adjusting, and then having the elation of finally pedaling a few feet without crashing. Once one learns and truly understands how to ride a bicycle, other ideas and tricks start to emerge, like wheelies or trail riding. If you have not been on a bicycle in a while, getting back on takes a little time but it becomes second nature. Being able to ride a bicycle opens up the world even more than on foot. Our classroom needs to have the structure of the watching others, providing safety gear and training wheels, coaching and guiding through setbacks. Students will make mistakes and fall down, but the culture in feeling safe to get back up because those around you will support you is vital. Additionally, learning is enhanced when it becomes a collective through the relationships, and a blended learning environment that intentionally incorporates communication and collaboration builds the opportunities to develop those relationships that will improve student engagement and learning. Not only that, but it also mimics our global society, where everyone’s individual perspective and experience is relevant and valid but can positively contribute to the collective and help us to adapt our own viewpoints. Creating a significant learning environment through blended learning addresses the problem that our community considers the educational system as broken, because it is not helping students grow into young adults that can positively contribute to society. A big challenge that comes with building a blending learning environment is battling the established perception that a traditional classroom is the only appropriate structure for mathematics, but according to Gallup (Inc, 2022), Americans are at an all-time low in terms of satisfaction in the education system. The top three reasons Americans are dissatisfied is the quality of education: 65% believe there are problems with the curriculum or educational approach, 15% believe the curriculum is poor and/or outdated and 9% believe students are not learning adequate life skills. Now is the time to shift from the present average methods that produce average students with ostensibly average results to innovative environments that prepare students for a relentlessly adaptive future (Harapnuik et al., 2018). The current data shows that the current educational approach is not generating growth or superb results. Also, college is losing its leverage as a necessity to enter the lucrative workforce. With organizations conducting micro-credentialing options for specific on-job skills that introduce and strengthen an employee’s projected professional abilities and business standards (Pelletier et al., 2022), this leaves the public education system to provide significant learning environments where students can begin to develop the traits that can set them apart and help them rise above the status quo. Students will reflect your attitude and mindset towards learning, so when we shift to creating significant learning environments, we need to establish structures and routines that support students to find passion and imagination in any content area. I tend to think about the big picture but introduce things to students in pieces, starting with mindset. As the year progresses, I add other pieces that involve additional 21st century skills. Everything at once would be overwhelming, especially at the high school level, where usually up to this point, they have been conditioned to learn the game of school and think drill and kill is what teaching looks like. Incorporating reflection throughout the learning process creates a supporting layer where the small steps of growth can be redefined as exponential growth as those small pieces are added to build to the back of the puzzle box big picture. Imagine trying to do a connect the dots puzzle but without the numbers. Unless the picture is overtly obvious, it is highly unlikely we would be able to accomplish the task of creating the final picture. So many possibilities of how those dots could connect, this could easily be turned into a math lesson. If you have a picture with 10 dots, and you connect all of the dots together, that would create 45 total lines with a 362,880 combinations of ways to get those 55 lines. WOW. Imagine trying to put a puzzle together but without a picture. They actually sell those for people who want a challenge! Okay, now let's say you have that picture. What process do you take? A lot of people will start with the edges first and work their way in. Some people look for color patterns, others look for piece type patterns, and it makes managing a 100-piece puzzle that mathematically has approximately 9… with 157 zeros… 9000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ...ways to choose pieces and put them down in the correct place so much easier. When you do puzzles with friends, the different perspectives help. As educators, we have the final picture, and it is our learning environment that provides students the pieces. How we provide those pieces is what makes the difference between collecting dots and connecting dots. Because we have put together this puzzle year after year, we must intentionally consider how to provide students access to these different pieces and implement structures to give them opportunities to explore how to put them together independently or collaboratively. We can tell them all we want how to connect them but it is not until they realize for themselves the connections that they really get it. Teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics requires a new culture of learning approach, relying on two essential elements simultaneously: global connectivity and structured environment. With our connections to worldwide communities and the intentionally designed settings that nurture the new culture of learning, we can change the world one student at a time, turning them into the heroes of the future. References Beautiful butterfly jigsaw puzzle. (n.d.). Lovejigsawpuzzles.com. https://www.lovejigsawpuzzles.com/jigsaws/butterfly-jigsaw-puzzle/butterfly-jigsaw.jpg
