Week 4- Leadership Project

In considering options for expounding the accumulation of the past years work, I thoroughly thought about both publication and presentation.  I felt that in terms of the content as well as in terms of my professional experience a presentation at a conference would best meet the needs of my colleagues and myself. 

Some of my initial thoughts and considerations are posted in earlier blog post. 

Week3: http://isntitallspecialeducation-dmiles.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-3-leadership-project.html

Week 3: http://isntitallspecialeducation-dmiles.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-3-free-choice-leadership-project.html

Week 2: http://isntitallspecialeducation-dmiles.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-2-free-choice.html

Week 1: http://isntitallspecialeducation-dmiles.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-1-project-choice.html

Current research shows that there is a disparaging discrepancy between the skills necessary to be successful in the current workplace and those possessed by an increasing number of today’s students.  This is ever apparent in the inability of many students to successfully display the necessary skills to independently complete and hand in at-home assignments and independent study skills. 

A literature review was written by the presenter to examine the current technologies used by professionals to organize time, space and materials, task prioritization, motivation and communication as well current educational technologies.  A research project was planned and carried out to examine the effects of introducing, providing instruction, and using web-based tools to develop and promote the skills necessary to be successful with independent at-home and study skills.  After two semester long cycles, evidence showed a clear connection and benefit.  During the presentation, the participants will be led through all stages of the project as well as the particular benefits of the tools used.  The participants will have an opportunity to analyze and categorize the tools as well as to accumulate an understanding of what features to look for and assess other tools by. 

There are two targeted conferences to present the project at. 

http://www.iet-c.net/

The 18th Annual Illinois Education & Technology Conference (IETC), which will be held at the Crowne Plaza Springfield Hotel, is a statewide conference that offers those interested in accelerating student achievement an opportunity to gain information and exchange ideas on the applications of educational technologies in our classrooms.

http://www.tsetc.org/home

Tri-State Education Technology Conference (TSETC) is dedicated to educators in the Tri-State area and will provide a day to explore the latest developments and best practices to prepare students for a technology-driven future.  TSETC is intended to highlight advancements in education technology and to help illustrate how instructors can best adopt and utilize these technologies.

My presentation as it stands now can be viewed at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcm26k3r_76cgjd5php

Week 4- Comments to My Classmates #2

Image retrieved and modified from FB profile pics.

Tracy's Comment re: The Art of Possibility-

Okay, I have agreed with most of the sections of this book up until now. I have to put my foot down on the Being the Board chapter. To a certain extent, yes, we need to take responsibility for the known risks we have put ourselves victim of. Take for example you decide to build a house on a flood plain as in the example in the book, you should not be devastated and blame others for the declaring yourself an unwilling victim of a known risk. However, we cannot always foresee the future, and sometimes, bad things happen to good people. I will not twist the situation so that I will somehow blame myself for every situation. It just might be someone else’s fault.

When you are in a position of leadership and you assume responsibility for failure at some level; I get that. I am the Yearbook Advisor for the district and try to allow the students as much freedom of responsibility and creativity as possible. However, when push comes to shove, the District will not blame or fire students; it will be the teacher that will feel the conviction. I am upfront and honest with my students while they choose every opportunity to put off their chores to make sure the Yearbook is completed in a timely manner. I call myself the Queen of the classroom and it has sent the appropriate message.  Time will tell.

