I am posting my week accountability a few days late because after picking Izzy up from preschool on Thursday, I took the girls down to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Last week, I finished up the first draft of the elementary math preparation paper and now just need to spend time editing this. I also received news that the inclusive concurrent enrollment residential pilot initiative was signed off on by the Vice President of Student Success at my university. This means that staring in the fall of 2023 (this upcoming fall), there will be a residential component to our inclusive concurrent enrollment (for students with intellectual disabilities or autism that are 18-21, who are still enrolled in high school but wanting to have some aspects of a college experience) program. This is a big step forward and will allow for more opportunities for this population of student and to really think about neurodiversity and what it means in the university setting.
We first started to formally explore this concurrent enrollment initiative, https://www.mass.edu/strategic/MAICEI.asp, at Salem State with an initial planning grant back in the 2015-2016 school year. Back then we mapped out all the key stakeholder groups at the university the planning committee would meet with. In these meetings we share the possibilities of this opportunity, inviting students with disabilities who were 18-21 years old who were still enrolled in high school due to continued support needed in terms of transition services but were ready for and wanted some aspects of a college experience. We also wanted to know the questions and concerns that each stakeholder group had so we could plan out all aspects of the program and have answers before the students entered the university. I have the data from these meetings and have shared it with other individuals looking to explore this opportunity at their institution. This data, however, was useful, when we approached this new planning grant, as well. It was helpful to see the stakeholders and the mapping of when and how we approached each of these groups the first go-round, so we had a better roadmap to execute the current planning grant that was just signed off on. There, however, was a new kink in the roll-out and approach with COVID and everyone being remote for the last two years—in which we did this planning. We had all of our meetings with stakeholder groups via Zoom and brought in another local sister institution, Bridgewater State, and their planning and execution team to help us trouble shoot and answer questions and concerns different groups at the university brought up. Since I have been on sabbatical this semester the others on the planning team carried this to the final stretch and it was last Sunday that I received news that this planning is coming to fruition which is so—exciting to me. I have been the only full-time faculty member on the planning committee since the inception and to know we are able to offer more services to local school districts, families, and most importantly students that are eager for this opportunity is awesome. During this summer, I’ll do some brainstorming work so that we are ready to open our doors to the first few students we accept—throughout the planning we shared we wanted to be successful so we are starting small and then we will scale to an appropriate size based on capacity to provide high-quality services. I started really diving into the literature, again, on other institutions that have similar residential programs so I could ground myself again in the upcoming work and execution I will get to be a part of.
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This past week, I have started to see progress pictures from some friends that completed 75 Hard. To complete around now most people started around New Year’s. I did this program last year as a way to get back into the swing of things after just giving birth to Zoey at the end of October 2020. Seeing people post their progress pictures and accomplishments from the past 75 days had me remember my year with the 75 hard program; the first phase of which is 75 hard.
In the first phase of 75, every day for 75 consecutive days one needs to: Drink 1 gallon of water a day, workout for at least two 45-minute sessions (one of which must be outside, and the workouts must be at least 3 hours apart), actively read 10 pages of a non-fiction book, follow a diet (your choice), no alcohol, and take a daily progress picture. Many people think drinking a gallon of water is the toughest part—but I was and still do drink at least a gallon of water every day. So, the toughest part for me was going out and working out in the cold sometimes with Zoey attached to me, as I went on walks around the neighborhood in the winter cold. People who complete 75 hard, usually have progress pictures (their daily pictures) that show substantial weight-loss, as well. I lost the rest of the pregnancy baby weight I had, but nothing beyond that (but I didn’t have anything to lose beyond that). Seventy-five hard is a program that teaches discipline, and when I shared with my husband last year that I was going to do it, his response was, “I don’t see how this is any different than what you do every day anyways.” I am a fairly disciplined individual, but outside of my time competing at university (in running and in cycling), I have/would not do two-a-days (two workouts a day). After doing the first phase of seventy-five hard, I chose to complete the 75 hard program—which has three phases to it. Phase two of the program consists of the same tasks described in phase one, plus these additional tasks each