Professional Learning: Preparing Yourself for The Road Ahead

0:12 Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Welcome back. This is your host, Lashanta McRay Sarvis, and we are still on the road to an effective classroom environment. I am very excited this evening, and I just wanted to share this with you before we start with our um, we have a little brief session today, and then I want to come back before you this week since it's been um a few months since we had our last session. But I wanted to share with you before we jump into our topic. I'm excited. I'm so excited because April 3rd, 2022.

1:00 April 3rd, 2022 is so important right now because it's been exactly four years to the day since we began this podcast.

1:16 Four years to the day. Yes, yes. I am excited. Oh my goodness, I'm excited. And you know, I just want to take a moment just to say that God has been just so good because this session was not planned. I I tend not to look at, oh, it's been a year, it's been two years, and um did not even have a topic in mind. And this morning when I woke up, I started thinking about some things, and I said, hey, it's time for another podcast. I said I was gonna come back on a regular basis, and you know, things in life happen.

1:58 And so it was not until I sat in front of this laptop and I looked at the date, and I went back to look at all the topics that I've done thus far, and I saw where the very first topic came forth, the beginning of it all, April 3rd, 2018. And that first session was exactly six minutes and 47 seconds, but it was it was an impactful session for me. I it spoke to me, so I hope that everyone who listens to any of these sessions that you pick up any little nuggets of information that you can take back with you into your classrooms, into your schools, into your districts.

2:50 Um, because just listening back to that first session before um I jumped on this evening, I listened to myself and I said, Okay, a lot has changed in the past four years. My whole delivery has changed. I started out having scripts and actually writing down everything that I wanted to say and trying to stay to that topic. And so as time went on, I began speaking just from my knowledge. I am uh someone who I've spoken to hundreds of people, um, I've spoken to four or five people in just professional um learning sessions at conferences.

3:30 I've um actually done some facilitation at conferences, so I'm used to speaking. So from from this point on, a lot of what I'm talking about with you, this is my knowledge, and not that the other sessions were not my knowledge, but I felt there was a need to kind of stick to the script and um make sure I got in everything that I needed to say, and I think those beginning sessions, those those uh beginning um sessions that I had that first year, that that was important. It was important to kind of stick to the script because it laid the foundation for who I am as an educator.

4:09 I believe in relationships, I believe in developing relationships with your students so that you can gain their trust, let them know that you love them and care for them. I believe in making your lessons relevant so that students can know how is this going to apply later on. Every one thing I have learned in being in this business, this is now year 24. So, one thing that I have learned is that in everything that we teach within those four walls of that classroom, there is something a student learns that can be applied to his or her life or that will show back up later on.

4:52 And and that comes from just reflective thinking on my part, where I've just reflected back on just the classes that I've actually been in as a student myself, um, from middle um middle school on up, and then as um a classroom teacher, the topics that I was actually um teaching students and how I made it relevant for them. So I believe in relationships, I believe in making the information um relevant, those are those are so important. Um and so today I'm still I'm so excited, I'm still excited because I'm my mind is just blown over April 3rd, because this session was definitely not anything that was planned.

5:35 Um, but this kind of dropped in my spirit today, and because we're now in the month of April, and so we many times um during this month, um, for those that are in a school system in which your your children, um, the children are going 180 days, um, but even year-round school, because it still kind of coincides. Some of the year-round schools that I know about um what I'm about to discuss, it kind of still coincides. By April, we're we start looking at and focusing on testing, but there is something that we should be doing in April as well before we get to that end of the year, and that's to begin looking at ourselves.

6:20 Um, most of our professional development seems to take place early on in the school year, before school starts, it takes place once school is in, and you're focusing on uh those district benchmarks, and you're focusing on the different assessments, and you're talking about the red, the green, the yellow, and all these different test scores. And then in the spring, you start winding down, and it seems like you don't have a lot of professional development that just gears towards you as that teacher.

