Best Practices for Teacher Leadership by Sofman Randi B.;Cuper Prudence H.;

Author:Sofman, Randi B.;Cuper, Prudence H.; [Stone, Randi; Cuper, Pru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1994322
Publisher: Corwin Press
Published: 2006-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

For resources and information on Gender Gaps and Education, see AAUW Educational Foundation, American Association of University Women, www.aauw.org.

Voyaging Through Curriculum

Michelle Evans

Huntsville, Utah

Achieving National Board Certification brings with it a greater understanding of the importance of analyzing and reflecting on what we do. Working to consciously consider what I was doing helped me become a better teacher. I knew it could have the same effect on my students. This was not a case of, “Kids, I had to, so you have to!” It was a case of, “Good news! I am a better teacher for having gone through the process of National Board Certification. Now you get to benefit from what I learned. You can become better learners yourselves!” Great. Inspirational! But how do you convince 31 twelve-year-olds of that? How do you motivate 120 sixth graders from the whole school to get excited about reflecting and analyzing? My teammates and I were about to find out.

The new school year promised to be exciting and challenging for several reasons. First, our whole approach to teaching was going to change. We would be teaching through a new “vehicle,” literally—we taught using space ships that we built inside our classrooms. Second, I was teaching information technology this year to half the sixth grade. Third, I was teaching science for the first time in many years, again to half the sixth grade. State core science objectives changed radically for the new school year, too. Everything seemed fresh. I was feeling especially green with inexperience despite my 17 years of teaching. The only way to handle it was to learn with the kids. I wanted to include student reflecting and analyzing in as many ways as possible because I knew how beneficial it would be.

Let me explain the space ships first. My sixth-grade teammate and I had spent the previous summer building space ships in sections of our classrooms. Why? I had visited an elaborate Space Camp in another district and it was phenomenal. This camp looked like a set from Star Trek. It had been built as a result of individual ideas, community effort, and funding from the Christa McAuliffe Foundation. Our rural school was too far away to be able to afford to go to places like that very often. The cost of busing alone would be astronomical. The camp curriculum repeated daily, so one visit was enough for the year. But I wanted our kids to have that experience, so I wrote a grant application and the students worked on some class fundraisers. We invited parents and took the whole sixth grade. Parent enthusiasm was high when they and their kids saw the camp and caught the vision of what we wanted to do. When we returned home, our sixth graders earned more money through some school activities. I had a little grant money left over, and we began to reach into the community for help.

Our thinking was, “Why not try to build something at our school that could be a

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