My comments to Tracy-

Tracy, I see where you are coming from with regards to the ownership issue, however I think I may have another angle to approach the situation from.  The way I read the chapter, we are to not "blame" anybody, not others OR ourselves.  It is to take ownership for the possibilities that our behaviors afford us.  When we take a risk, such as buying that house, we must own every possibility that that experience opens for ourselves.  Yes it may be in a flood plain, but we may learn something and meet someone, and feel something that we could never experience from any other action than from buying that house.  The way a see it I want to own all the good things that come into my life, but in order to do that, I have to own the bad things as well.  But the bad things are more than just "bad things" they are opportunities to learn, opportunities to change, opportunities to walk away different from when and where you began and those things are valuable.  I think what the text is asking us to do is to change the way we look at things.  Yes, our administrators have the ultimate power to sign our pink slips, but is it not us who took the chance to apply, it is us who took the risk to think or act in a way that brings attention to ourselves, and it is us who then owns the opportunities that result.  So if our administrator does in fact let us go, the opportunities that open due to us being let go are also ours to own.  If we are not "let go" then perhaps we would never be afforded to opportunity to find our dream job or to meet that connection who changes our lives.

I think it all just comes down to changing our perspective.

Week 4- Comments to My Classmates #1

Retrieved and modified from FSO profile pics.

Dena's Comments Re: The Art of Possibility:
 I enjoyed Zander’s remarks about lighting a fire in others.  I feel like I was born with the ability to do this and see it as a big responsibility to my students as well as my family and friends. The way he described enrollment as the ability to give yourself as a possibility to others and to be ready to catch their spark really hit home with me. He has so many inspiring lines in this book that I want to remember. I felt a strong reaction to his discussion of taking “no” less personally and myself less seriously and in doing that being able to see the opportunity for enrollment.

I also really felt a connection with Zander’s idea of being the board in your life, not reacting to the other players, but taking control in your life and transforming your entire circumstance. Making room for all the moves, as Zander puts it. What a revelation for most of us to stop seeing life as a blame game. When you look back, it’s so interesting to see how measurement in it’s many forms completely rules our existence. We have been trained to think that way.

Reading the steps in chapter 11 about vision and being a leader of possibility inspired me to write them down and carry them with me. Lately I feel as though I am always trying to overcome the downward spiral so it’s going to be a key part of my outlook to get into the practice of focusing on what is possible. Whether it’s because of a certain student or faculty member that I’m having an issue with or if I’m just plain tired that particular day, the goal is to stay focused on realigning myself. If I keep the concept of the framework in my mind, hopefully it will more easily allow me to bounce back when I get pulled down.

As I begin to head back to school this coming week after spring break, I feel that I have a renewed sense of purpose in what I do. Part of it, yes, is simply taking some time off, but the other part is finishing the last few chapters of this book.  For me, the WE story truly communicates why I work at a community college and sets the framework for me as a teacher and as the interim coordinator for the center for teaching and learning. I have learned many valuable lessons and want to plaster some of Zander’s quotes on the walls of the school. It also makes me think about my role as a mom and wife and how I can set the framework for all the relationships in my life.

My comments to Dena:

I could not relate more to your sense of renewed inspiration through the experience of this book.  I think that we are taught to some degree by society this negative outlook on our positions or to blame or to measure and compare.  I find it so inspiring and such a positively challenging task to take a different outlook.  It is even ironic for me, as I have continually made it my mission to help my students look at their lives or their place in the world with a different critical lens, a more positive one.  Yet I have not completely practiced what I have preached, but perhaps also because I have not looked at my philosophy through such a structured and organized means as the Zanders have presented here.  

I am early in my career, but have been given such a challenging situation.  Increasingly over the past year I have taken a more and more negative view of what I am going through, and this book has given me a new sense of vision.  I particularly relate to the statement you made in this regard that we need to "take “no” less personally and myself less seriously and in doing that being able to see the opportunity for enrollment".  I have not necessarily taken a "poor me" stance but I have definitely taken some of the situations that I viewed as less optimal as personal dejections or failures, rather than doing what is suggested through the text; consider and make the most "possibilities" out of the situation.  I will be taking a similar stance as you and making the attempt to " overcome the downward spiral" by keeping the lessons and suggestions in this book close to my heart.  

Week 4- Reading- The Art of Possibility (cont...)

The first two thirds of the book, The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, presented more than food for thought, in my opinion.  If the average thought provoking piece of literature is "food for thought" this book was enough sustenance to provide for a small starving third-world nation.  

