1

Case Study
Angie Bachand 100439728 EDUC 5004G The Reflective Practitioner Dr. W. Hardman Date Submitted: April 9th, 2013

Completing a case study on the reflective practice of my teaching was a challenge in and of itself as this year I have only a very small teaching assignment. But as I sat and tried to reflect on a situation or problem from my teaching experience I realized that my lack of teaching assignment is at the very foundation of one of my biggest issues. A week doesnt pass that I dont meet a parent in the office who comments that I look too young to be a vice-principal or a close version of this. From these types of comments I make two deductions. First, that my skin-care regime is working, but more importantly that in the eyes of the general public, its odd that someone my age is an administrator. From where I stand I cannot really disagree with them. As I alluded to in my autobiography assignment, as a life-long learner I am always hesitant to heed advice from experts who are no longer working in the field they claim to be experts in (Bachand, 2013). Even though I maintain a small teaching assignment, the experience that comes from a longer teaching career has eluded me. This year marks my tenth year as a certified teacher. This year also marks my 5th year of being an administrator. Starting next year I will have officially been an administrator longer than I have been a classroom teacher. In my opinion an administrator should be somewhat of an expert, an individual that teachers can seek out for advice and wisdom. There are days when I ask myself how can I be the expert and advisor to my staff when there are a number of teachers who could have and literally have taught me. To add to my plight, I am hungry to leave my fingerprints all over my school. To make changes for the better. We have a good school but it could be great. I have shared my vision with a number of my staff members and the majority of them support what I see for the future of our building. However, there are a large handful of seasoned teachers who feel that my dreams for our school are exactly that, just dreams.

Over the past year I have done a large amount of research into the Jen Katz 3 Block Model of Universal Design for Learning. Katz is an experienced classroom teacher who maintained her teaching status while pursuing her PhD. In my eyes this gives her a lot of credibility. She used her own students to test her theories and methods, and with her findings formulated an approach to classroom teaching that successfully meets the diverse needs in the typical classroom today. Her method include 3 blocks, just as the

3 title explains. The first block, which is also the biggest block and most foundational to her entire approach, is creating a community for social and emotional learning. She advocates for the development of a culture within the school and classroom that supports and nurtures student differences. To promote a culture that fosters the growth of the childs spirit as a means to boost their academic performance. As Katz puts it, (2012) strengthening students sense of self in their school community actually increases their motivation to learn and their aspiration for greater knowledge and academic achievement (p.27). This nurturing of a students spirit is the piece that my school is missing. Dont get me wrong, I have a number of staff members who do an amazing job of nurturing the entire child, but for our school to jump up a step I believe it is important for the entire staff to recognize that cultivating a students spirit is a necessity.

Very recently I had the tough decision of whether or not I should send a grade 9 student over to our schools off campus Outreach building, to continue his school year away from his classmates. Since the beginning of the year his teachers have complained about how much of a struggle it was to maintain classroom order when he was having a bad day. They had concerns that his behaviour was not only affecting his own academic progress but the academic progress of a number of his classmates. They felt that he did not have the right to take away from the other students learning experiences and I couldnt help but agree with them. In consultation with his frustrated teachers and my own Principal we would come up with temporary solutions, hoping to limp by until the end of the year. As I sat through numerous discussions with this young man I began to develop a relationship with him. Through these weekly discussions I was able to piece together his history and develop an understanding of who he was and how he saw himself. In early March, our band-aid house of cards came tumbling down as Chriss classroom behaviour took a dramatic turn for the worst. He began showing up incredibly late to his morning classes, disrupting the class when he did arrive and on several occasions tried to hijack the class when he felt he wasnt getting the attention he deserved. After days of consideration and consultation I was left with no other choice but to assign him to Outreach and remove him from his regular classroom. As I spoke with his teachers of the impending change my uneasiness returned through a comment that one of them made. As I expressed my

4 concern in that I felt we were losing him by sending him over to Outreach and that I wished there was something else that could be done, one of my more seasoned teachers uttered the following words of advice. Dont worry Angie, in a few more years youll realize you cant save them all.

