Contribution to Learning and the Learning Community (EDLD 5318 and EDLD 5389)

Current Collaborative Members: Desiree Masters, Elda Mancha, Kristen Sabbatini, Erika Montroy

Former Group Members (who I continued to collaborate with): Eboni Mitchell, Anna Akuretiya, Christopher Aebig, John High, Evan Dolan

As I wrap up my journey within the ADL program, now entering my last two courses, I have grown to appreciate the connections between the courses. In these two courses EDLD 5318 and EDLD 5389, this was no different. The two courses meshed in a way that truly gave me a deep understanding of the content we covered and showed me the application in my own school setting. For 5389, professional learning was unfamiliar to me to begin. I always knew change had to be made to the sit-and-get strategies that we are so often exposed to, however, I never envisioned myself truly creating this professional learning experience for my peers. 5318 allowed me build many of the tools that I would use for this professional learning, particularly the example course (built for my Algebra 1 class) and the template that I would be sharing with my professional learning participants.

One of the main differences between the two courses was the audience that we were creating for. In EDLD 5389, the materials were being created for the fellow teachers. Providing them with tools, information, and may other components to prepare them to transition their own classrooms from teacher-driven to student-driven. In EDLD 5318, my blended learning course was being built out on my LMS, Schoology, for my students. For this idea, it was important to put myself in the shoes of the learners, particularly at a high school level, and make sure students would be able to navigate through the progression of the course appropriately.

Collaboration is key, in any field at any level. The same can be said with communication. Discussion boards created throughout these two courses are created to reflect on our own experiences and spark conversation where we can view the prompts through the lenses of our peers. With many of us being teachers outside of these courses, we do just this each day, sometimes in person, sometimes virtually. Working with fellow group members from around the country, it is so powerful to hear about the world of education outside of our region. For example, I live in Pennsylvania. My group members during this semester were from California, Texas, and Ohio.

Providing team members with feed-forward and feedback is one of the most instrumental parts of the ADL program. Within my groups for these two courses, we did most of our informal collaboration via text message, GroupMe, or WhatsApp as it provided the most flexibility with our schedules. However, we also had live Zoom calls, which we recorded for members who were unable to attend. As a father of two little girls and high school baseball coach, there were times where it was a bit more difficult to attend some of these meetings, which is why the recordings certainly came in handy. I took a similar approach with our course lectures, listening to them in the car on my way into work if I was unable to attend the live meetings.

Discussion boards often guided the discussions that we had in the meetings. I will be the first to admit, I could have been a bit more of an active participant when it comes to the discussion boards, however, I will credit myself with the participation I had within my groups surrounding these topics. Aside, from working with my current group members, I also maintained contact with past group members that I worked with within this program, asking questions to them at times and making connection to the program as a whole as they were further along or recently completed the program.

Aside from the aforementioned members, I also had a line of communication with John High and Evan Dolan, two fellow members of my district as well as the ADL program. We had some great conversations on how we can take some of the ideas from this program, such as sharing the materials we have all created (perhaps leading to another professional learning in the future) with our peers in our district. Lastly, the Facebook group for the ADL program is always a great tool to fall back on and although I do not post on it a ton, I often find myself reviewing the comments and reaching out to individuals directly from there.

For the reasons above, I feel I deserve a 90/100 for both courses for my “Contribution to Learning and the Learning Community” grade. I view myself as a leader within my groups and feel I am a strong communicator and provide meaningful feedback to my peers while also providing practical constructive criticism. I have made changes based on the feedback I received from classmates and professors as required and participated in all discussion boards to fuel conversation based around learning. While I was not able to attend live classes at times due to the time difference and classes often falling around bedtime for my two girls as well as during baseball practice, I was sure to watch all recordings and worked through all readings/videos throughout.