The eight chapters prior have given a structure for acknowledging the less effective "thinking" or practices that we participate in and allow to effect our lives.  They also begin to layout the groundwork for what and how to change in order to live more efficacious and powerful life.

In chapter nine we examine the idea of owning responsibility for everything that happens in your life.  It is important to acknowledge the risks that we take and their importance, but also that without taking those risks, we would live without the rewards which comes with the outcome of those risks.  This chapter also speaks to the idea that we need to allow the things that happen in the pass to be processed and then left in the past rather than owning space in our present lives. 

Chapter 10.  In effort to pull all of these considerable ideas into one coherent plan of action we take in our role in laying out and carrying out a framework for which to follow. 

To sum up the book, I want to just comment on the final chapters.  The authors point out the importance of disassociating ourselves with the “us vs. them” mentality and putting focus on our ability to give concession to our connections and then go beyond and look at the places where we can foster those connections.

Life is defined by the experiences we accumulate.  I have a new appreciation for the title of this book.  There is an "art" to creating possibilities is our lives.  If we limit those possibilities than we are limiting the depth and breadth of our lives.  If we are not living life to it's fullest than what purpose are we serving.

Week 3- Leadership Project

Retrieved from Flickr Creative commons Circusfrom craiglea123

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls.... Welcome to the greatest show on earth, the three ring circus I call my life.  Watch as I tame wild animals, juggle, manage a bunch of clowns and put out fires all at the same time!  Really... I am not kidding!

In the past year I feel as if my small side show of a life has literally turned into a three ring circus. I have a 4.5 and a 6 year old boy, both who seem to have an endless array of ailments lately.  When they are not sick or bruised they are very normal high-energy rambunctious little boys who rightfully demand a large amount of attention.  My husband works night so we literally pass each other at the door each way.  I am 6 months pregnant which brings along it's own set of demands and pleasures.  Need I say any more on that subject?   I teach all four core courses at the Regents level to a group of 9th graders who are not only classified with many different disabilities but also identified as the highest risk students of their 675+ class.  One of my students has TBI, who is aggressive to the point of being violent, and whose case his heading before a superintendents hearing, with lawyers involved on both sides.  4 of my students have involved behavior plans, 3 of my students have been placed on PINS (a form of juvenile probation), and all of this is happening in a district that is not structured or organized well enough to handle any of it.

As my classmates may know, the accelerated master's program has been intense, requiring a tremendous amount of organization and commitment.  Put on top of that, the thought of presenting my findings at a conference and I almost want to scream.   But everything that I looked at a year ago, and had similar feelings about, has gone phenomenally and has ended with results that I am now proud of.  My initial thoughts were that writing a paper would be the easier, less stressful choice.  But having read The Art of Possibilities, and knowing that this is a situation in which I can think outside of my "box" and in which I can structure opportunities and possibly spark others, I figured that I need to push myself a bit here.

I do truly feel passionate about the possibilities that this idea has for students, particularly those who need alternatives to the traditional methods.  If I simply wrote a paper, I am not sure if that passion and support would be heard or deeply comprehended.  I find that when I share even just one single tool with a colleague and see their excitement, I am driven to keep sharing.  I think that if given the opportunity, a conference may provide a similar experience.

Retrieved from Flickr Creative commons Untitled from tati w.

I think that my next step is to use my contacts through Schoology, to see if there is some suggestions or some ideas to where to contact first, or who I may use as connections in order to find the best place to showcase my findings.  I figure that since they play such a large part in my ARP, perhaps they would not only be willing to help, but could perhaps point me in the best direction.

Week 3- Free Choice- Leadership Project

In my searches for clearer direction, I returned to  a familiar tool... Facebook!  As I am a huge fan,  I thought of Schoology since I had attended their free conference in October I began by visiting their FB page. I decided to begin a new search using the FB platform and was both surprised and a bit frustrated.  I found a plethora of information regarding past conferences, but took the information as a springboard, looked at the "likes" of each site and did find a bit of valuable information.

