Participating in a Professional Community
One of the greatest joys in my career has been the opportunity to learn from my colleagues. Teaching is collaborative by heart, and I have relied upon to learn and grow as a teacher.
Domain 4d of the Danielson Framework for Teaching calls upon teachers to participate in a professional community. I define my professional community as a network of colleagues, peers, and other professionals in that I rely upon for support in developing pedagogical practices, as well as sharing teaching resources. Beyond that, I engage with my professional community to foster closer relationships so that I can grow to be a better teacher and person. On a local level, teachers can benefit from a professional community within one’s school district. I have benefited from my local professional community in several ways. During both of my internship placements, I have been able to seek support from my mentor teacher, administrators, and academic facilitators. Moreover, I have been able to rely upon my professors’ and my peers for guidance, particularly in terms of academic and emotional support. At a national level, teachers can benefit from a professional community to learn about professional organizations such as NCTE, resources like books (Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher are among my favorites) and academic journals/magazines. Teachers can turn to these resources for instructional support and pedagogical theory. Participating in a professional community is essential for educators. In growing lifelong learners in our communities, we too must be engaged in the continual process of learning. Teaching is about adapting and growing over time, and utilizing the resources of your network spurs professional growth.
Growing a national professional community can be difficult, especially for beginning teachers. I have had the opportunity to expand my network by participating in Twitter chats for educators. A Twitter chat is typically hosted by a professional organization or a group of educators. These facilitators pick a hashtag, such as #BMoreEdChat or #NCTEChat and designate a specific time to discuss a designated topic. Chat facilitators will pose questions, starting with “Q1”, and users answer the question by responding with “A1” (and so forth) as well as the chat’s hashtag. Questions raised by moderators are guided by a predetermined topic, and these topics can range from theory to specific instructional practices. When users follow the hashtag, they are able to watch and respond to new tweets that are posted. Users engage with the chat to not only answer questions posed, but many people respond to others ideas, which can create a web of multiple conversations taking place within the central discussion.
Twitter chats are a viable form of professional development because educators from around the world are able to engage in meaningful conversations. These conversations are typically focused upon students’ needs and rely heavily upon users’ personal experiences within the classroom. The shared resources and instructional strategies can be adapted based upon the needs of your classroom and community. As a beginning teacher, I have hesitated to share my voice, but this form of professional development was where I felt as though my voice was heard and my opinions were valued. I learned from educators across the world, outside of a school setting. I engaged with impassioned, enthusiastic educators who motivated me to try new things. Twitter chats are another avenue of professional development and they represent a space that is accessible for all.
Alongside my English methods class, I helped plan and lead a Twitter chat on the topic of student advocacy. We worked under the hashtag #BeMoreEdChat, which was started by Justin Holbrook, a 4th grade teacher and Baltimore City Schools’ Teacher of the Year. The lack of a Twitter chat for Baltimore prompted Justin to fill the need, and since then, he has connected with educators across the country. It was through this chat that he met our methods professor, and he graciously allowed us to organize the chat for the evening.
Our professor first asked us for potential topics, and I submitted the idea of supporting student advocacy. Specifically, I was interested in learning more about how to hold space for student voice within the classroom, and helping foster students to be advocates for themselves and their communities. After agreeing upon this topic, we crafted questions we could ask in our chat. In our previous experience in participating in an #NCTEChat, we found that questions were scaffolding to transition from a broad focus to a more narrow focus. Typically, a chat begins with questions that seek to establish a definition of a topic, after which they become more specific as the chat goes on. Most chats have six questions and span for an hour. After brainstorming and coming up with potential questions in groups, we decided upon six of them as a class:
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How do you define student advocacy?
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In what ways have you seen students advocate for themselves, their school, and/or their communities?
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How can teachers support student voice and advocacy without pushing their own agenda?
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Advocacy often has political connotations, especially in the wake of current social movements (e.g., #MarchForOurLives, #BlackLivesMatter). How do you navigate discussions in which students have conflicting viewpoints on complex sociopolitical issues?
