What Is the Nature of This Accomplishment?

My Accomplishments Linda Norman Ed-Psychology 399 ASA

What is the nature of this accomplishment?

To educate students of today teachers must collaborate with other professionals, community members, and parents. Another important basic link is connecting what they are learning to real- world situations. As a Learning Center Teacher in a junior high, I continually reflect on ways to improve my teaching role with students, staff, and the community. The accomplishments, which I have had success with described in this paper, are designed to help all reach their full potential.

In order for all to reach their potential many different approaches must be utilized. This was not the way I was trained as a teacher in my undergraduate program. Through continuing educational opportunities I realized that the teacher as the only person in a classroom is not enough.

Our classrooms aren't islands, and we need each other. I, then, redefined my goals to incorporate the strengths of many to enhance my junior high students' education.

The nature of my accomplishment was to organize a network of students' families and community members that could come into our classrooms to enrich students' learning. I named the program Celebrity Readers and Speakers. Celebrity Readers and Speakers utilize volunteers in a variety of ways. It is a resource for the entire school. Not every volunteer that comes into the school includes the entire population in their presentation, because if they are reading or speaking about a certain topic then only those classes studying that topic will be included.

One important use of celebrity volunteers in inviting parents and community members into our classes to read to students. He/she reads a short story, poem, or article. I, most generally, choose the reading selection; however, if they have something that they want to read, I am more than happy to allow them to decide what they will read. After the celebrity guest finishes reading to the class or classes, he/she tells the students how reading plays an important role in their occupation. Some examples of guest readers include firemen, policemen, a judge, a colonel from the Air National

Guard, a traveling storyteller, our mayor, a retired teacher, and even a former teacher of mine.

1 The Celebrity Reader or Speaker's message that they share with students after they have read may be a motivational one on goals in life. An example of this would be when Mrs. Coffman, who was a former teacher of mine, came to read to the students. After she finished reading a story about Abe Lincoln, who came from a very modest background, I shared with the students my story about deciding to be a teacher while I sat in her third grade classroom. I told them that I went home one evening and told my parents that I wanted to be a teacher like my third grade teacher. My parents, who are first generation born here and had only an eighth grade education, encouraged me to realize my dream. After completing college, I go on to tell them, I taught third grade next to Mrs.

Coffman, who was teaching second grade then. I tell them that they, too, can get an education regardless of their parents' education or background.

Another aspect of this is I organize parent and community volunteers as guest speakers on topics that we are researching. We have a retired dentist in our community that has studied Civil

War medicine extensively. He brings in all of the artifacts that he has collected and speaks on the medical techniques used during that era while students are studying the Civil War. Another example was a former Edison student, who is now a physician, and a parent, who is an attorney, spoke to our student body during the career unit. During the elections last year before our mock election, local politicians spoke to the students to convince them to vote for them. The people coming into our classrooms volunteer their services to read or speak, so there are no additional costs involved. While studying a unit on space, I found a site where students from all over the nation could chat online with experts. I have also utilized chats with authors from the Scholastic network online. We have also used the strength of technology to publish what we are studying with student created WebPages, which uses a real-world authoring tool.

Students worked cooperatively to research, design and create a WebPage for the five themes of geography. This project had them apply the five themes to a city in the United States. After researching to find facts about their city, they used the software, Learning Village, to create the

WebPages. After the classroom teacher and I approved their WebPages, we posted them for all to view.

Why is this accomplishment significant?

2 The significance of the Celebrity Reader and Speaker program is that it provides students adults outside the school, who model that reading and learning beyond the classroom walls is important.

Students often have a misconception that only teachers care about reading and learning. Parents and families are so busy that they often forget about the importance of children being read to by them.

Parents of preschool children read to their students; however, after they enter school reading to them is often forgotten. Research shows regardless of age, children learn from others reading to them at all ages.

How has what you have described had an impact on students?

My analysis of the guest speaker strategy is that it is extremely beneficial for students to have adults speak to them on topics being covered in the curriculum, because it applies the content to real world situations. My students look forward to the readers, storytellers, and speakers coming. An observation of them reveals that they listen intently. Most will tell you that they love to listen to someone read. This benefits students regardless of their reading level, because all can listen even if they can't read the printed vocabulary level being read to them. This affords them an opportunity to enjoy their interest level in literature that is above their readability. We could say this levels the playing field for all. When questioning them about what was read to them, they have a good understanding of the selection. When the author, Lila Perl, of Four Perfect Pebbles read her novel that depicted her mother's survival in a Nazi prison camp. All could answer detailed questions about her mother's experiences.

