Connecting and
Communicating Ideas

Connecting and Communicating your Ideas.

 

When I started this path as a bilingual teacher, I wanted to be different. I think most teachers want the same for our students, but I didn't know where to start. I had many ideas but couldn't show them. In the end I felt in the same hole, stuck as an educator. I felt that my teaching methodology was effective, or at least adequate, but I knew that I was not giving something different from what I had been given in my time as an undergraduate student, I was missing tools that now exist to improve and enrich the learning experiences of students. When I first started teaching in 2018, despite the fact that the internet was already a world power, my school was still a traditional method and my technological tools consisted of an overhead projector and a CD. When I started the DLL program at Lamar University, my expectations began to rise and my technological world began to expand to the possibilities that these tools can offer for teaching and learning, provided they are implemented well with proper planning. Now my interest in technology-enhanced education quickly turned into blended learning and then developing a classroom blended learning environment for my students. (I invite you to visit my INNOVATION PLAN ). The development of language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) occurs at different rates for different students. Through my proposal, I have discovered for myself that a blended learning environment in class could give my students the opportunity to spend their learning time on the skills they find most challenging, while still having other benefits that come from face-to-face instruction.

 

Communicating Successfully

 

Educators are leaders in some sense. While some choose to focus on their own classrooms, others seek to implement meaningful change within their school communities, and within their school districts on a national or international scale. Edwin Friedman quotes in his article, it is not enough to appeal to another person's intellect to influence change. There is an emotional factor that supersedes logical decision making, especially when change is difficult.

 

How do you harness the power of emotion when trying to make a meaningful change? Friedman tells us what our approach should be when taking on a leadership role, but Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler explain how to be effective in this role in Crucial Conversations: Tools for Speaking Up When the Stakes Are High. Edwin Friedman explained that it is the leader's responsibility to lower the level of anxiety in his organization. How does a leader achieve this goal when strong emotions are often involved? In Crucial Conversations, the authors define the three elements of a crucial conversation:

 

• High stakes

• Strong emotions

• Opposing opinions

 

“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.”

 

Edwin Friedman

 

As I work to reconcile to develop my proposal within my school district to implement a classroom blended learning environment within the Two-Way Dual Language program, it will be important to make use of the practices outlined in Critical Conversations and Construction. Recognize that not all members of my team will be enthusiastic about changing the learning environment for their students. As I explain in my  Influence Strategy. I will need to use the Six Sources of Influence to incorporate them, and be mindful of making sure others feel safe when they talk to me and others about the challenges they face. Returning frequently to the ideas of Mutual Purpose and Mutual Respect increases the likelihood of success, which will benefit both teachers and, by extension, their students.

 

Creating Meaningful Learning Environments

 

• The world is changing rapidly and the old ways of learning are being left behind.

• Media innovations facilitate learning with and from peers.

• Participation in the collective nature of media innovations magnifies peer learning. Our commitment to organizational excellence may leave little time to focus on our own individual development. Read more about THE THREE COLUMN TABLE - RT -  that inspire my ideas on professional development.

 

"In the digital world, we learn by doing, seeing, and experiencing"

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

 

Learning is focused on students where they are today and creating a meaningful learning environment that addresses the learning needs of the 21st century, to meet that goal I have worked to make changes within my classroom. 

 

• Limit whole class instruction.

• Create a significant learning environment where peer interaction and instruction are encouraged.

• Encourage experimentation with language construction.

• Encourage learners to fail forward when they make mistakes.

 

Challenges under Construction.

 

• Time management.

• Station Transitions.

• Finding passions.

• Inspiring reluctant and distractible learners.

 

"Education is what people do to you, and learning is what you do to yourself"

Joi Ito.

 

Our commitment to organizational excellence may leave little time to focus on our own individual development. Read more about Understanding By Design - process. RT that inspires my ideas on professional development.

 

If blended professional development were a master key that opens any door, here I am designing it to open 5 doors to the path of great professional development. Sketch and create a new learning asset, in terms of content, modality, setting, and action: There are five principles of effective professional learning: duration, support, active/participant, modeling, and specific content. (Gulamhussein 2018) PLANING THE ALTERNATIVE PL ASSIGNMENT

 

Call to Action

 

Fortunately, teaching students to prepare them for the industrial age is beginning to come to an end. Just as educators are developing new teaching and learning environments and methodologies to reflect what today's students need from their education, it is time to reassess teachers' professional learning experiences. Learning cookie cutters doesn't work for our students, and it doesn't work for our teachers either. I invite you to read my work CALL TO ACTION- RT.

 

This professional learning plan for two-way dual language teachers makes use of  4DX of  performance to ensure accountability. The activities in this professional development plan also focus on Influence Strategy. which will give teachers the support they need within blended learning in the classroom for their students. I invite you to the video: