LIBE 477B Inquiry Blog #3 – How I built my confidence and leadership skills and how to keep this momentum moving forward.

The topic this week is something that I strive to do once I am in a Teacher-Librarian position.  Teaching other educators is something that I am passionate about and that is exactly the reason why I am completing my TL certificate.  I feel that I am able to build personal relationships with people quite easily and can develop their trust.  I think this is the most important thing that you need to do when you are thinking about offering Professional Development to your staff or any other educators in your district. 

When I first started attending Pro-D Days in our district I knew that one day I wanted to lead a workshop, I just did not know what I would be an ‘expert’ on in able to lead a workshop.  When I took my Yoga Teacher Training in 2014 I thought, yes!  I have it!  I’ll teach yoga at my CTA (Union) Pro D.  Well, 2015 registration came, I thought, no, I’m not ready.  Well, 2016 came and I actually opened the application form this time, yet I was still not quite ready. 

At the beginning of 2016 I found myself in my first Continuing contract and thought to myself, ok, I can make some roots here and build connections with this staff, but how?!?!  So I offered to be on the Pro-D committee.  When planning our first in house Pro-D the other members of my staff where wondering if they could find a teacher to come in and talk to them about FreshGrade.  I had been using this platform for the last year and thought to myself, ok, this is the opportunity that I am looking for.  I led a session and from then on my staff came to me with technology questions all the time!  I thought that this was wonderful that I was getting to know so many people so quickly.  I was so happy I made that step to offer up Pro-D to my staff that I was confident I could share my knowledge again or in another way. 

This is where collaboration became such an important part of my job, even as a classroom teacher.  During my days of TTOCing I always saw a lot of collaboration in the Middle School years, however, in Elementary, depending on the school, some settings almost felt competitive and resources and ideas were not shared.  I think that it’s so important to have conversations with other educators so that you can grasp different views and tackle different thoughts and ideas together.  Sue Kimmel discusses the patterns of collaboration with teachers can be broken down into “…orienting, coordinating, making connections, making sense and drifting (2013).” All of these patterns are important but she points out in ‘Making Sense’ that it “…best represents the value of collaboration (2013).” Which I one hundred per cent agree.  If we are not having these conversations with others then we could take hours and hours trying to work thing out on our own, when if we just have a 20 minute conversation with a colleague, you may be able to make sense much quicker between the two or more of you. 

Now going back to my Leadership journey, fast forward to the end of the 2016/2017 school  year when I applied for a 0.5 District Technology Support Teacher role.  I thought, well what’s the harm in applying?  I had great references from the work that I had done with the staff throughout the year and thought there may be a good chance to get some more interview experience.  Needless to say I got the role and continued in this position for 2 years.  My entire job was to give Pro-D to other teachers around the district and I don’t like to toot my own horn, but I think I was pretty good at it.  My Director of Instruction was a very technical person and often talked in jargon that I know a lot of people don’t always understand.  I think I was great at being that middle person for teachers who could explain things in a way that everyone would be able to understand and be on board, or at least give it a try. 

https://twitter.com/rmorwick/status/958021583355838464/photo/1

Taryn using side by side model for showing learning through Fresh Grade. Use apps like Pic Collage to show examples of work and progress within one image #FOCUSDAY2018

— Ron Morwick (@rmorwick) January 29, 2018

So moving forward, I strive to keep learning, doing CPD and developing my PLN.  During the most recent events in our school system many teachers had to learn how to use a lot of tools in a short amount of time.  We were also not able to come in to groups for PRO-D in the most traditional sense.  To learn some of these tools our district offered ‘Lunch and Learn Webinars’ that covered topics from how to get the most out of your laptop, various Office 365 tools, and FreshGrade.  Since I had the connection to the team I was invited back to run a Webinar on FreshGrade.  I have to admit it was a little intimidating at first knowing that I was talking to over 100 teachers in our district, but then I thought to myself afterwards about how powerful the tools are that we have access to.  In a short 40min webinar (20min presentation, 20 min Q&A) I was able to get in a lot of information in a short amount of time, yet address a lot of teachers.  This webinar was hosted through Microsoft Teams and then recorded so that others could access later on Microsoft Stream if they were not able to attend.  So my thoughts are now, why stop?  I am completely capable of making little how-to videos for my staff so that we can jump past some of those making sense conversations.  I know that other people struggle with technology and trouble shooting, so why not share my knowledge?  This is exactly why I hop to get into a TL position in the near future. 

Why should we stop sharing our knowledge with not only our own staff, with other educators or Teacher Librarians around the district.  Why can’t we host a bi-weekly or monthly webinars for teachers to attend, or record and have them access later.  I think that since we have this momentum (I know some teachers are exhausted from everything that they’ve learned an adapted to) we should strive to keep moving forward and keep being connected as a district. 

Throughout remote learning a Microsoft Team was also created with other Digital Literate Educators from all around our district.  This acted as an Internal PLN for troubleshooting and questions.  There was so much value having this accessibility to site contacts to act as a way to help staff all around the district.  When something useful was being posted or important information was being passed on to these expert educators we were then to pass this information onto our staff, again, we used Microsoft Teams as our go to for communication on our staff (kind of funny now since I had been pushing it on them for the last 3 years to get rid of mass emails!).  I think this is how we move forward.  I think this is our way to pass on CPD to fellow staff members.  This way we are allowing them to access if and when they feel like it and I think that’s the most important thing to consider when moving forward with staff Pro D. 

You are going to have the staff that take all of the information that you are passing along, you will have some information that interests them and you will have some that may not have the time right now to think about their own Pro D and we need to be accepting of all of these circumstances.  If you post something on Teams that is of interest to a teacher, they will message or come to you inquiring more or ask to collaborate on what you have passed on. 

From all of the reading that I have done through this course it is evident that access is important and teachers have busy schedules.  We do not have a lot of time for discussions throughout the regular school day, so if you are allowing them to access on their own time, then you may be able to have these conversations other ways, be it through Teams, email or various social media.  I also feel like right now, will my current staff, Teams would be a best bet because this is something that they are now checking often.  I would love to set up a Twitter or Instagram for them to check, but this may be something outside of their comfort or interest area so it’s best to stay in shallow water. 

Works Cited:

Kimmel, SC. PASS THE CHOCOLATE planning with teachers. Knowledge Quest. 42, 1, 48-51, Sept. 2013