Butterfly extreme dot-to-dot / connect the dots PDF. (2023). https://teachsimplecom.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/images/butterfly-extreme-dot-to-dot-connect-the-dots-pdf/image-1628885272548-1.jpg Free Vector | Bicycles icons flat color set with people riding bikes isolated vector illustration. (n.d.). Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/bicycles-icons-flat-color-set-with-people-riding-bikes-isolated-vector-illustration_38754353.htm Free Vector | Character illustration of people with global network concept. (n.d.). Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/character-illustration-people-with-global-network-concept_3425172.htm Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning. Creative Commons License. Inc, G. (2022, September 1). Americans’ Satisfaction With K-12 Education on Low Side. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/399731/americans-satisfaction-education-lowside.asp Pelletier, K., McCormack, M., Reeves, J., Robert, J., Arbino, N., & Educause. (2022). 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Education. Educause. Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning : Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Douglas Thomas And John Seely Brown.
Being human is what sets us apart from any other creature or entity and that means incorporating head and heart in everything. We don't want to be Tin Man or Scarecrow... we don't want to be a robot with no heart or a sweet golden retriever with no brain... we need to involve both aspects of our human nature, where the head and heart meet.
It honestly reminds me of servant leadership. As a believer, I think about the story of Jesus in the boat with the disciples in the middle of the squall. The disciples were in PANIC MODE thinking the boat would sink. The story's focus was that Jesus was peacefully asleep, then simply woke up, calmed the wind and waves, and asked his friends why they were afraid. He is perfect at recognizing our hearts but also leading us to realize the truth in every situation if we just listen. How many times have we felt like we were on a sinking ship, surrounded by a monsoon, and someone leads us to the calm waters? They don't discredit our emotions; they acknowledge them but also guide us to understand the balance between our emotions and the rational aspects of the situation. The book Crucial Conversations establishes seven steps to address those heated, passionate moments when an action or end goal is required to move forward. Watching this video really helped solidify what I read. After exploring more resources about Crucial Conversations, including additional blog posts or discussion boards, I decided to take their "What's Your Style Under Stress?" assessment. The results were not too surprising, but they did give me direction on what to do next. Scores of zero are the focus.
These are from the newest edition in their book, but moving to action is without a doubt something I need to work on. All of these conversations with peers, students, administration can happen but with no action to move forward, no goals being set, it is another fruitless conversation. We can have all the best intentions but Jordan Belfort, author of The Wolf of Wall Street, said it best: "Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions" (Belfort, 2013). My type A personality does not make me shy away from being direct in the moment, removing emotions when discussing facts and not letting my emotions cloud the situation. The reflective component of my nature allows me to consider how these ideas and feelings impact me directly, but there needs to be intentional action on my part as a self-differentiated leader to conclude the conversations with actionable items. I have visited the YouTube channel, Therapy in a Nutshell, for a number of topics, including Classroom Culture - Ask or Guess?, and her book review on Crucial Conversations really supported the necessity for harmony between sentiments and actions. Moving to action with students is much easier for me than with adults because I know that students are still building capacity to independently think and self-regulate emotions, so I have to be the level-headed person during the tough conversation. Moving to action with adults is more challenging, because it is harder for me to recognize that not everyone is at the same reflective or emotional level I am (I learned a lot through my mental health journey, but others may not have had one yet) and it makes it difficult to empathize. Getting outside of my comfort zone to push my innovation plan forward will be one of many reasons why in a year or two, I will look back and feel like I really made a difference.
References
Belfort, J. (2013). The wolf of wall street. Bantam Books.