As a reflective administrator I try to take something away from all of my tough or challenging situations. I like to believe that we are always learning and as a result should be constantly adapting our practices to reflect our new knowledge and self-discovery. As I walked away from the incident, thoughts spinning in my head, I started the reflection process right then and there. My initial instinct was to walk directly into my Principals office and share with him my thoughts on the situation. However, I paused and considered the outcome. What did I want to take away from this situation? Turning to my Principal might give me initial relief, as he would listen attentively to my concerns but what long-term gain would I get from this? Instead I chose a more systematic approach. I went to my office, shut the door and began to write. I wrote in as much detail what had happened, what was said and how I felt. I wanted this moment to be the formal start of my Administration Log. My situation is quite different than those that Brookfield describes in his book, however, I felt I could modify a number of the teacher reflection techniques to suit my reflection needs as an administrator. The teaching log is one of these such methods. By recording the professional incidents that resonated with me I could begin to look for themes, which would in turn bring clarity to the questions I had about my impact as a leader. As Brookfield states (1995), events that engage our emotions are those that tell us most about ourselves (Chapter 4). To date I dont believe I have enough data to draw many resounding conclusions, but the process itself is cathartic. My hope is that as my Administrator log grows I will develop a better understanding of my triggers, which type of incidents cause me the most stress and on the other hand, which ones leave me feeling the most fortunate. In the meantime, the individual entries alone have proven to be very beneficial as I have been able to make use of them as Practitioner Stories. After I have recorded the incidents in as much detail as possible I put them away and allow myself time to clear my head. After a few days, I reread what I have recorded. Initially, I do a quick read to remind myself of the incident

5 and form a foundational opinion with a fresh mind and new eyes. I then re-read the narrative by closely inspecting the type of language that I used, analyzing my word choice and sentence chunking. Finally I complete a third read, being conscious of developing themes and patterns in the event. This methodical style of reviewing entries from my administrators log, proposed by Watson and Wilcox, affords me the shape and process that best captures the understandings of my experiences. As they state, what practitioners can come to know about their work, then, can often be constructed from personal responses to events in their work (Watson, 2000, p.60).

Brookfield suggests using four different lens with which to reflect; the autobiographical, your students eyes, your colleagues experiences and theoretical literature. As I mentioned above I have had to modify some of his reflective strategies to meet my needs as an administrator. Making use of the students lens for reflection has been the most challenging for me in my administrator role. However, when I stopped and really thought about the relationship dynamic between teacher and student, administrator and teacher, I was able to find parallels and utilize some of Brookfields suggestions with minimum modifications. Re-reading the chapter on seeing ourselves though our students eyes challenged me to put myself in a very vulnerable position. As I read through this chapter, I was struck with the idea of getting my staff to reflect on my administration style in an effective manner. I wanted them to be able to reflect in such a way that they could be honest about their concerns, yet structured enough that their criticism would be constructive. To give the activity even more meaning I discussed the benefits of selfreflection with my Principal and he too decided to participate. In the end, him and I created a six-question survey for our staff to complete. Our staff received the links to two separate surveys, one that I had customized to meet my reflection needs and one that my Principal personalized himself. We have given the staff until the middle of next week to complete the survey and I nervously await the results. I believe the survey will heed a lot of useful data, however I struggled to create a question that I felt encompassed my original concern of my age and years of experience in the classroom.

6 Finally, in my search for complete reflection I turned to my colleagues and their critical dialogue to shed some light on my concerns as an administrator. Although our school is not a large school by most standards, our size grants us the latitude to have two full time administrators and a handful of coordinators. It is to these coordinators that I turned to for my colleague experience. As an administrator, I have a limited supply of colleagues that I can speak to regarding issues on my staff. My code of conduct is very clear on the subjects of ethics and professionalism. Fortunately, I have a group of highly professional coordinators that are willing to lend an ear and a critical voice when the need arises. Most recently, I engaged with two of these colleagues in a discussion regarding age and the significance of experience in our line of work. I used the initial entry from my administrators log with some small modifications (names and grades removed) as a starting point for our conversation. Initially, like with the staff survey, I was anxious to share my concerns about my lack of experience. However, as the conversation developed I was surprised at how open the dialogue became and how willing the others were to share their own insecurities and concerns. For the most part my coordinators expressed to me that they felt that there was more to a good administrator than experience. I am a little weary as to whether or no this is their true belief or if they just felt it necessary to agree with their boss. But more importantly the conversation resulted in something I didnt expect. By sharing my own insecurities as an administrator I helped create a climate of mutual respect where the other two felt safe enough to share their own stories. As Brookfield suggests (1995), crucial to creating a climate that encourages the public disclosure of private errors is the modeling of this behaviour by those in positions of symbolic or actual power (Chapter 11). Although this was not my initial intent, the lesson I learned from publicly sharing a very personal concern was much more valuable and one I will apply to future meetings with my staff.

So what knowledge and self-discovery have I uncovered? I would start by saying that I still have a long way to go. I have a lot to learn about what it means to be a good administrator. However, even though my reflection process is only in its infancy the early results have provided me with some reassurance that Im on the right track. I still believe that experience can be a powerful tool for an administrator but it is not the be all and end

7 all. I am convinced that with time, structured and purposeful reflection can truly help close the experience gap. When done right, dedicated self-reflection can become a stronger administration tool than mere passive experiences alone.

8 References

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Katz, J. (2012). Teaching to Diversity: The Three-Block Model of Universal Design for Learning. Winnipeg, MB: Portage & Main Press.

Watson, J.S., Wilcox, S. (2000). Reading for Understanding: Methods of Reflecting on Practice. Reflective Practice, 1(1), 57-67.