Achievement+of+Program+Dispositions

=Evidence of Program Dispositions: =


 * #1: Values change as the source of opportunity for improvement **

I feel as if this disposition is the story of my professional career as a teacher! Before I began this program, I changed positions three times in one semester; all of which led itself to more and more opportunity. As I have worked through this graduate program and administrative internship, I have only learned to value change even more.

By embracing and being open to change, I have had the opportunity to develop and open a school from scratch. This has been the best opportunity and experience I could ever ask for as an aspiring administrator. Taking on this new teaching role was not easy or an easy decision, but once again change opened more doors. I now have insight and experience in scheduling, team teaching, creating showcase nights, attending conferences, presenting at conferences, and much more.

This value in change has given me experience in learning to be more flexible. By being such an organized and focused individual, I sometimes do not go with the flow as much as others. My teaching position this year in conjunction with team teaching and my administrative internship, has opened my eyes to the need to be flexible without it ruffling my feathers. It has been a hard, but good lesson that I am still working on, while embracing it at the same time. I have learned in administration a lot of times the to-do list I create for myself each day may not get done if more pressing issues arise. Being able to bounce from task to task and, more often than not, be interrupted in the middle of each task is a likely occurrence and something I have become used to. This has helped me accept the value of change.


 * #2: Displays the ability to understand people and relationships and is receptive to the ideas of others **

This disposition hits home as I reflect upon the relationships and understanding of people that I have developed over my time in this graduate program and administrative internship. With the increased awareness and discussion on how to be a leader and the major changes that occurred at my school in the recent years, this disposition is something I have constantly been working at.

For example, with the opening of the new charter school some friendships and relationships were dismantled that previously existed in the school for years. As a newer employee to the school and someone eager to build good relationships with others, I have made it a point to keep open communication and relationships with colleagues in both schools. Some people at the middle school level will not talk to or interact with others that are now teaching in separate schools while being in the same building. I truly see myself as a leader in this area as I worked to create a school improvement plan to bridge the gap between the two school to open up communication, talk daily to teachers and students in both schools, attend mixed school committee meetings, and interact with people from both schools outside of the school building.

This program has allowed me to see that people have different views. Not one person's ideas are right or wrong, but we need to work together to make the best environments available to our students. A key point we tried to make when informing parents and the community about the new school opening last year was that neither school was better than the other. They were simply different options for different students and it was up to the students and parents to decide where they would be most successful and comfortable. Within my internship a lot of my time was spent working on the master schedule. In creating this schedule, not every teacher got the perfect schedule he/she desired because of a variety of circumstances. If a staff member got upset about this, I found the importance in opening up the conversation to other options he/she may have come up with that the principal and I may have missed in creating the schedule. By including the staff members in trying to solve the problem, we were able to either come up with a different and better solution or he/she realized the complexity in the task which helped foster relationships and trust between staff and administration.


 * #3: Shows a willingness to implement non-discriminatory access, accommodations and assessments **

This masters program opened my eyes to the importance of standards based grading. Luckily, the school district in which I teach has provided me the opportunity to grade this way since I started. This program and disposition reflects the significance of providing specific, non-discriminatory assessment and accommodations to students. By grading to standards and benchmarks, I am able to give students and parents specific feedback on areas the student is excelling in and areas that need more work. Students are aware of what they need to do to improve and what topics they have mastered.

Additionally, as a teacher I am more easily able to see which students need which accommodations or adjustments to their lessons, assignments or projects. This allows me to make the instruction more individualized to the student.

After learning about the changes to grading to standards and benchmarks, I think students and parents are gradually getting more used to the idea and shift. I have seen students completely shift to the different mindset of grading. Once people understand it, I have seen them become more open to it and see the benefits.

As an aspiring administrator, I saw the importance of this disposition when helping to plan and organize WKCE testing within two schools. Making sure all accommodations were planned for and implemented correctly throughout special education and ELL students was an important job. This experience opened my eyes to all of the rules, stipulations, and behind the scenes work that must happen in order to administer standardized tests correctly.