 I am curious to see how successful we as a group are in terms of acceptance to our targeted conferences, and how important it is to find the right fit to match our proposal topic.  I think that we as a group have touched upon a wide range of connected topics.  I suppose I never thought about how the presenters came together into one cohesive experience before. 

It is too bad that we as a University could not put on our own conference.  Full Sail should have a bi-annual or tri-annual presentation to showcase where the teaching minds of the next generation are looking.  

I am sure there is one out there, and as most of these tools have been for me this year, I am sure I will find it as soon as a hand in the assignment, or teach the lesson, or in this case as soon as I apply for the conference.  However, each time this happens my immediate reaction is to stomp my foot or roll my eyes at the irony, but in each case it is a tool that is added to my file or PLE in order to make the next experience that much easier or smoother!

I am sure that the perfect situation will come along or present itself.  I will be applying locally if possible as I would truly like the opportunity to actually present if accepted.  I would rather not just go through the motions for practice or experiential purposes.  I would like to find a conference in the New England area as my family is in the midst of preparing for another addition and this will make traveling difficult on several levels.  Leaving the family for any substantial amount of time is out of the question and the expense of airfare is not really an option either.

I would also like a more educational based conference as opposed to a technological focused conference.  I know this may be a focus on such a minute detail that it may not be a decision to be made, but my thinking here is that my ARP did not have the luxury of utilizing a large amount of technology within the classroom.  I was able to introduce the tools and to some degree practice the use of them, but due to technological limitations we did not get to utilize the number of tools or to the degree that I would have liked.  So I believe I would like to focus more on the depth of the educational experience.  

Week 3- Comments to My Classmates- #2

http://heatherindelicato.blogspot.com/

Retrieved and Modified from FB pics.

Heather’s comments re: The Art of Possibilities-

There seems to be a fear among leaders that their leadership will fade, if they allow those they lead to become great. I love the idea of gathering perspectives and approaches from those being led by asking them to lead so you can “see how it sounds” or give their ideas and suggestions, as in the “white sheet.” Figuring out how to make this work in each class is exciting, even more so when you catch the passion of the learners through it.

The confidence and excellence I find in my students when I manage to foster this is wonderful. I begin each quarter, and remind them throughout, by telling my students that I have a class of teachers and each of them knows something even though they don’t yet have all the skills. Especially when working with my lower language skill classes, I find it would be impossible to successfully assist each student if they didn’t work together to answer questions when I’m working with another student.

In “Rule Number 6,” I’m reminded of the many times we insist children “be serious.” I think the calculating self is more than just our personality developed throughout childhood to establish a niche of acknowledgement and acceptance. I think it may be the restricted and “self-controlled” habit we’ve learned over time as we’re instructed to “behave” and “be serious.” 

It’s when we remember that childish excitement and intrigue that we can really enjoy life in its fullness. It’s the children who are constantly imagining other realities and creating different stories and games to explain the world around them. When we are able to approach life with that same freedom, interest, and excitement there’s no telling what will happen.

My Comments to Heather-

I agree with you whole-heartedly regarding Rule #6.  I think that we develop a way of thinking that allows us to just get by, almost as a survival mechanism.  If we stand out from our “herds” we will get spotted and eaten.  However, in our world, if you don’t stand out, if you don’t separate yourself from the crowd, nothing new or exceptional will ever happen.  We teach our children to follow rules, don’t ask questions, uniformly fall in line, but what about promoting uniqueness, seeing their potential in order for them to believe in their potential?  It is our job to teach them HOW to think not WHAT to think.  I don’t even like to use the words “restriction” and controls when speaking about students’ learning.  We want it to be exciting, uncontrolled, unexpected, and lacking seriousness.