- WHAT, WHY, HOW.
On January 24, 2009, two years into the MCE program, Doug Balmar and I preformed a professional development to our cohort members. The title of the PD was
“Maniplatives; a sensory blast from the past”, it was one of the requirements for Dr. Pitts chemistry education class (Chem. Ed 636). On the last day of class Doug helped me to ‘put the dots over the letters’ in a discussion about defining leadership.
Well, I read 31 articles about manipulatives (for both subjects: chemistry and mathematics) and sat down, with Doug for hours to list the goals of the PD and the theoretical framework for creating several activities to help improve chemistry teachers performance in there classrooms.
2. Baseline Reflection
In the process of applying for the MCE program in 2007 I submitted my example of leadership. I took a lead in my school when I facilitated a microscope bought from Goodwill. My action provoked one of the parents of a student in our school to donate one more microscope for my classroom. The evidence provided below includes the essay I submitted, please refer to number one for this purpose.
As a baseline I would like to describe my understanding of leadership back then. A teacher leader is a person who can contribute to success.
I saw myself a successful teacher when my students were able to see plant and animal cells through this microscope. Also, I considered myself a leader because I was well adapted to situations, I was energetic, tolerant to stress, and tactful.
3. Later Reflection
In working for our professional development we wanted to be more dominant; we had the desire to influence our peers with what we thought was good teaching strategies, so we both tried many of those activities in our classrooms to be better skilled after practicing with our own manipulatives before we try them with our cohort. Figures below show cohort 8 practicing in some of our manipulatives. We also provided a set of materials of those activities to give away for immediate application in their classrooms.
We also supplied our peers with a folder including copies (manual and electronic), of all work sheets for the activities (students and teachers additions), copies of the power point, and the articles as a resource of our professional development.
Now, and after this experience, I can define teacher leader in a continuing three steps process;
First, a teacher leader is a person who can inspire other teachers, a person with vision and passion to achieve great things. We had a wonderful uplifting experience, Doug and I put our passion and energy into every activity we worked on.
Second, a teacher leader has the ability to develop his/her vision, this step, in fact, never stops, and takes energy and commitment, as some teachers will accept our work immediately, but some will need to join the show much slowly. That was clear from the feed back we gathered at the end of the PD. The following 2 figures show the results of the peer survey in which the questions were if the presenters used appropriate strategies to deliver the content, and if the presenters provided sufficient time to practice the manipulatives. Both responses show that teachers would need more practice time to develop and create more appropriate strategies.
Presenters used appropriate strategies to deliver the content.
Sufficient time was provided to practice using each manipulative.
On the other hand, we got a high score in regards to being well informed, well prepared, and having clear objectives and I would attribute that to the articles and researches that we provided for this PD.
And the final step, I think the teacher leaders have to remain up-front and central. If the teacher is supported with resources and equipped with practicing the activities he/she can always stand-up to be counted.
Teacher leaders not only perform to get other teachers to perform, but also supply other teachers with resources and sufficient practice time to ease their learning process. Teacher leaders must seek to infect and re-infect other teachers with high level of commitment.
4. How did this growth I experienced influence other teacher besides cohort eight?
Dr. Pitts invited us (I and Doug) to perform the PD we worked on to a group of new chemistry/science teachers at Lehman College NY. The following evidence is a thank you email and also to provide us with extra data, in the evaluation form attached, about our level of performance.
Dr. Pitts is the coordinator of the Graduate Program in Science Education; he organized this to help developing new teachers as they start their new school year. The Professional Development Evaluation Form he sent us as a feedback is a reflection to our performance.
E Evidence above agrees/ strongly agrees on the following:
C clear objectives, well presented activities, provided materials and resources are beneficial for future use and future teachers seems to be willing to integrate the content of his PD into their courses immediately. As for question three in the evaluation form asking how this PD contributed to their growth: answers were very positive sample answers: more interacting classrooms, abstracts presented by materials eases the teaching and learning of chemistry.