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What are strategies and/or resources you’ve implemented (or can envision yourself implementing) in your curriculum to support student advocacy?
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After tonight’s discussion, what will you do to support student advocacy? How will you continue to hold space for their voices?
Twitter chats can often be dizzying; a flurry of tweets every few seconds is overwhelming, but such an influx of information can also be invaluable. My biggest understanding developed through the #BeMoreEdChat was what my role is as an educator in terms of student advocacy. I learned about ways I can hold space for students, and one particular instructional activity I learned about and I am excited to try was recommended to me by another user. Patrick Harris is an educator in Washington D.C., and in order to support student voice and advocacy in his classroom he implemented community meetings in his classroom. Students are elected to specific roles in the classroom and are allowed to call community meetings when they feel as though an issue needs to be addressed in the classroom. He has provided the students with rules and a template for calling and holding community meetings. Patrick explained that this activity works well in his classroom, and that students feel as though they have a voice. I would also like to implement something similar in my own classroom. I feel like many discussions that occur in class are intended to gauge student understanding, and I would like for students to be able to develop their voices. I want students to be able to engage with one another in a civilized, respectful manner, and I believe providing frequent opportunities for students to practice this would be helpful. My role as an advocate for my students is to provide frequent opportunities for students to utilize their voice, and I believe Patrick’s activity of community meetings could provide those opportunities for my students to express their wants and needs.
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One instructional resource that I took away from the conversation was the idea of implementing restorative practices in the classroom. This term was unfamiliar to me, but one user described restorative practices as a way to help students learn from mistakes or misbehavior. Rather than relying on punitive punishment, teachers take an active role as advocates for their students. I believe this first starts with listening to your students. In my experience as a teacher, I have connected to more students who are struggling when I simply listen to them about what they need. I also believe that instead of reacting angrily to student misbehavior, you should treat them with respect and discuss the matter. Although this may not work for every student, I was grateful to learn about this practice from fellow educators.
If I had not been able to facilitate and engage in this conversation, I would have missed learning about these instructional resources. Apart from learning about instructional practices, I was able to feel a sense of encouragement from other educators. Teaching is a difficult job, and burnout is common. By expanding my professional network to Twitter, I was able to see the many ways in which teaching happens around the world. One of the beautiful things about this career is how many different strengths people bring to the table. Through Twitter, I am able to dialogue with educators about what works in their classroom. I can take risks and try new things in order to develop my own strengths as a teacher.
Beyond social media, I plan to expand my professional community by relying upon guidance gleaned from my peers and colleagues. For both of my internship placements, I was able to learn from my mentor teachers, but also my peers. I believe that these relationships contribute to my professional knowledge because I am able to get specific feedback for any questions I may have. One example of this would be when I had a difficult class of 9th graders, and I felt as though I was having trouble reaching them. My mentor, Holly Howard, suggested several strategies for how to alleviate some of my problems and after implementing her suggestions in the classroom, I saw a huge change in student behavior. I have also been able to learn from my fellow classmates in the MAT program at the University of Arkansas. As I mentioned before, teaching is amazing because everyone brings different strengths to the table and just the act of conversing with them has allowed me to gain insight on student behavior and develop as a beginning teacher.
Another resource that I plan to draw upon as an early career teacher is “The Learning Network.” This was started by The New York Times and provides teachers with free lesson plan ideas, short films, and articles written by other students. I have already used The Learning Network in my own internship placement at Bentonville High School and I found their resources to be very helpful. I implemented a project-based learning unit where students would create their own documentaries. These documentaries are created with the goal of dismantling a stereotype in their community. I used The Learning Network’s short documentary films to work as models for my students, and we also analyzed examples of rhetoric and filmmaking techniques in those documentaries. Using this resource, I was able to contribute to my understanding of how to design and execute a project-based learning unit and it is a resource that I frequently refer to when trying to find new materials to teach in my classroom.
I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to expand my professional community this past year, both through social media and beyond it. I am eager to continue my professional development and to try new things in my classroom. I hope to enact positive change in my school community and I cannot do this work without the guidance and support of others.
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