EDLD 5352 Instructional Leadership- Assignment 5.1

Web Conference- Week 4

Dr. Jenkins led this discussion, and many people had questions about the reflection over web conferences. They were asking about where the recordings for the past recordings were located. I couldn't find them either, and the e-mail my IA sent out needed a username and password that I didn't have. However, it was interesting to attend the web conference and see what technologies teachers at other schools had in their classrooms. For example, I've always thought our school was behind the times with technology, our teachers just received iPads, and I found that several classrooms have both iPads as well as other tablets for student use. I also thought it was interesting that some districts already have 100% online learning with recordings and podcasts for students to learn from. It was stated that teachers need to let go of being the center of the classroom and allow students to take responsibility for their own learning. I think that's something I struggle with greatly. To be honest, it's hard for me to think of letting go of the traditional style of classroom teaching. This class has greatly helped me to see the possibilities that are out there for expanding education. So, I feel that the more competent and confident I am in this, the more likely I will be to let go of the reigns and switch to the more modern, and student led teaching style.

EDLD 5352 Instructional Leadership: Assignment 5.2

Through this course, I feel that I have learned a good many things about technology. The use of Google Docs, Live Binders, and Flipped Classrooms have helped me to realize that there's so much more that can be done in education than what is typically seen. I realize that it's easier to implement these technologies at a higher level, (middle and high schools)  but I think that the foundation of technology education begins in elementary schools. It made me think about how much time is actually being spent to help students learn about technology- not just how to use and navigate different programs and Web 2.0 Tools, but also the responsibility of it. Are our students actually being taught about appropriate web behavior and etiquette? Are they being told of the dangers of the Internet, and how to keep themselves safe while navigating it? I know how much the Internet has brought to our lives, and our world- the progress that has been made in so many areas because of it, but sometimes, I think it would be so much simpler to keep our students safe if there weren't so many different ways out there to cause them harm. I feel that my school and district could do more to inform students and parents on preventative measures to help prevent such things as cyber-bullying, and on-line predators. I will be bringing this issue up at the next Campus Improvement meeting, as well as our next Olweus Bully-Prevention meetings.

This leads me into my Action Research progress. This summer, there hasn't been much progress on the actual research, except for working on my research report. However, I have attended a one day conference on how our district and individual schools plan to further develop the program to be even more successful than the success that we've already seen. The high school in our district has developed a student panel in which the students talk to teachers about different issues and what they feel teachers could do to help them.  From that, we decided to have our own 5th grade panel at our school. We thought that it could greatly help our teachers to hear the actual voices of our students telling us what they feel is working and what might still need help. We also discussed ways to bring the entire community into this Olweus program more. We thought of putting district blurbs about bullying in the community newsletters and e-mails. We also decided to push for everyone to wear orange in October for bully prevention month. The final push for the elementary schools was for us to develop a sort of Anti-Bully Superhero to show up at our school, unannounced to the students, and surprise certain students who have exhibited certain characteristics to help keep our school bully free. This week during our back to school in-service, we will be completing further training on the Olweus program, and I'm specifically looking forward to the sessions on classroom meetings, as this is specifically what I'm conducting my research on. 

As far as my campus activities go, I feel that I gained so much insight and knowledge over the past year simply by jumping in and getting involved in so many areas of our school. I attended the Olweus Bully-Prevention meetings which helped me to gain so much insight for my Action Research project. I was a technology mentor in which I helped to roll out iPads into our district for all teachers. I also helped to train them on various technological programs to further help them in the classroom. I served as the Math Committee Leader in which I attended several trainings over the new math TEKS, and led a training for several other elementary teachers. I also helped to bring in TTM to our school and develop it to become a competitive program at our school for which the winning class every month received a trophy to hold. I also served as a sponsor for our school's Early Acts Club, a subgroup of the Rotary Club, that conducts several service projects through the year. In addition to these activities, I have filled in for my principal during morning assemblies where I led in school announcements, and led the pledges. I also took his morning duties in the front of the school to greet students and parents when they arrived. I served as administrator on duty during PTA meetings, and led faculty meetings several times during the year. Speaking in front of the adults was the largest challenge I've had to overcome, but I feel much more comfortable now. All in all, I'm pleased with the progress I've made thus far, and I look forward to learning as much as I can in the year to come, especially in the areas of budgeting and human resources.

Action Research Project Update: Classroom Meetings Progress

So far, as a campus, we have begun implementation of the Olweus Anti-Bully Program onto our campus, as has the rest of our district. We have attended staff development on this program. Through this staff development we have looked at statistics of bullying in schools. This included types of bullying, bullying in relation to genders, age, and race. We have looked at when and where in the school-day bullying most often occurs, and general ways of increasing teacher monitoring around the school. We have watched videos on various scenarios as well as how the program suggests we would handle that situation as well as the correct terminology to use with it. We also watched examples of classroom meetings as well as practiced attending and leading a classroom meeting. Teachers were told that they are to conduct a 20 minute classroom meeting once a week. There was some grumbling about this at first, and although I didn’t voice my opinion, I thought the same thing: I’m having a hard time fitting in everything in my lesson plans every day and now I have to add another 20 minute lesson? The students completed an anonymous survey about bullying on our campus. We have gone over the results of this survey as an Olweus committee. Some of the more interesting findings were: 1) A high percentage of girls report that they have felt bullied by other girls, BUT 0% of girls admit to ever bullying at school. 2) Of the types of bullying on our campus, the type that is drastically higher than the rest is exclusion. From there, the committee decided that our major focus for the rest of the year would be addressing the exclusion issue on our campus. Not excluding others is one of the Olweus rules that are posted in every classroom, and every common area of the school. We also went over the findings and decided what would be appropriate to tell the staff and parents, without highly alarming anyone. One good point that we saw was that our school was extremely below the line of the national average of other elementary schools. This made us proud of the student body, because without even implementing the program yet, our students show less bully-like behavior than other schools. Also, teachers have been conducting classroom meetings. However, I have noticed, even in my own classroom that with STAAR getting closer and closer, the meetings seem to have dropped to every two weeks, if that. I hope that after the stress of STAAR is over for the year, the classes will find time to pick them back up to a regular weekly schedule. I am looking forward to surveying the teachers and finding out what they think about the classroom meetings as well as how often the classroom meetings are actually occurring. I will be doing this at the end of the school year. I’m also eager for next year when the students again take the Olweus poll. This will show us whether we’re on the right track as far as implementing our anti-bullying effort.