Other staff has expressed to me many times how important they feel this program is for their students. The administration supports this concept, because they, too, see the impact of the guest. It is easily replicable for students, because of the low cost, which is on every educator's mind when considering a strategy. If it involves money, the funds may not be there the following year. This is a plus for the strategy, because no funds are necessary.

The first time that the guests are invited to read, they have some reservations. However, after reading many express that they enjoyed the experience and feel that they are benefiting the students. Consequently, they are more than happy to give up their time away from their jobs or commitments to read. They gladly volunteer in subsequent years after having done it once. The

3 added bonus is that they get into the school to see the education that is taking place today. Many haven't been in schools since they were students. They are impressed and comment how they wish education had been that way when they attended. This benefits students, because they are more apt to support schools if a referendum needs to be passed. I have had parents thank me for the extra effort it takes to coordinate these activities.

Students express how enjoyable and alive this makes literature for them. If we can hook them on the enjoyment in picking up a book, then we have definitely given the students a valuable skill for life. The more practice they get from reading for enjoyment the better readers they will become.

Students state repeatedly after each community speaker how much they learned from them.

They look forward to their speaking when it is announced that we will be having one. I know that we are very fortunate to have had the quality of guest speakers for them. I, on occasion, ask them to write down at least three new things that they learned about the topic. It is amazing, because they will write until you tell them to stop. Not once have I had a student say I can't think of anything. I know that if we ever get a poor speaker the students will be the first to let me know, because they are very critical judges of people and situations.

Staff not only support this effort, but they have begun helping me find other guests and arranging for them to read or speak to classes. They see the time that it takes to coordinate the speakers at the time we are studying a specific unit. I have seen other schools in our district also begin using this concept, so I know that my peers feel that this is beneficial. Our staff is very protective of academic time, because in junior high there is so much content to cover. Administration encourages all of us to continue to use of volunteers from our community. They even suggested that we use fundraiser money for speakers, who require a fee.

My folder of resources has grown tremendously as parents have even added to it. Many of our guest speakers are parents. An example is we have a federal correctional institution in our community. Parents, who work at the facility, have arranged panels of inmates to come to the school to talk about the importance of resisting peer pressure to do illegal things. Another example is parents have spoken to classes during simulations of organizing a business. Students benefit from

4 their parents being an active partner in their education. If they feel as though they are contributing, they are more likely to support our efforts for students. This gives them an awareness of content we are studying too.

My second accomplishment was to be a reviewer for the Illinois State Board of Education

(ISBE) in Quality Assurance Visits for schools around our state. I have done this for the past five years with a team that consists of ISBE personnel, administrators, other educators, and community people from around the state. A convener from ISBE and co-convener, who is an administrator, chair the team. We went through a three-day training sponsored by the state of Illinois five years ago to prepare us for our visits. They have evolved over the five-year period. However, the visit's primary goal is to give the school that we are visiting an objective review of their school. It is a collective perspective, because unless more than two see something it is never included in the final report.

Before the team arrives at the school. The convener has had two prior visits, which are held in October and November, with the administration and internal review team of the school being visited. The co-convener joins the convener on the third prior visit, which is one month prior to the team's week visit, to finish preparations for the team's visit. Some of the issues to be addressed are logistics, data that needs to be collected prior to the visit, and background about the school. Schools are observed for four to five days by the team. The three main areas of the review are the school as a learning community, teaching and learning, and student work. For the first day each person on the team is given a student to shadow all day. We sit with that student through all of his/her classes, attend lunch with the student, and talk with him/her as time permits throughout the day to try to see school through his/her eyes. The school decides which students are shadowed, but they select students with diversified learning abilities and backgrounds. The team looks at the data the school has collected to see if it supports the school's improvement goals. The other data that the team studies is the mobility rate, diversity, and free/reduced lunch population percentages.

The next three days I visit classes, interview teachers, parents, and community members

(such as neighbors of the school). Focus groups, consisting of staff, discuss the school's improvement

5 process, how they are involved, and the assessment used to see if improvement is being made with the review team. I attend extracurricular activities. Displays that the school has compiled for the visit are viewed during the week. Each evening we debrief the data we collected that day and add the findings tot he exit report. The team writes the exit report during the week of the visit.

A report with reflective questions for each area is read on the last day by the team. During the first three years our visits were for five days, so this was day five. However, years four and five this was day four, because our visits were shortened to four days. The team reads the report first to the internal review team and then to the whole staff. The school may ask questions afterwards. A written report is sent to them during the summer of that year.

