Synthesis Paper

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Hire the Heart, Train the Brain

             The heart and the brain are in constant pursuit of balance. The interaction between the heart and the brain is not like an hourglass system, where one side has to empty for the other to fill, rather, it is a complex and intricate type of scheme where they feed off each other and help each other grow and learn. Both of these organs develop at a different pace, but in education, they find happiness in similar places.  I cannot speak for all teachers, but the more prepared I have felt while doing my job, the more I loved it. At the same time, the more I loved my job, the more prepared I wanted to be. The common objective of both the brain and the heart is to find the balance between passion and preparation that will allow one to be successful, whatever success might look like to you as a teacher.

Early in my career, I found myself inside a cycle of the things that I wanted to do and was passionate about but was limited by my lack of experience.  A couple months after graduating from the University of Michigan, I got an offer to work overseas, in Doha, Qatar. It was a big change for my family and I, but my husband, my daughter, that was two at the time, and my self, packed and left Michigan seeking new adventures. I remember the anxiety of moving to a new country and thinking about teaching for the first time. With no prior experience in hand, I walked into a science lab that was more like a room with sinks and running water and was given the assignment of teaching sixth, seventh and eighth grade science and an eleventh grade health class. The school where I started my teaching career, and where I have been for the past five years is a school for students with learning disabilities. Our students are English language learners and come from very prominent, rich families. I faced many challenges that first year, starting from curriculum development, to motivation strategies, developing the labs and getting accustomed to the new culture.

After my first year of teaching I got offered a position as the middle school coordinator. I was passionate about making a difference, but was worried I wasn’t ready to take a leadership role. After talking to my principal, he told me that even though I didn’t have the credentials YET, I had the heart and drive to do the job well. He offered his support and, in exchange, I took on the role. I knew I needed more training and I knew that I wanted to make a bigger impact beyond the classroom walls. As a result, I decided to pursue a master’s degree and registered at Michigan State in the Summer of 2010. I felt as if I never left school because I had just graduated in Winter of 2009, but I was eager to learn more and prepare myself to better serve my students and my school.

Deciding on the type of training I needed

            When I first started my classes at MSU I didn’t know what kind of master program I wanted to be part of.  I decided to take TE 846 and TE 882 before committing to a specific program.  The decision to enter the MATC program was a mixture between the needs I had at work for more leadership and curriculum development training and how interesting these two classes were right from the start. My principal also suggested this type of training in order for me to become a teacher leader the year after working as a coordinator. Teacher leaders at our school are teachers that are training to become coaches at some point in their career. Everything started to fit together and my brain and heart were on their way of becoming more in sync. I was getting the training necessary to finally do the things I was passionate doing and that my heart was asking me more of.

Setting an example

Before leaving my classroom completely, I understood that I had to create a learning environment where I put into practice all the research based strategies and tools that we learned in our pre-teaching and master program. I have always been a perfectionist, so it was important for me to have a well-behaved classroom where learning was taken place in a fun, focused, child-centered way. I used our MATC program’s standards as a guide for my teaching, and more often than not, I used the materials, research, tools and strategies that we learned in class directly into my classroom. It was comforting to have a “tool box” and to feel that the education I was getting was relevant to the work I was doing. Once again, my heart and my brain were working together closer than ever.

