Week 8: Final Reflections

 

(Link to Slides Here)

Week 7: My Leadership Journey

 Leadership involves both guidance and empowerment. The structure of the assignments in this class has provided scaffolding for success in the final EdTalk. The LAP has allowed us to take course materials and build a foundational understanding of leadership. It has also given small tasks each week that have built up to the creation of a full action plan. The LAP outline alone would have been helpful, but the weekly feedback was instrumental in my overall growth. Strong leaders form relationships with their followers that build trust and understanding. 

Just as our own students will have limited growth without feedback, the same is true in this situation. Before I jumped into the LAP work each week, I made sure to listen to my feedback from the previous week and make any alterations or notes necessary.

After I completed the Reflection section on the LAP this week, I went to review the EdTalk rubric and found many similarities. In science and engineering, I teach that there is a cycle of feedback and revisions. We must always reflect on scientific concepts or engineering designs to make them even better. The LAP, reflection, and EdTalk is another example of a cycle of reflection. I was able to look back through my thoughts from the previous week when writing my reflection. Now that I have the reflection completed, I can refine my thoughts further to include in the final EdTalk.

The instructional road map of this course included other aspects that positively affected my educational journey. For example, the ABC Elementary team project allowed me to see different leadership styles in action as well as have deep discussions about teacher leadership. The weekly discussions further introduced me to different viewpoints through my classmates’ posts and replies. 

I can tell that this course was crafted with backwards design and special care towards final goals. The incremental nature of the assignments have given me ample time for reflection without overloading me. The assignments have also given me a tangible record of my changing thoughts on leadership. I am now much more confident in my understanding of leadership and my abilities to perform as a successful leader. I am ready to share my thoughts next week in the EdTalk!

Week 6: Team Feedback

 Over the past four weeks, my team has met four times over Zoom and kept in contact between meetings through email and comments on our Google docs. I found it very valuable to be able to compare and contrast each of our leadership styles. 

Based on information from Northouse, I was able to analyze our different strengths, leadership styles, conflict management strategies, and more. For example, we all took on a democratic style of leadership, though put our own spins on it. The first week, Stacie had us each share our strengths from one of the surveys by Northouse. We wrote down our scores and referred back to them throughout the process. This allowed me to make deeper connections between our respective strengths and how we each led the group.

The most valuable aspect of this project was the personalized feedback from my team members. Since we all knew from the beginning that we would need to provide feedback at the end, it allowed us to analyze each other’s strengths and weaknesses throughout the process. We also had an amount of respect and trust so I felt safe sharing my opinions and having Stacie and Carol share how I did.

Stacie and Carol each mentioned my ability to stay on target and keep to a plan. I agree with this because I am very task-oriented in all aspects of my life. In all assignments, I keep returning to the guidelines and rubric to decide how to proceed. Stacie and Carol each shared that I encouraged them and created a safe atmosphere for ideas. This was not something that I had considered to be a strength so it was enlightening to have both my partners mention it.

As for constructive criticism, each team member mentioned conflict management. Stacie encouraged me to keep building my courage and Carol suggested I be more active when others are having a conflict. I agree with both of these statements because I recognize that I tend to avoid conflict or be more passive when it arises. When Stacie and Carol were going back and forth about specific decisions (such as which proposal to choose or what to include in the slides) I had a difficult time jumping in. In an abundance of politeness, I try to avoid interrupting others. This can be detrimental because I don’t want to jump into a conflict and interrupt, but my jumping in could probably resolve the conflict more quickly.

The most useful piece of feedback I received was from Carol. She explained how my thanking her for finding a resource really made a difference in her perceived value as a part of the team. She explained that this made her feel appreciated when she was having doubts. I make an effort to include everyone in decisions and provide a positive, welcoming atmosphere. It made me feel like I am on the right track to have her mention this.

Overall, I have found this team project to be one of the most useful throughout my program. It allowed me to really see different leadership styles in action and reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses. I have one more course to take before I receive my Master’s and hope I will be able to put into practice what I have learned from this experience in whatever projects there may be.

The Prezi:

Week 5: Leadership Reflection

 Listen to my podcast here:

Anne Welker · EDCI 633 Week 5 Podcast

Week 4: Midterm Reflection

 I love being able to use my creativity and dressing up, so this assignment felt like it was made for me. 