In the report data is presented of how many classes were visited. Totals of student, staff, parent, and community interviews are given. Data is included about the extracurricular activities that were attended. A written summary of what the team saw for each of the three categories is included in bulleted statements. Then, two reflective questions are asked for each category. An example of a reflective question might be, "Some teachers in your building are incorporating technology into their curriculum, how might they share their expertise with others in the building who have not?" This is to give them something that is feasible that they can truly improve upon for the students.

After the school receives the report from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), they have a timeframe in which to identify the reflective questions that they would like to address in their school improvement plan. It is suggested that they only choose one or two for the next school year.

The ISBE will then give them a mini grant to incorporate the school improvement for the following year.

The significance of my being a reviewer is that it not only professionally develops other teachers in the state of Illinois, but it is meaningful professional development for me. Teachers in the school that is reviewed fill out a survey after the visit. Four of the five schools that I reviewed with a

Quality Assurance team said the visit was very helpful. The other school said that they thought it was somewhat helpful. The observations are objective and from a diversified group which presents more

6 of a picture than the internal review team, who have ownership in the school. By reviewing the school for four or five days, one gets a more accurate picture than a one-day observation. This snapshot of the learning community gives the staff more information to decide what they want to include in their improvement plan. Specific areas to work on can be looked at from the reflective questions.

The grant money that is given to the school following the visit is for the specific needs that were chosen to improve. Usually, schools are asked to write for grant monies or given specifics to use money for that don't include improving the school. My review team consists of educators, who deal with students in the same way every day, so the collaboration is helpful for all. A special relationship between the school and convener seems to develop. This gives pride to the school to know that the

ISBE really is there to help. At the same time the ISBE get a better understanding of schools around the state and what they are trying to accomplish by working with the school and fellow educators on the team. Each reviewer gets to see the process to take back to his or her district.

Parents and community can also feel good about their school when reading the report since it makes public all of the good things that the school is doing too. They are included in the process of gathering data, which makes them understand how important they are for the school itself. As a reviewer, I convey to them that their opinions are valued. Hopefully, after I have included them in my interviews, they will want to be a part of the improvement process, which is the next step.

Students benefit from this process in many of the same ways that parents do. They are included in the process of the visit meaningfully. I am sure that they are made aware of the aspects of the school such as the vision statement before the visit. Our shadowing them demonstrates that their input is valued at school. By stating to the reviewer strengths, they think about the academic environment in a different manner. Looking at the weaknesses, they can begin to realize that they can give their education more quality by becoming an active partner in the process. The report and improvement plan developed from the visit can be shared with the students to give them further insight into where we want to be. Students that I talk to are extremely proud of their education and want to share their ideas with others about it. They like being given the chance to talk to someone

7 about it. On more than one occasion the student that I shadowed asked if they will meet with me again during the week's visit.

I benefit from my participation on a team, which then benefits my students. I take back ideas from the technology coordinator and from the collaboration with my peers around the state. I also share with them some of our successes. The external review models the correct way to internally review schools. I, then, shared with not only my staff, but also my district the benefit of an internal review and how to conduct one. I have conducted training for others in my building and am on the district team to train others about the internal review process for school improvement, which will benefit our students.

The third accomplishment is my professional growth as a student in the Curriculum,

Technology, and Educational Reform (CTER) online master's degree. This degree is offered through the University of Illinois. After learning from a former CTER student about the benefits of this program, I began the master's program during the fall of 2000. I have completed one year of the two-year program. My goal to further my education in technology is being accomplished through this program, because I have been able to not only learn about new concepts in education and technology, but also apply them to my Learning Center position immediately.

Online resources are utilized in each class. Reading published works by educators in white pages are a part of the instruction. Through postings by the instructor in Webboard, which is a

University of Illinois communication tool, students collaborate with each other about topics being studied. Online chats are utilized to cover important topics. An interactive learning site, Tapped In, has been introduced to our class for a meeting place. Another online communication tool that we utilized was Blackboard, where teachers and students can post their published works. Roger Wilco enabled me to see and hear online lectures.

During my first course I learned many valuable trouble shooting techniques that have helped me in my role as first line of defense for our building's hardware problems. We, also, looked how we could incorporate new technology into our classroom. I teamed with a fellow CTER student

8 to experiment with students publishing academic WebPages to post an application of the state standard that states, "Students will know the five themes of geography." After they studied the five themes in the classroom, they came to the Learning Center to learn the WebPages software,

Learning Village. This software allows students to publish on the web with little HTML knowledge.