Callibrain. (2015, August 20). Video review for crucial conversations by Kerry Patterson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFaXx3pgaxM&ab_channel=Callibrain Grenny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R., Switzler, A., & Gregory, E. (2022). Crucial conversations : Tools for talking when stakes are high (Third). McGraw-Hill. Therapy in a Nutshell. (2019, August 22). Crucial conversations book summary: How to make it safe to talk about anything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrfjYwY5SSE&ab_channel=TherapyinaNutshell What is fantastic about my collaborative group is that not only do we influence our social ability, we delegate our time and conversations between the courses we are taking together. While there are a lot of similarities between how we approached our course on Leading Organization Changes to the Growth Mindset course, there were also distinct differences. These differences can be categorized into leading, organizing, and changing, just like the class covers and they apply to my individual approach as well. Leading Leading for me is not necessarily attached to an official title, but rather being the example or role model for others to see, hear, and act like to be better themselves. Being actively engaged in the weekly class meetings as well as in the discussion boards were some ways I led, but something I know I can improve upon though is my timing and being proactive in completing readings, reflections, and posts in case of setbacks. This term's setback was getting the flu. Could I have foreseen the illness? No, but I could have not procrastinated to the point where I needed to ask for an extension on my Big Picture Growth. If I had been intentional about spacing out my work and not relying on being able to complete it in a short amount of time, it is likely I would have been fine. Even after my submissions, I would go back and adjust components based on my new learning and perspective.
Organizing What felt like the most intense reading expectations so far in our master's program, we identified that splitting the work and becoming mini-experts in a section was best. We agreed that everyone would be expected to read the introductory and concluding chapters, otherwise the reading was divided amongst us by chapters or topics and we would summarize we have read in a shared document. Choices were made based on our innovation plans and education roles. A screenshot of our Influencer book notes. A screenshot of our 4 Disciplines of Execution book notes.
We also looked to include examples we found in past student work, articles, or other professional blog posts that included the fundamentals of the four disciplines of execution or explaining the why. It did not hurt either that Hillary's husband found a great summarization of 4 Disciplines of Execution and that Amanda reads Crucial Conversations every year (I think she has some fancy certification as a trainer for it). Even if I did not always participate in the discussion boards during the appropriate weeks, that did not prohibit me from reading what others shared to start formulating my own connections and ideas. This also led me into a routine of revisiting assignments or blog posts to integrate my new learning and connections from other's viewpoints or ePortfolios. Changing A lot of changing happened during this class too. There were times when the readings, assignments, videos, and discussions were deprioritized. Even now, when writing this, I am fully aware there is a discussion board I have not posted to... yet... but my self-responsible nature will nudge me to getting it done. I sometimes become figuratively paralyzed due in large part to the juggling act of all of my professional and personal roles especially in the midst of a NOW culture. Reflecting my journey from where I have left to where I am headed, including my mental health journey, helps me remember that we exist in a gray world and depending upon the day and circumstances, we could be anywhere in that spectrum of gray. It changes every day. Ultimately, the course on leading organization change incorporated each word: changing in the form of Big Picture Growth, leading and organizing in the form of Big Picture Goals. We often let life and the whirlwind can take over but once the storm clears and the rainbow comes, we can keep moving forward together. While I was never at 100%, I would give myself a 93/100 to my contributions to learning in my Leading Organization Change course. If I keep leading, organizing, and changing, it will only get better. References Covey, S., McChesney, C., & Huling, J. (2018). 4 Disciplines Of Execution. Simon & Schuster Ltd.
Grenny, J. (2013). Influencer : The new science of leading change. Mcgraw-Hill Education.
After beginning my 11th year in education with reflection and a veteran perspective, I have learned that where the head and heart meet has the biggest potential for growth and impact on others. A lot of my personal anxiety comes from the disagreement between the two, and although it is challenging to reconcile the conflict, what I have discovered is that my misperception of them disagreeing is actually what has held me back. For so long, these mismatching viewpoints clouded my potential to realize that for the same amount of time, there has been deep agreement.