Organization is also a love of mine (can it be considered a hobby? I do make a lot of lists…) so I created an outline to brainstorm how best to respond. For each role, I thought about possible concerns and then looked through my resources from this class to match the concerns with sources that would address them. There was also the problem-solving aspect of how to best film. In the end, I chose to use Zoom to film because of its virtual backgrounds and video filters. I then edited the video with WeVideo to cut out all of the extra material where I was transitioning between each role. It was interesting to put myself in other people’s shoes for the purpose of this assignment to attempt to see how those in different roles would have varying opinions. 

It was difficult to be authentic with the concerns coming from the parent, administrator, and teacher. I did not want to brush off valid concerns by looking only at the surface value problems. As a teacher, I am so often focused on what my actions will mean for my students that this provided me an opportunity to expand my empathy. I am especially glad that I was required to put myself in the shoes of a parent. Too often, parents are left out of the conversation and they really shouldn’t be. 

Surprisingly, videoing myself was not awkward or uncomfortable. Spending this entire school year seeing myself on Zoom while I have been teaching my students has helped with the uneasiness that comes with seeing and hearing myself on camera.

Here’s the video:

Week 3: My Leadership Traits

Watch the video below for my Leadership Traits Questionnaire results and connections to my Leadership Action Plan.

Week 2: So Many Tools, So Little Time

 Communication may be the most important aspect of education. It is what allows us to share with our students, learn from them, connect with parents, and collaborate with our peers. I have found that I employ different types of communication for different groups.

With my students, I use lots of visuals. This year, my district started using Schoology as a Learning Management System and it has an Announcement tool. Though you can type in word-only announcements, I like to make graphics with my Bitmoji and checklists. I use Google Drawings and the Bitmoji Chrome extension to quickly create my images. In the Multimedia Writing & Design Support page of Brandman’s website, Canva, Lucidchart, and Piktochart are given as websites to create graphics. I have used Canva before and also shared it with my students because it is a great tool for creating clean graphics. The reason I tend to use Google Drawings instead is because it gives me more freedom and is quicker to use.

Below I have included one of my most recent announcement graphics:

A tool that I have recently started using for communication purposes is WeVideo. My school bought a subscription this year which allows the recording and editing of videos. At the beginning of the pandemic, I started using tools such as Screencastify to make screencasts for my students. I have switched to using WeVideo because the editing tools allow me to do more to communicate better with my students.

My preferred method of contacting parents is through email or other messaging platforms such as ClassDojo or Remind. This allows me to think about how best to communicate and also has the added benefit of being able to include links, pictures, and even videos to explain things. For example, I have sent many emails this year to parents with screenshots showing how to view their students’ assignments. My introverted nature means that I would rather use text forms of communication than calling parents because it gives me ample time to decide how best to respond.

I use many methods of communication with my colleagues depending on the situation. I like to talk in person with my department because it allows us to bounce ideas off of each other. Sometimes I will text my peers when I have a quick question or something short to say. If I have to communicate a more lengthy or complicated idea, I turn to email.

One tool I have not used is Prezi. I am hesitant to use Prezi because it feels too busy. I enjoy art and graphic design and know that there must be a balance between form and function. I like to make my Google Slides interesting, but not so plastered with graphics and different fonts that the main idea is lost. To me, Prezi feels like a tool where it would be too easy to have the graphics and animations overpower the material.

In Dr. Greene’s presentation, I found a link to Kathy Schrock’s Twitter for Teachers webpage. I first joined Twitter at a SLOCUE conference in October of 2013.

Well, it looks like I'm finally joining Twitter! Inspired by all the teachers I've met since starting my SS credential. #slocue #ed412

— Anne Welker (@AnneAWelker) October 6, 2013

 Though I have heard that Twitter is a great place for teachers to learn, share, and communicate, I have never been able to stick with it. I want to utilize Twitter more in my quest to become a better teacher and leader. I Tweeted my first post in about six months this morning. Follow me HERE if you want to join me in using Twitter to grow.

https://t.co/MtdYVeu8LH
Finished The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune this morning and I think I found a new favorite! I laughed and cried and loved all the characters.

— Anne Welker (@AnneAWelker) May 15, 2021