day: 10 minutes of active visualization, cold shower for 5 minutes, and three additional power tasks (to move your career or life forward). Phase two can be started 30-days after phase one so I took a month off and then entered this phase, which lasts for 30 days. My power tasks each day were: 2 lessons of Duolingo Spanish, a gratitude journal, and to consciously be present in play with my kids for 30 minutes. In this phase, the cold shower was the daily task that definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone the most. I did get used to it at about two weeks into this phase, as I learned to put music on and dance to make the time go faster. This is not something beyond 75 hard I would choose to continue on a daily basis though. The last phase of the program (phase three) is completed 30 days out from when phase one was started—so for me this was at the end of November. This phase consists of all the tasks from phase two (so phase one plus the additional added tasks noted above), plus: a daily random act of kindness, and a daily conversation with a stranger. The last phase was probably the hardest for me because I would rarely (if ever) go up to a stranger and make small talk. I also still was not thrilled about the cold shower task, but did it—dancing every day waiting for the five-minute alarm to indicate I was done. The reasoning behind the cold shower is not only to push one out of their comfort zone, but also because of the health benefits associated with a cold shower. Ben Greenfield in a number of his bio-hack podcasts discusses these benefits of cold therapy, some of which are: strengthen the immune system, improve circulation, increase metabolism, reduce swelling and inflammation, and to regulate the nervous system. So, I know this was the task that I disliked the most, but I knew the “why” behind it which made it more tolerable, I guess! There are a number of people that start each year by doing 75 hard to refocus their attention for the year. I did not choose to do that. I am glad that I did the program once to see what it was like, but like I said before I live a pretty disciplined life. This program, therefore, was not a huge stretch for me in terms of sticking to a schedule and making progress towards accomplishing goals or living a “better version” of me. I would, however, recommend this program to anyone that needs more discipline and to kick start or reset where they are in life. So, with that being said, there may be a time in my life where I try the program again—just not right now. I have spent a portion of my sabbatical thinking about career advancement and how to continue to grow in my career. I have framed this thinking based on Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why. One of the book’s main points is that you have to know your why to feel inspired at work, and in turn inspire others that work with you. So, with this in mind I drafted my why, which can also be thought of as my own vision statement. My why is:
“My vision is that all teachers are trained to give every student an individualized and high-quality learning experience that allows them to continually make progress in the curriculum, feel socially connected, and contribute in a meaningful way to society.” Since I have my “why” now, any career advancement or decision I make should be working towards this why. My husband who works in business says that I need to be the CEO of Kristina, and I need to put my mission and vision at the forefront and not side-step and do tasks that others want. This line of thinking also emphasizes putting my “why” first. I think for the majority of my career, thus far, I have been able to have this throughline with my “why” at the center, but have also done tasks for others outside of this throughline. I have been able to gradually build this from one single classroom to working with general education teachers in one school to then moving to the university and working with individuals wishing to pursue special education or general education licensure. Continuing to build in this manner is the career that I would find most fulfilling. I want to eventually work in a position/career where I work with teacher preparation programs nation-wide as they prepare high-quality educators to be ready to impact ALL student learning on the first day that they enter the classroom. I do a small-scale version of this as I evaluate programs, but I would like to stay working with universities longer than just the evaluation period. I am able to continuously evaluate and make improvement in the program that I oversee at my university, special education, but how do bring this to a larger scale? I think doing this type of work with all educator preparation programs in one university and then working at the state-level doing this work with all teacher-preparation institutes in the state, would be one way I can see this being initially scaled. This is a position, if it existed or if I could create it, would allow me to continue to have my “why” at the essence of the career advancement and choices that I make. It’s spring break at my institution this week. I always end up working during spring break because most of the students that I teach are in the master’s program for special education licensure and they are working in our K-12 schools this week. I try to accommodate their schedules so typically give them a week off during their February or April break, and do an online class this week during spring break. This usually means that I have no break at all because my undergraduates have this March break, and are in classes during the school’s February and April break.
