Response to Class 10/26

Response to Class 10/26

Although due to a personal reason, I missed this class (the only class I missed, and I made it up by attending the technology conference on the following Saturday), from my cohort members, I got the information on what the class was about. 

Thinking about my own school site and the student population, I value the positive outcome of the collaboration between the community members and schools to help kids find access to computers and internet.  In my school, we have the school loop, but students need computers and internet access to use this great tool.  Many of my students come to me during lunch to access their grades and get a print out to show to their parents because they don't have internet at home. 

 We cannot assume that every student has internet access but we can work on insuring every student could find access to computers and internet.  I think as a school or district leader we should strongly focus on increasing awareness in the communities and continually work on asking for help from businesses.  The more persistent we are getting the word out, the more business partners we could find to share the responsibility of providing every child with computers and internet.  

Reflection on Culturally Proficient and Futurist Leadership

The culturally proficient leadership course was the process of uniqueness which is myself. The futurist is myself manifested in the physical world.  Both courses were closely intertwined in a way that they supported each other.  Through the interviews and the autobiography assignments, I was able to reflect on my own culture, race, gender identity and become aware of my feelings and thoughts on these important issues.  Thinking about how I felt at certain point of my life about people from diverse background made me realize how important it is for me as an educational leader to nourish a school culture in which teachers and students as well as parents value diversity.

The Futurist assignment made me to believe that I can become creative coming up with a unique plan.  It pushed me to think about the details, weakness and strength of the plan realizing that every plan of action needs a long period of time to produce positive results.  From both courses, what was important to me was the stress on our uniqueness and creativity as different individuals.   Using technology as a tool to make our blogs and reflect on class discussions and readings made the assignments more enjoyable.

Final reflection on my PLN

Creating a PLN was something I never thought I would do.  I am the kind of person who likes to talk face to face.  I rarely send email when I can simply turn around and tell my colleague what we need to plan for next week's meeting.

What I discovered was my PLN was not just about communicating with my colleagues next to me about  the staff training.  Through creating a PLN, I could gain insight and knowledge from people across the globe about topics that were important to improving education within my own sphere.

Twitter is a tool for that next level of collaboration.
My thesis proposal was all about collaboration.  I never thought that it could extend beyond the school, or district.  An idea that has come to me through this coursework is that I can globally communicate and share ideas on how we might best collaborate in our schools to improve teaching.

The chatting on twitter took some time for me to get used to it, but once I learned more, I used it more.

I have started # math  collaboration hashtag to get help and find districts with successful collaboration.  My hope is that with collaboration hashtag I can continue to share what I am finding from my dissertation and share it with other educators.

The blog serves another purpose, promoting ideas and an opportunity to reflect and express my personal opinions on topics which might not otherwise be exposed.  The WEC for example is something that I could not have shared had not this opportunity to blog been made available to me.

I also learned how to explore Google and utalize some of its applications such as docs and forms, YouTube, calendar, music, igoogle, and google+ and use them at my job. I am involved with a study group and in each meeting we share new ideas.  I have already shared some of the applications with teachers and how we can intyegrate them with our curriculum.


Finally I learned how to use evernotes to save my ideas and things I like and see.  As a teacher and leader this is a great tool to store great ideas that I find and store them on my computer.

I plan to continue to use blogging and tweeting and all the applications of google to bring awareness to topics that are relevant to myself as a teacher, our school and the global community.

Women’s Equity Council (WEC)

I have recently become a member of Women’s Equity Council (WEC), an active member of the United Nation here in San Diego.   The focus of the WEC is to educate and empower, promote equity and compassion, and advocate for accountability and basic security on behalf of women all over the world.

In attempt to raise awareness on this global issue, we have couple of events coming up in the next two weeks.  After our planning meeting on Sunday, I will keep you posted.

Empowering Women

How can we fight against gender oppression?  Women are at the heart of this issue.  It is critical to bring awareness to its existence.   Female oppression cuts through all aspects of our society.  As teachers and educational leaders we need to make sure girls get the best quality education and help them to become the change agent in their family, community and society.

Reflections on Cultural Autobiography Interviews

My interviews were conducted with friends and colleagues.  I did my interviews with my friends in a coffee shop, and with their permission, I recorded with the interviews so I could go back and listen to them. The responses pertaining to some of the questions made me to think about my own feelings and past experiences. I had opportunity to listen to the stories from the view of people who grew up in a different country with a different religion. I learned a lot about diversity from them.

 During the interviews, sometimes it was hard  for me to keep quiet and not share my own feelings.  Some of the responses made me to remember interactions I had from my childhood and discover new things about myself.  I realized that all my past interactions with  people from diverse background have helped me to grow and become a more accepting individual.  I have always valued different cultures, races, religions and now I have started to promote social justice and equity in both aspects of my life (personal and professional).  

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Steps of Futurist Scenario

Step 1: Identify Implications (SWOT: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats analysis).

Strengths – Volunteer participation of teachers in forming collaborative groups could motivate teachers to take responsibility for their own learning and improve their teaching practice.

Weaknesses- It requires time and a great deal of trust. Since it is a volunteer participation, teachers who participate may not have the best skills. 

Opportunities -  Teacher learning through planned activities, observations, feedback will provide teachers with ongoing PD at minimal cost.

Threats – Lack of protocol to provide specific feedback during post observations. Since teachers from different subjects may volunteer, their lack of content knowledge may interfere  with providing effective feedback.

Step 2: Develop Options (List the things you could do and the things you should do to prepare)

The following activities are things I could do and should do to prepare :

• Planned regular meetings
• Do research and come up with a list of topics related to teaching and learning across all subjects
• Every month, a different topic will be selected by teachers' consensus
• Ask teachers to choose their own partner 
• Provide teachers with time to have pre-observation meeting 
• Provide teachers with release time to observe each other
• Provide teachers with time to have post observation meeting
• Set up a date for all teachers to meet and share their experience
• More research on study groups

Step 3: Monitor Trends (How do you currently monitor trends? How might you need to adjust your radar?

I currently monitor the success of this type of study groups through weekly updates in educational journals and the blogs and tweets and edchat.