My first tackling challenge was creating a meaningful curriculum that was aligned with the supreme education council (SEC) standards. I came into a lab that didn’t use technology and to where former teachers taught science using a lot of art projects. Not that I am against using art in the classroom, but every lesson was about creating and coloring a page with words and pictures of the topic. There was no obvious evidence of student learning, no progress monitoring and not summative assessments to drive instruction. At the same time, I was taking CEP 800, a class that teaches us how to use technology to pre-assess student knowledge, identify common misconceptions and create technology based lesson plans. This class helped me so much as a teacher. Artifact 1 is a mixture of a digital story, a technology based science lesson plan and a mp3 student interview. The assignments on this class set the tone for what my teaching process would look like from then on. Pre-assessing and sampling students’ prior knowledge is something that many teachers KNOW they SHOULD be doing. However, we all know that when we are busy and struggling with many other things in the classroom, this can drop a couple of places on our priority list. This project that was divided into three major assignments, gave me the medium and setting to help me pre-asses and tackle students’ misconceptions in an efficient and objective way.  Although science and technology work very well together, the skills I learned through this class helped me generalize the idea of how to utilize technology in the classroom in any subject area. What I appreciate the most about this new knowledge learned is that it is efficient. The result of adopting these simple yet powerful tools in our classrooms are amazing in relationship to the time a teacher needs to spend implementing them. Many teachers I speak to often say that they know how to integrate technology but choose not to because it is too time consuming. After I teach them the skills I was taught in this class, and how to use those skills proactively, their mind changes pretty quickly. This project helped me understand that students are different and diverse, and that each one learns differently. It also helped me understand the subject matter with more depth, how to teach it and how to design a curriculum, instruction and assessment that tackle prior knowledge, common misconceptions and different personal interests. This project directly targets my personal goal of becoming better at using technology in the classroom in an efficient, fun, time saving way. (Standards 1,2 / Goal 2)

After thinking about what my students know and developing lessons that were meaningful to them, I realized that one major component that ensures student success is classroom management. We all know that it is impossible to teach students that are not engaged and behaving during a lesson. I think I speak for many teachers when I say that this is one of the major challenges we face as educators. It was then when I was asked to conduct an action research project for my TE808 class. Artifact 2 is a website where I compile the information from my action research project that I conducted on PBIS (Positive behavior intervention system) in one of my science classrooms.  My school was in it’s second year of PBIS implementation and this topic was very important to me. I was then given the role of PBIS facilitator for the middle school. Yet another role I felt I needed more training in, but loved and enjoyed doing. This action research was helpful and I later used it as an example to what other teachers could do in their own classroom to answer questions they had about the program using real data and reflective prompts that helped use the research based strategies in a more meaningful way. This was the first time I ever conducted an action research project and it helped me develop skills such as writing proposals, literature reviews and aligning research projects to standards. It also helped me reflect on my own strategies and teacher practices and distinguish between good practices and practices that needed modifications. It helped me understand students even more and helped me develop a natural commitment to students and their diversity. It also gave me the tools to reflect and look into my own practice with an inquisitive standpoint. I also was able to learn to critically inquire about different professional literature and research and to analyze all this new information in accordance to my own point of view, but also through different standpoints. (Standards 1,4 / Goals 1,2)

The topic of student behavior is so dear to my heart that when I was asked to conduct a case study for CEP832, I decided to continue my research on PBIS. Artifact 3 is a website that gathers all the information I collected and reflected upon that fall. During this assignment I was able to distinguish a behavioral issue, collect and analyze data on one of my students, create a behavioral strategy plan, analyze the effectiveness of that plan and finally, reflect on my professional stance before and after the strategy plan was applied. I was once again able to do work during my MATC program that was relevant and directly affected my teaching. Through this project I was able to quickly and effectively recommend the strategies analyzed to other colleagues that were facing some of the same behavior issues. One of the major outcomes from this whole process was the strong relationship I was able to build with my students. This allowed me to create a positive, productive relationship in my classroom and in non-structured settings. I was able to systematically inquire and reflect on my own beliefs and assumptions in my classroom. (Standards 1,4 / Goals 1,2)

Ready or not, here we go…

During this whole process, I developed strategies and tools that helped me as a classroom teacher. But like my principal once told me before, my heart desired more. I wanted to go outside the classroom and work directly with other teachers. I was getting the jobs and roles I wanted, the support I needed from the principal and other administrators and the training I wanted from the university.

I then got offered a job as an instructional coach. I remember going to my principal and telling him I wasn’t ready to do this, and until now I thank him for pushing me even further. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and provided me with even more training. I told him that other teachers in the school were great teachers and could do a better job, but I guess my passion was obvious to him, even more than it was for me. He then told me a story that I remember often. He asked me if Tiger Woods had a coach. With a puzzled look I answered, of course he does. Then he said, do you think that his coach is better than him? If he is, why isn’t he making the big money? It was then when it dawned on me. Coaching wasn’t about how experienced a teacher is or how much do we know, it’s about our actions and our desire to train our brain even further. I had a lot to learn but with a mentor like him, and the support already provided by the classes I was taking, I was ready. It was then when he told me he hires the heart and trains the brain, and he had hired my heart already. He made sure I knew that the next couple of months were going to be very difficult and that he expected nothing but the best, and I was ready.