 * #4: Demonstrates empathic understanding of diversity in all domains **

I had been able to demonstrate this disposition through my involvement in VIP (Valuing Individual Personalities). By researching different areas of diversity in schools, I had been able to make myself and others around me more aware of how their teaching impacts students. The theme of the articles I wrote for our newsletter had to do with strategies to use in the classroom to teach to a variety of diverse students and populations. I have done articles on the diversity of holidays, traditions, folk tales, learning styles, etc.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The multicultural class and readings throughout the entire program have allowed me to gain insight from around the world and country about various diversity topics and groups. By doing this, I have become more aware of the students I work with. I am more sensitive to different beliefs and backgrounds that my students bring to the table. I highlight the differences myself and my students present to each other in order to learn from each other. By doing so, I have seen students be more comfortable in the classroom, be open in sharing their background and beliefs, and able to work with others and accept them.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Within my internship, this disposition became very important as I worked with students on a variety of personal and discipline issues. It really opened my eyes to the variety of backgrounds the student in the school come from, the home lives they live in, and how those elements impact their academics and/or behavior in school. Being able to understand the student population more, I was able to connect better with students to resolve an issue or work with them through a difficult personal problem. I think this disposition is very important to constantly be working on as education and the world changes more and more.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">#5: Regularly reflects upon the philosophical assumptions, ethical principles and rationales that guide one’s practice **

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This graduate program provided me with my first opportunity to develop and implement my own research. By doing so, I have learned how significant the research process can be. I found it very insightful to dig so deep into a topic I was interested in and found important in order to figure out what I wanted to study. Previously, I was not very interested in research, whether it was doing my own or reading about someone else's. After investigating and spending so much time focusing on my own and others' research, I have found the importance and significance of learning from others' research and data in order to make sound decisions for my classroom.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The biggest point I have taken from the research aspect of this program is the importance of data. Backing up any belief or idea with data will only make it stronger and more significant. In all honesty, I do not necessarily like performing my own in depth research, but I do enjoy reading about others' research and analyzing how I could use the strategies and data in my own classroom or in my own teaching. This allows me to grow as a professional and my students to gain from trying sound, proved strategies to better their education.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I used a lot of data and analysis throughout my internship in a variety of tasks such as developing the master schedule, figuring out time allotment for elective teachers between the two schools in relation to the number of students in each school, creating ad hoc reports for the Department of Public Instruction, and much more. I did not realize how much data I would be working with and analyzing as an administrator. By working with it so often, it reinforced to me the importance of having a leader that is data-driven to not only model good data-driven practices, but to support his/her decision making processes.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">#6: Understands oneself as a learner and values learning as a core capacity **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Before beginning the Educational Leadership Graduate Program, the idea of getting a master's degree was distant. I knew I would do it someday, but did not expect to jump back into it so quickly. I valued learning and enjoyed college, but also knew how much work it was and was not sure how I would balance working full time and going to school. Even though this program has been a lot of work, it has opened my eyes to the true significance of continuous learning. I am amazed at how much has changed in education from when I studied it as an undergraduate, which I only completed four years ago. This made me realize how much is always changing in education and how important it is to constantly be learning and exploring new things.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Additionally, this program has opened my eyes to learning beyond a master's degree. I did not expect to become so interested in administration, especially so early in my teaching career. In completing my administrative internship, I became excited to tackle the administrative tasks and try out something new. As I complete the principal licensure, I would even entertain the idea of working toward a PhD someday in the future.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This thirst for learning is something I hope to instill in my students. They always find it interesting when I talk about my homework or how I am in school too. At first they do not believe me and then I will tell them about what I am doing and it really seems to make most of them think to their future. They usually have lots of questions and find it fun that their teacher is also a student.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">As an administrator, I believe continuing my learning would have a similar effect on my staff. By showing my staff the importance I put on improving my own education, I would hope my staff would want to do the same to some extent. I hope to continue to want to be a "student" and eager to learn for the rest of my life.