We, next, studied good layout design for WebPages, such as not making the background so busy that it detracts from the written word. Finally, in groups of two or three they created a page around a city telling about the five themes of geography for that city.

Another course professionally developed me in the cognitive and behaviorist approaches to look how they apply to educational reform. I evaluated aspects of my classroom management as I studied the various theories of psychologists.

During another course, we wrote a technology grant for monies to further the district's ability to collect and interpret data about our students' progress in mastering in the State Standards.

We also wanted to incorporate improvement strategies for those needing help through the use of technology. Our assistant superintendent, my fellow CTER student, and I plan to incorporate this grant for a future RFP.

In another course I learned the proper way to create an Authorize User Plan (AUP) for technology ethics. Collaborating in a team we created an actual plan that is posted on the web. I was able to also pursue an in-depth study of ethics through readings, online lectures, and reflections posted collaboratively from fellow classmates. I am keeping an ePortfolio of my academic accomplishments as I progress through the degree program.

My analysis of this strategy is that the online master's degree has helped me grow professionally and has give me new insights, tools and techniques in technology and educational reform that I can use immediately with students and share with my fellow teachers in our district. It has allowed me to try new ideas such as creating academic WebPages with my students. I have shared many of the tools, such as Tapped IN, with fellow teachers.

9 I feel that my professional development has increased my students' learning, because I can field-test the innovative tools with them. Another real benefit is that I incorporate them around my teaching of the State Standards. In addition, they help me accomplish the Technology State

Standards. Students that I have surveyed after completing the various projects, such as the academic

WebPages, stated that they learned from the lessons. In their journal reflections students write what

State Standard they learned and how they applied it. These journals evidence their mastery of the content.

The CTER program has not only helped me further my education, but also given me insight into ways to bring my community into the school. Parents and community members have commented to my administrator and me the value of my WebPages project, because now even grandparents, who live great distances, can access their grandchild's WebPage. Through the study of other districts inviting the community into schools, I have come up with a new plan that my parents are very excited about. The feedback from them is very positive.

My district, too, is so impressed with my accomplishments in professional development that they have asked me to do pullout professional development for the district not just my building as I originally did. My goals for furthering my education now are being shared with many educators.

The administrators in my district are now encouraging more staff to enroll in the CTER program, which I feel demonstrates that others are recognizing the program's value from my accomplishments.

10 Reflection Linda Norman

As I reflect on my accomplishments, I see that I am incorporating the strengths of others in my classroom, that I address the Illinois Learning Standards (ILS), that I devote time to other professionals to help them improve, and that I continue to be a life long learner. When I first began my teaching career, my teaching was ninety- percent teacher directed or lectures. However, as I have studied what research says about learning styles, I have looked for ways to address many different learning styles in my classroom. My documented accomplishments suggest that I strive to keep current, I am a collaborator with my colleagues, and I utilize families and community strengths in my classroom.

My planning, scheduling, and overseeing of my community volunteers has opened our classroom walls to a vast wealth of resources. I have also used technology to open our classroom up to the outside world. One example is the lesson utilizing the creation of

WebPages. This lesson incorporates graphic design, so the visual/spatial intelligence is addressed by this lesson. This lesson also addresses the naturalist intelligence, because we are studying the standard that deals with the study of man's adaptations. Finally, creating

WebPages is a real world experience.

Celebrity Readers and Speakers address the intelligence of verbal/linguistic. They read or speak the written word for all to hear. They also include the personal-related intelligence, which covers expectations, accepted norms of thinking, acting, and cultural pressures.

The most effective work in improving student learning was my furthering my education in technology through CTER. My district and the state in the ILS believe that the incorporation of technology into all areas of the curriculum is powerful. As a teacher, who has not always had it, I feel my striving to learn more about its use impacts my

11 students. I can integrate innovative interactive tools that I am learning about outside of the classroom. Student learning will benefit, because the tools afford students another way to collaborate with peers and experts, publish for the community and themselves, and enhance their academics. I see that all ability levels are engaged when using the technology. I want every student to achieve his/her potential, and the technology assists me in that goal.

Being involved at the district and state level is important to me to not only share with others my knowledge but also to learn from other professionals. The ePortfolio that I have online has my projects and activities that I have designed for my classes and is another way I can share with others what I have created. Incorporating the family and community in my students' education is important, because they have much value to offer all of us.

I would like this to expand to having our students attend community meetings and share their projects with others. This would give the students a real-world audience.

Students could even teach adults the technology skills that they have acquired. My true desire is to never be satisfied with where I am. I want to continue to challenge my students and myself from now until I retire from education.