I am a recovering perfectionist, particularly when it comes to intellectual or academic endeavors. My mindset in public school as a student was extremely fixed (read more about it The Yet in Me - My Mindset Experience as a Student) but learning about Carol Dweck's four steps to changing your mindset appropriately articulated what my experience has told me after high school.
Especially going through my mental health journey, I took the negative voices telling me I am less than and spoke truth to them, calling out their lies. Even when the habitual creature of self-deprecation rears its ugly head, I know my growth mindset will support my efforts to impacting student growth in the classroom as well as my own growth through my master's program.
When people ask me about my why, it is simple: I believe that all students deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential or start on the path towards reaching their full potential. Because of the love, encouragement, and support that has been poured into me since I was born, I strive to serve others and provide them the same love, encouragement, and support. We live in a dark world, so I live to shine light into the world. It is not often in education that we talk about the three domains of Bloom's taxonomy, but my beliefs of learning acknowledge the affective domain because affective is effective.
So What?
The connection between the head and heart, where they meet, is vital to the success of innovative plans designed to enhance and enrich student lives. This is what makes us human, not the tinman, the scarecrow, or the cowardly lion, not a robot or AI, not another living creature. Other connections, like my Community in Collaboration or my Algebra 2 content team, create a safe space to embrace being VOCAL and sharing my voice through taking ownership and making choices in authentic learning. Failure is no longer failure, like my mind used to shout. Instead, it is a step forward in learning, like my heart has found joy and comfort in.
I keep coming back to this article I read about failing forward in the present drives future successes from LifeHack (https://www.lifehack.org/882403/fail-forward). Below, this video pretty much describes the growth I have experienced, explaining my past self as a perfectionist, and why failing is good. Having an epiphany that the perceived barrier of a conflict between head and heart is really the attempted reconciliation of the two. Incorporating the learning and connections of growth mindset, my beliefs of learning, my professional and personal networks, and having choice, ownership, and voice has strengthen my authentic learning in a learner's mindset.
References
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: the New Psychology of Success. Random House.
Lifehack. (2020). The Secret to Success Is Failure | Embrace Failure, and Prepare for Success | Lifehack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haPA-MOg000 In the blink of an eye, my second term of my master’s is coming to a close. We just started the semester right? The accelerated program definitely feels accelerated… Fortunately, what is really working well has been maintaining the collaborative group I met this summer, but our approach to collaboration shifted once the school year started. Amanda, Hillary, Lindsay, and myself, along with Mikeela and Samantha, have drastically different schedules and family lives, so we found ourselves texting each other encouraging, and sometimes witty messages, as we struggled balancing all of the obligations of our jobs, our families, our Leading Organization Change class, as well as the Growth Mindset course. We found stability in dividing and conquering some of the reading, summarizing what we have read in a shared document, and providing feedback to blog posts and assignment pages when needed in Zoom meetings. Through our collaboration too, we often delegated who was the “leader” in that particular assignment or phase because we knew that week-to-week, someone would be a little less active in the collaboration due to other components of life… which includes…. when I got sick with the flu the first weekend of September and fell behind in my coursework. There were nights when the readings, assignments, videos and discussions were on the bottom of my list because it was necessary for me to take care of my physical well-being first. Part of the reason I became so quickly incapacitated was my struggle with time management. My body rapidly decided I need to stop for a moment. Balancing my different roles, such as campus Algebra 2 team leader, campus department leader, district national merit preparation program facilitator, along with wife, friend, daughter, was overwhelming but really I am partially to blame. My inner-procrastinator came out, and even though I know procrastination is a fight-or-flight response (check out this article from Psychology Today), this little bird wanted to desperately take flight. Recognizing where I have been and how far I have come in my journey, including my mental health journey, brought into perspective that we exist in ebbs and flows, and it is okay to be at a low as long as you do not settle there and dwell in the pit. Considering my why and how I want to be a butterfly, I did not let these setbacks stop me from moving forward one small step at a time. Even if I did not always participate in the discussion boards during the appropriate weeks, at least twice