I have no classes to teach right now, but will be working this week on the elementary math research that I referenced in my Friday post. The last time I actually took a break during March was back in college. Two years I did an Alternative Spring Break working with a group from the university on Habitat for Humanities project. The other two years I went with the cycling team down to Florida and we raced and trained during the week. I never participated in the typical spring break that is associated with college. My Habitat Spring breaks led me to Pennsylvania my first year, which was cold and led to a lot of indoor painting due to the weather. The other Habitat break I knew to go South so co-led the trip down to Atlanta. During that spring break the weather was warmer and I spent a lot of the week outside siding a house. These spring break trips consisted of 8-10 people who did not know each other before the trip driving in a van to the destination and then sleeping in a church. We went shopping and cooked together in church meal hall. Overall, I thought it was a very positive experience and led to some friendships that were more established than people I saw/hung out with regularly at the university. The spring breaks that I went with the cycling team consisted of a van ride down South, as well. Cycling was not an NCAA sanctioned sport, but instead was a club sport, at UNH so we did not get the busses that I was used to having with the cross-country and track teams. The cycling spring breaks had us stay in Pennsylvania for the first weekend for racing, and then continue south driving straight-through until we hit Clearwater. The women’s team had one house and the men’s team had two houses (just due to the number of people) and we made all of our own meals during this week, as well. We have double sessions—riding in the morning, which was followed by eating lunch and sitting by the pool, and then another training session in the late afternoon. This was followed by an evening of all hanging out together at one house as we had a cookout, and heard about the training we would be doing the following day. Reflecting on these spring breaks, this week has never really been about relaxing. It’s just been about channeling my energy differently. My brother, Michael, would probably tell you that I need to learn how to relax, and I would probably agree with that. Relaxing is not something I do naturally and it’s not something that I really find enjoyable—probably because it is so foreign to me. Can you train yourself to relax and find enjoyment in it? Am I missing out because I don’t do this naturally? When I am sick, I can sit on the couch for a little while—until the kids are jumping on me—but that’s about the only time I relax—when I am so run-down that it is my only option. There has been a lot of recent national focus on the science of reading and how to effectively develop a teacher’s content knowledge, skill, and pedagogy as they teach reading. Emily Hanford, a senior education respondent for American Public Medial, has published a number of articles, news briefs and documentary on the science of reading. This has spurred many states to reexamine their teaching and preparation for the teaching of reading. I feel like this topic is being well-addressed in many states and in teacher preparation right now, but I also think it is doing the pendulum swing away from teaching math and filling the societal need to develop a strong STEM field.
As a special education teacher, I strongly value reading and have worked with students that need reading to be taught in a systemic way to decode, read fluently, and in turn, build comprehension. I am a big proponent of having teachers all know how to teach reading this way, but what I have seen out in the field when conducting external site reviews of teacher preparation program is that most of the focus in elementary teacher preparation is focused on reading. This has left little (if any) coursework devoted to teaching the other subjects a self-contained elementary classroom teacher would be expected to teach (math, science, and social studies). I have spent the last week analyzing the data on 210 external site visits, and with this pendulum swing was really interested in math elementary teacher preparation looked like at these sites. I still have more data to analyze with this, but it was interesting that only two programs were rated strong in mathematics preparation for elementary pre-service teachers. A strong rating was equated to “coursework and training address, comprehensively and in depth, all major elementary math content areas and key aspects of math pedagogy to foster conceptual and procedural mastery of math instruction, and consistently enable teacher candidates to teach math highly effectively, ensuring that the progress and learning of all students is good or better.” These two programs provided comprehensive coverage of all major elementary math content and pedagogy, including ways to adjust instruction to attend the students with exceptionalities and English Language Learners needs. This comprehensive teaching was coupled with opportunities in the field through tutoring K-6 students in math, application of learning in required lesson planning, and real-time coaching and feedback from instructors and peers in an ongoing consistent cycle. These two programs put an emphasis on how academic questioning elicits students mathematical thinking, candidates conceptual understanding of math, and how both together drive instruction. There were highly rigorous assignments, focused on sharing assessments and looking at student learning and growth based on these assessments allows for progress monitoring, adjustments to practice, and instructional planning which were all directly connected to practices these candidates would be asked to do in K-6 classrooms. Although this was what strong programs were doing, looking through scores in other ratings (inadequate, needs improvement, and good) I am starting to thing there is a clear structured blueprint to develop effective math programming, and for schools that struggle (because most of their faculty is trained in reading rather than math) this may be beneficial. This is the focus of my research in the next few weeks, so I am trying to answer the title of this blog: is there a blueprint that teacher preparation programs can use to develop effective math teachers at the elementary level? Last year we decided to put an addition on our house and refinish the basement. The project began before the 2021 year as we hired and found a contractor. In March, we secured the home equity loan and then the plans were solidified. Construction was planned to begin in May of 2021 once the contractor received the building permit from the town, and was suppose to conclude end of September/beginning of October.