There were many trainings that my school had in collaboration with the university of LeHigh that I had to take in order to be fit for the new job. I decided to apply for two of those classes to transfer to my MATC program since they fit and correlated with the standards and goals of my masters. Due to the type of population we had at our school, it was time for me to move away from tier 1 students and develop further training for tier 2 and tier 3 students, in both areas of behavior and academics. In one of my transferred classes, SpED 465, I was able to collect student data, analyze it and make recommendations for individual students. I was also able to get trained and administer screeners. Artifact 4 is an alternative   education plan paper where I researched different IEP’s used around the world and summarized and analyzed five of them, fusing the main components into one and developing one to be used for our school.  It was the school’s shared vision to help develop and maximize students’ potential and ability to learn. This project helped confront an issue and a problem of practice in our school. By using different theoretical perspectives and conceptual frameworks to tackle this situation, we were able to move forward. This was the first project I was able to do as a teacher leader, beyond the classroom walls and it taught me how to provide professional development while keeping everyone focused on a topic while at the same time respecting different opinions and perceptions. (Standards 1,3,6 / Goals 1,3)

The second class I transferred from LeHigh was SpED 452. During this major project I was able to do walk through reflections, peer observations, team teaching, teacher assistant team meetings, student study teams, data team meetings, develop PLC’s and collaborate with an adaptive technology center. I also was able to videotape myself teaching an explicit instruction lesson and write an evaluation of the lesson. This work is recapped in my summative project part 1 and part 2, labeled artifact 5, where I developed a then current school assessment framework, compiled student performance data for three years and an analysis of student needs based on student performance using the RTI framework. Although this project looked at three years worth of Math data, it was the perfect catalyst for our school to start looking at data differently and more analytically in all subject areas. Thanks to this project, we also started looking at available resources through different lenses and conceptual frameworks and analyzed issues and problems of practice in an effective, proactive way. This project helped me reflect on my own beliefs, assumptions and practices and understand how students can be affected based on decisions and actions we make daily. I was able to practice my communication skills and present a written project to the director of my school and to the rest of the school in a professional development presentation and through smaller professional learning communities. (Standards 1,3,4,5,6 / Goals 1,3)

I was then ready for more classes that focused on leadership skills and training. During my EAD 867 class, I was able to review and analyze studies on leadership issues. Artifact 6 is a paper where I analyzed a leadership case study, (Standards 3,5,6 / Goals 1,3) identified the leadership issues and tensions and used literature and research based articles to develop next steps. This class was important to me because I was able to see different scenarios and identify similar issues through a different perspective, outside the comfort zone of my own school. It was also during this class that I learned the main differences between leading and managing (artifact 7) (Standards 5,6 / Goals 1,3) and I felt more prepared to embark on this new adventure supported with all these new tools and literature to help me along the way. Through both of these papers I was able to understand and use different theoretical perspectives and learn about the different frameworks to analyze issues and problems of practice and policy. Many of the articles and literature that I used during this class were related directly to my work, which I appreciated. This class introduced me to a larger population of educational leaders that helped me compare and contrast different situations and scenarios to my own environment.

This has been a challenging journey, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I started my first year of teaching with the normal struggles like what and how to teach, and how to set behavior rules and expectations in the classroom. These struggles changed overtime and my biggest challenge was to balance the love I have for teaching with the love I had for working more directly with the teachers outside the classroom as a teacher mentor. I am thankful for the opportunities that I had right from the start. I am thankful that my principal saw in me what he called “passion for more” and didn’t allow me to get stuck in a rut when I was intimidated. I am mostly thankful for the support and resources created by the MATC program. This program helped me train my brain so that I could follow my heart and do what I really wanted to do. There are many more opportunities and lots of work ahead, but I leave this program full of resources, teachings, strategies, and tools. I feel more ready than ever to start over again. As I get ready to graduate, and move back to the states, I am thankful I'm coming back with all these experiences, teachings and mentoring tools. At last, my heart and my brain have found the needed balance, and are now ready to reciprocally grow together.