a week I go into the boards and read what others have written. I would reply when I feel as though my perspective would add value to the conversation or when I think words of affirmation or gratitude would support the growth of others. This rang true in our weekly class meetings and discussions, speaking up to engage in conversation, individually messaging people with ideas and feedback, etc. These intentional actions led me to consistently be one of the top contributors to the discussion boards and breakout rooms. This also established a routine for me of revising assignments or blog posts to incorporate my new learning and connections after revisiting discussions or other people’s ePortfolios. All of my posts and replies are very authentic and genuinely driven by my desire to connect with people and encourage others to do the same. Ironically, the only discussion board that I did not directly engage in was the networking discussion because I felt as though the list I would create would not be true to my actual engagement with them. The groups I engage with the most frequently are not necessarily formal because I do not have the capacity to devote any more time or energy into another thing that would only be done to satisfy an assignment requirement. Ultimately, the course on growth mindset has helped me see growth mindset in growth mindset... life and the whirlwind can take over but once the storm clears and the rainbow comes, we can keep moving forward together. While I did not reach my fullest potential, I would give myself a 95/100 to my contributions to learning in my Growth Mindset course. Now that I have experienced the beginning of the school year in addition to late nights completing my master’s program, I am back on track ready to keep learning, growing, improving, and being the best I can be each day. References Tarnowski, D. (2023, September 13). Instagram. Www.instagram.com. https://www.instagram.com/p/CxIuYEhuRul/?hl=en
When being VOCAL, choice is the hardest for me and it's rooted in my mindset towards teaching math.
Fundamentally, I acknowledge and recognize that there are multiple correct mathematical ways to approach and solve problems. Encouraging this in the classroom is so impactful for student growth. What makes this challenging is when students choose something I am not as familiar with. The first concept that comes to mind is factoring polynomials. Does anybody remember how they learned to factor? I learned the "guess and check" method or "trial and error" and it relied on understanding and recognizing patterns in numerical factors. When teaching factoring came up for the first time, my gut wanted to go with the way I was taught and what made sense to me. Fortunately, my mentor teacher showed me the "ac method" or "splitting the middle term" so I went with that to provide procedural steps... it was fortunate until students asked about the square method, the XBOX method, the fishing method, geez Louise there are so many methods and I had NO CLUE what they were talking about. I felt inadequate to support them in understanding why they got an answer wrong with a method I could not follow. At our district professional development today, we learned about this "new" concept called "accelerated learning" and "just-in-time interventions"... haven't we always tried to do this? With my content colleagues, we looked at a progression of area models and how they can be utilized from elementary math to precalculus. With experience, I have found articulating to students that their perspective and my perspective might be different but both are equally valid because we just have different backgrounds and experiences that have brought us to this place. We attempt to explain to each other the different methods of factoring, and then develop our voice through the process. When we can teach others the perspective that we see and they incorporate into their repertoire or we include their voice in our mental tool box, we build connections. We also build a sense of self-worth when we can collaborate and communicate our ideas to others that they adopt into their knowledge bases. There is meaning in multiple perspectives, because those multiple perspectives belong to individuals who are valuable and their life and experience matters. Giving students choice in how to articulate their perspective.
References
Mashup Math. (2017, March 29). Area Model Multiplication Explained! https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=MVZRD4Fa1OY
I think it was around nine years old though that I experienced my first panic attack. I was in our big green van with my mom, going home after running errands, and suddenly, an elephant was sitting on my chest, and I was being internally crushed with no room to externally move. I could not breathe, I felt numb all over, and my mind went to the worst place possible – I am dying. Going through an intersection, my mom asked if I was okay and the moment passed.
At age ten, I remember playing in the living room with a plastic bag, acting like it was a parachute and jumping off the chair like a skydiver. Out of nowhere, a thought popped into my head: “there will be a day I am not a kid anymore and I do not get to play”. Even turning ten was traumatizing, because the realization that my age was DOUBLE DIGITS meant I was getting old, and my morality was quickly approaching. It reminds me of the first few lines of lyrics from Katy Perry's song, Firework.
