Professional and Continuous Learning

Professional and Continuous Learning 

January 19th, 2023 

1. Recently published academic article relating to middle-grade ELA instruction: Considering Collective Motivation to Read: A Narrative, Inquiry

This looks like a fantastic article because the question of motivating students to read is essential to the English Language Arts classroom. The author of the article questions how student's can "resonate" with a text or if this is even possible on a classwide level, and how inquiry-based methods about posing problems through text, rather than mastery, helps with engagement. These are topics related to my teacher practice and what I want to improve when it comes to literacy education and creating an environment in which students see the value of reading. 

2. Upcoming conference: Success for secondary reading: A Virtual Summit 

This upcoming virtual conference is centered on strengthening students' reading skills and their ability to engage with complex text. There are many sessions I am interested in, including "Science of Reading in Middle School", "Instructional Strategy Initiatives to Support Secondary Literary Improvements" and "Building a Coherent Secondary Literacy Model."

3. Build life skills:

I do not have time with the upcoming lessons to build in an additional scavenger hunt, however, I decided to attach evidence of an activity I did with year 7 students in December during a "free" hour before their holiday break with the idea of working on socio-emotional skills and community building. Students had to close their ideas while a designated leader choose different people to be chosen within the framework of a narrated story, and students had to decide together how the story continues based on each decision that is taken before. This game works on socio-emotional skills like responsible decision making, social awareness, relationship skills and self-awareness. After the game was over, we reflected as a group on the challenges of the game and the final outcome based on the way students took decisions and reflected on relatinoships. 

4. Create awareness: 

With my year 6 students, I implemented an activity during their homeroom time that was based around how our prejudices towards each other, for example towards one another's identities and learning styles and ways of communicating, can lead to misunderstanding. To exemplify this chain of misunderstanding, we played different rounds of telephone with different starter sentences and talked about the repercussions, and the importance of accepting difference and of not spreading rumors, embracing our personal truths, and not judging others.

5. Cohort memory with prop: 

6. Find common group: 

A fellow co-teacher and I recently bonded over the fact that we both love to take care of our dogs! I asked her for a picture of her dog, so here I have decided to include a picture of my co-worker with her dog and another picture of myself with my dog to share this common interest/hobby. 

7. Get Social: I do not use social media in any aspect of my life and am actually strong against it! That being said, one important thing I have learned during clinical is to make in the moment changes to the lesson plan during class time based on the students' needs, mindsets and energies. It is not worth it to "fit things in" in a forced way, for example if we only have 5 minutes left for a long activity, or if the students need to review a concept rather than to keep moving forward. 

8. Share an Achievement: The biggest challenge I faced during the program was adjusting to a new culture and school right as I began clinical, which coincided with the move my partner and I made to Spain from Mexico, where we had been living for the last four years. I had to make cultural changes and open my mind to both Spain and British culture, because the majority of the teachers at my school are from the UK. Other big things in my life were going on at the same time, such as finding an apartment, finishing my Master's degree online, and moving with our dog to a new country as well. I overcame these challenges through staying open to new ways of doing things and showing curiosity and resilience with all of these changes. This also required a lot of organization and communication to stay on top of my tasks and to divide tasks with my partner. I also maintained very open communication with my mentor who has been a very good guiding force with my school experience. 

9. Get personal: My personal ethic as a teacher is that relationship building and subject matter expertise is the center of my work and my ability to provide high quality learning to my students. Relationships because understanding their needs is essential to my planning and to making learning relevant and important and subject expertise because I need to fully understand the content and skills I am trying to bring to the classroom (knowing that they will also challenge me, and that I will also have questions) for the students to be engaged.