6:56 If you're in a district where that is happening, where you are able to continue um gaining knowledge and growing professionally, that is awesome. And um there are some districts that there it may not, there may not be the resources available or the individuals that are in place in order to make sure that educators continue profession being professionally developed by the district that they're working in. My point tonight is to stress that whether you're in a district that provides um professional development or professional learning, and or whether or not you're in a district that um that doesn't, you as that individual, you want to make sure that you gain as much knowledge as you can about yourself as an educator so that you know how to better prepare yourself for life's next challenges in the classroom.

8:01 And so our topic for this evening is professional learning, preparing yourself for the road ahead. Now, I said this is gonna be um a short, a short topic because I really want this to be reflective on your part. I want you to start looking at some things, and I have some resources that I can start you off with that I'm gonna share towards the end, but I want you to begin looking at yourself and and growing professionally because no matter how long you've been in the classroom, no matter how long you've been an educator, we all we all can learn, we all can still grow in our areas.

8:43 None of us know everything that there is to know. Um, even if you are the superintendent of the school, even if you are sitting on the board, even if you're the principal, you still don't know everything that there is to know about educating children because we all are learning every day. The children that we taught 10 years ago are very different from the children we are teaching now, the children we're teaching now are more tech savvy because technology is there, it's in their faces every day when they're going into the school setting, and the expectation is that that technology is used.

9:30 So we we have to keep up with the times, and even if you've been in the business for 40 years, you still have something that you can learn. Um, and I know sometimes, and I've had conversations with with individuals that said that there isn't anything else that he or she can think of that there is to learn, it's not always about a new strategy or a new technique. Sometimes the learning comes from knowing your students because those children that you're teaching now are different from the students you had last year.

10:10 If you're in a high school setting and you're on the block schedule, the kids that you have first semester are different than those you um that you may have now during the second semester. They are different because everyone has their own individual personalities. So I am a big proponent for professional learning, and I believe in researching things for yourself, researching organizations to be a part of. Now, I know that some of these organizations can be pricey, and I have actually uh when I started teaching, and I was looking at some of the um organizations I wanted to be a part of, you know, the prices during that time, you know, 20 years ago, uh, the prices were um relatively under$200, but that was still a lot for a single parent educator.

11:06 Um, and they didn't have the nice broken down monthly payment plans that you could put yourself on. Um, I think there was one organization that I became a part of that um that actually eventually started doing the drafting from your um from your paycheck, so you didn't have to worry about seeing that. So a lot of these different educational organizations they do that, they break that$350 um yearly um annual uh membership fee down over the course of your pay period, so it's a lot easier to be a part of these organizations, and so I I talk about organizations first because those are um some good ways to um interact with other educators within your state, national organizations, if you're able to get on board with those, um, because again, membership fees, but if you start out, you know, sometimes the best exposure.

12:06 So, those of you who are graduates, um, if you're graduating in the spring or if you graduated um last December in education and you're seeking a job, you know, some of a lot of these organizations they do offer a student discount, which it could be free, or you may pay as little as$25 for your membership. And so it's a good way for you to interact with those who have been in the business for a while, who are in different parts of your state, or even just interacting with uh people in other in other states, um, and getting different um getting different ideas, um, just that task of networking.

12:49 Networking is a a very important part of that professional learning process. The more you network, you never know when you come across someone who may be looking for a job or you may be looking to move because you're getting married and you're moving to a different state. So there is um one website that um is has um many uh different organizations that you can look at. They're professional organizations for educators, and many of these organizations they break um they break on down to um where you have something for counselors, something for um speech pathologists, so um you have organizations for elementary ed, middle ed, secondary ed.

13:35 Um you have where different uh departments or um different um areas are focused on. Um, for instance, um educational communications and technology. So there are um a lot of different professional organizations that you can look into. So one website that you can check out is www.theadvocate.org. That's the t-h-e advocate a-d-o-v-a-c-a-t-e um dot org. And so when you're looking over those organizations, you know, choose some things that are actually um that are ones that are in line with the areas that you teach.