Junior year of high school, I started experiencing extreme vertigo. The best way I could describe it… do you know how you can swirl water in a water bottle or blender around, stop, but the water keeps spinning like a tornado? That’s what vertigo feels like, the swirling water in your head when everything else is standing still. Telling my mom about this, I went to doctors and neurologists and endured MRI and EEGs to see if I had a tumor or was having seizures. The results? Nothing, nothing was wrong and thankfully the figurative water was not spilling out everywhere...
Senior year of high school is really when my symptoms started to rear their ugly heads. Working my entire life to be involved in the highest academic program in the district while managing cheerleading, band, and a plethora of other organizations and volunteer work, to then graduate in the top twenty students of the class of over 500 and just be done was overwhelming to say the least. Suicidal thoughts, unexplained moments of panic and extremely draining crying sessions, those became normal. In the summer between high school and college, I went to my mom and told her I thought I needed help. She understands now what I was going through to an extent, but at the time, she just told me it was normal to feel this way when being close to going off to college. Fortunately, that did not stop me from getting help. I went to my best friend’s mom, Lillie, and asked her to take me to a psychologist appointment, scrapping money together from birthdays and graduation gifts to pay without submitting insurance. There, the psychologist told me after one session that they thought I had been suffering from anxiety and depression since I was around eight but had been so busy that I became what we now call a person with “high-functioning anxiety” so now that I did not have much to keep me busy, the symptoms were surfacing because my brain had the capacity to play its tricks. With this diagnosis in hand, I went back to my mom and explained. From there, we came up with a plan together to get me the professional help I needed. Twice-a-week therapy sessions in college, combined with medication and the support of my family and friends, helped me work through the struggle, identify triggers, and learn how to cope healthily when experiencing anxiety and depression. Do I still experience triggers and symptoms of anxiety and depression? Absolutely! Nail biting will be a habit I do not see breaking any time soon (maybe I need a growth mindset on that...) but I have the resources, tools, and voice to speak up when I need help and advocate for myself without feeling selfish, stupid, or broken. This includes my support system: my mom (pictured on the left), my best friend who is now my husband Scott (pictured in the middle), and Lillie who is now my mother-in-law (pictured on the right), as well as my other friends and family. I had teachers who cared for me, absolutely, and they taught me so much more than the academic knowledge I took to college and beyond, but they also taught me other skills, now defined as 21st century skills. Occasionally teachers, like Ms. Patak, would check in with me, but there was not much emphasis in the educational system on addressing the non-academic needs. I do not even know who my counselor was in school because my class schedule was pretty much set from 6th grade through 12th. The only time I might have met with them is for scholarship applications and getting a transcript ready to submit in college applications. Now, in light of the pandemic, employing counselors that address academics as well as the social, emotional, and mental needs of students is being prioritized. With this shift in focus, students are being treated more like people and less like factory workers who we get to churn out a specific, monotonous set of tasks. The reason I am in education, my why, also connects to my journey in my mental health. My ePortfolio and blog posts are a continuously evolving exhibits in living museum of me, math, and more. Today, talking about mental health and sharing my journey, is another new addition open for others to explore and experience. What is your journey with mental health? May this be an encouragement for you to share your journey with others so we can all keep healing and growing together.
References
Basic Fun! (2023). K’NEX Ferris Wheel. https://www.basicfun.com/product/knex-thrill-rides-3-in-1-classic-amusement-park-building-set/
Katy Perry. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/436551 Plante, C. (2016, May 5). This Is Fine creator explains the timelessness of his meme. The Verge; The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme-comic Sick Science! (2009, March 5). Tornado Tube - Vortex in a Bottle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv6vQU94wws |
My husband lovingly teases me when I reflect on my day with him and say "I learned something new today!" because he would be surprised if I didn't learn something new.
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