Well, the house is still a construction zone right now and it is the beginning of March. It will probably be a construction zone until April. Living and working in this have been chaotic, but because of stock delays and shipping delays due to COVID, work crews getting COVID, and having COVID ourselves this is where we are. Also, because of COVID the original price quoted was increased by 10%, due to the costs of material increasing. Delays started in May when it took the town building inspector longer to issue a permit. From here the above COVID causes began to happen. Johnny (my husband) and I joked that in most companies, people call in when they will not be showing up for the job—but we received calls when people come to work because there were long stretches where this was not frequently happening (people showing up to work). It was most likely because crews were bidding on other jobs and trying to chase money, which is something outside of a small contract company’s hands, I think. Regardless, we are on the homestretch of our addition project now. The basement is completely finished, which is part gym, family room, and kids’ play area. Four of the five upstairs rooms have new hardwood, and the focal point family room is built and is just awaiting new flooring. We probably have just a few more weeks until all is completed, and a big sigh of relief can happen. Zoey (one year old) has perfected her “hi” to all the construction workers as they exit and enter the house at this time. Izzy (three years old) has expressed dislike of every change that has happened in the house, but has then warmed up to the changes over time. Johnny has had really no change in his routine because he gets to go to the office during the work week while they are here. It’s mostly me and the girls in the chaos of loud tools, people, destruction, and building. On days I work, I have been moved out of the office to various places in the house and have learned to work in the chaos. I typically enjoy working in a quiet and organized environment—something that I have not had for almost a year now. I am looking forward to the end of construction and being a family of four living in the house without a construction crew calling in to be with us for the day. I am also looking forward to having my old office back and not explaining every construction change/decision to my three-year-old. A few more weeks and we will have this, and then the home decorating decisions will need to be made—so in that sense the project will continue because I am not quick to make decisions (and am very particular). All areas of the house, however, will be able to be lived in and enjoyed so that’s what I am focusing on now. I have tried to stick to writing once at the beginning of the week about something more personal in nature (my life, family, parenting, a book I read, etc.) and once at the end of the week on something professional that I learned or accomplished in the week. This week there is only the professional post because my Sunday flight to get to a teacher preparation inspection was delayed, and I did not get to my hotel until 3:00 a.m. on Monday and I had to start my work week (the inspection preparation) by 7:00 a.m. This week’s inspection has been exhausting because this preparation program came ready with over 150 documents to review and a packed schedule—keeping the team running on close to four hours of sleep each night.
Going on inspections let’s me see how some programs are doing some really amazing practices and it reframes how I see the teacher preparation in my own institution. The two biggest take-aways from this week’s program have been their observation and feedback cycle with their forms focused on actionable feedback and key teaching methods, and the video-taped observations they have candidates do during this cycle. Both of which I would love to tweak and use with our university supervisors, mentor teachers, and candidates. The action plan feedback forms that are used by this program have all the key teaching methods at the top and then it is a three-column form that addresses clear evidence on impact on K-12 student learning, target areas that need improvement based on past feedback, and key actions step for improvement. Having a form set up like this addresses the areas in the TPI-US framework and it guides the supervisor in the both the delivery of written and oral feedback. This is accompanied by another observation form, which progresses in skill from the first clinical experience to internship as students are developing skills related to the Florida Teacher competencies. This will obviously need to be adapted given I work in Massachusetts, but the idea of a form that specifically states where we expect students to be in relation to our six essential elements (subject matter knowledge, well-structure lessons, adjustments to practice, meeting the needs of all learners, safe learning environments, and reflective practices) as they progress through the program is something I would like to look into. It’s a really powerful way to progress monitor candidate’s progression as they develop as a teacher and are supported in their pre-practicum hours. The other practice in use that I really like is the candidate’s video-taping their lessons and reflecting on this video-taped lesson through guided questions and having to time-stamp where they used each key teaching skill or where there was a missed opportunity to use a key teaching skill. I think it is really powerful to watch yourself teach and having to do this with a frame of reference (the guided questions and time stamping) requires a focus reflective nature. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, I think instructors need to be doing this practice on a regular basis themselves and with colleagues to continue to develop themselves as teachers. This was one suggestion given to this program—to implement the video-observations that candidates are asked to do at the faculty level. Given this suggestion, I wonder, however, if it is best to partner with another university to do this or if doing this amongst one own’s faculty is best. I think there is value in both—internal quality control and professional learning communities among faculty would be strengthened by doing this internally, but doing this externally may allow for more critical viewing and a different type of quality control as well as starting to network outside the institutional bubble we tend to find ourselves in higher education. It might help to start internally to develop that culture and then partner with another institution and have faculty critical friends to further push development. After this week, I was left with some impactful ways to further develop the critical eye needed to help candidates develop into teachers and faculty become even better at their craft. So although it was an exhausting week, it was a good use of my sabbatical time and allowed me to really reflect and think on how to improve my own teaching as well as maybe some practices used at the university I work at. |
AuthorKristina Scott Archives
February 2023
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