14:32 There's another website I wanted to share with you, and that is uh www.marquette.edu. That's Marquette M-A-R-Q-U-E-T-T-E dot Edu. And so those were just two websites that um I happened to um look at that had a vast um a vast amount of professional organizations. Um of these organizations they offer um assistance that if you um needed a lawyer and um you're um you're being sued, they help out with those types of things. Some um some of them offer um life insurance, um, some of them offer discounts to teachers uh for traveling and um for um certain purchases as well.

15:29 So take a look at organizations, those that's one area of um professional learning, and then just reading some of our educational journals that offer articles from from different people within the education arena. It's important to read just um to read about um what another educator views, uh, what his or her views are on a topic, um, and you don't always have to agree, and that's one one thing that I love about reading uh different um reading from different educational journals is that you don't always have to agree with what that individual says, but it does stir conversation, it has you thinking about maybe I should look at things this way, um, or no, I still have my way of seeing things, so there's nothing wrong with reading educational journals, finding out about some of the latest strategies or techniques, even some of the resources that are coming out that teachers can use.

16:46 Some of the um educational journals that uh I have um actually looked at the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Education, uh, these are just two examples. But check with your school to see if these are journals that are already um that are already purchased by the school and that are made available for teachers in your professional library. Just about every school, well, I'll I'll say this every school should have a professional learning library, and it should be updated. I remember the last professional learning library that I saw, there were still DVDs and VHS tapes.

17:34 There is nothing wrong with that because that's an era. I grew up in the era of VHS. Um I grew up in the area of 8-track, but that's not what we're discussing tonight. Um, but VHS, um, you want to make sure, and this is uh this is directed towards those that are in leadership. Make sure that you keep that up. My goal tomorrow when I go to my school is to check ours out again just to see if there's anything that should be updated or that needs to be updated. Because again, I want to be about whatever I'm saying to you.

18:14 I'm re-evaluating myself as well each day as I'm on my job as an assistant principal because I want to be an effective leader and I want to be able to um make sure that I'm a help to our our teachers and to everyone, all of our staff members, um, in helping them to grow professionally so that they can be the best that they can be on in their roles, because I definitely want to continue to grow as well. So I said this was going to be quick, but this is probably one of the longer ones, and um, but it's okay because guess what?

18:52 It's been four years, four years since we have been on this journey. We have been on the road to an effective classroom environment. So I am going to end there, check out some of the professional um organizations for educators, um, and then also check out some of those educational journals. We're gonna touch back on this topic again because, as I said, this is something that is near and dear to me. Everything that we've talked about so far in the past four years has been near and dear to me, but I definitely want to um actually look at this in a little bit more detail and um talk about some more specifics when it comes to um professionally growing.

19:36 We're gonna talk about you know assessing your leadership style. That's not just for those who are in administration. If you are in your own classroom, you want to know what type of um leader you are, you are leaders in your own right, so just knowing how you lead that can also let you know how you teach. So, we're gonna touch on some of um some of those um elements, but we're gonna revisit this topic and uh we're gonna talk some more this week. So, my goal is to try to come before you about two more times, at least one more, but I'm I'm gonna shoot for two more times before I begin my spring break, and I will be back um with you all after spring break.

20:20 Um, but this has been our session on professional learning, preparing yourself for the road ahead. Again, thank you all so much. If you are enjoying what you are hearing, please let me know. Shoot me an email. My email address is lashantasix at gmail.com. That's L-A-S-H-A-W-N-T-E, the number six at gmail.com. If I have said anything that has spoken to you and that has um encouraged you, just drop me a little email and I would greatly appreciate it. But again, this has been year four to the day that we have begun this journey on the road to the to an effective classroom environment.

21:12 You all have a good night, and I will see you next time.