Tiffany+Schaefer's+NLI11+Teacher+Leadership+Plan

Teacher Leadership Plan:

Step 1: I will develop a wiki page for my classroom. The wiki page will have my bio, class activities, homework, links to cool tools that we will use in class, and other class and curriculum related items. I will also create a cool tool teacher page. That page will be for info for cool tools and the PBI process. So far I have only developed the cool tool page, as well as the home page (I added a voki in Spanish!). I will have the rest of my wiki completed before school starts. I will use the wiki to provide a place for students to extend what they learn in class and keep them organized. It also has blog options. I plan to add blogs so that this space can also be a collaborative place for discussion and discovery.

Step 2: Meeting with my PLT: Showing my LA PLT my wiki page will hopefully inspire them to complete the CyberSense training and create one of their own. If I can compel other teachers to do this with their class the blogs can be extended to other teams.

Secondly, I would like to meet with my PLT and explain the PBI process and how I am going to use it in my classroom. My goal is to use the PBI process for each quarter. I would have a guided question and students will create sub-questions for their focus for the unit of study. We are always creating projects together to go with units of study. If we have the product (ending) in mind to base the PBI process around the planning will go smoothly. I feel that if I can show them how the PBI process will ensure that critical thinking will take place using Bloom's Revised Taxonomy they will be as excited as I am.

For example, when planning the poetry unit we usually have the students create a portfolio showing their knowledge of types, elements, and analysis of poetry. The PLT will create a guiding question for the unit. Then there will be a series of lessons about elements of poetry such as figurative language, sound devices, and various types of poems. We would also teach how to actively read a poem by scaffolding using graphic organizers and model how to write in the margins to pull out symbols and interpretations. After students have learned and practiced the elements of poetry they will create an online poetry portfolio using Weebly.com (free easy to use website). The portfolio will show how they analyze their favorite poems, information they learned about a poet, examples of various figurative language and sound devices, as well as their own creations. This project is an example how students and learn using the PBI process.

Step 3: I will meet with the school's language arts chair prior to the first LA meeting for the year. I am going to explain to her the importance of cool tools and ask if I could have 10 minutes of each monthly meeting to share a new cool tool. Some of the cool tools that I will present will be Glogster, Wordle, Animoto, Prezi, Voicethread, Trailfire, Weebly, Voki, and Toondoo. I will give them a link to my Wiki page that will have links and info for each tool. Here is what I have started to create. By creating an extension of my classroom wiki page as cool tools teachers and students can have a direct link to the many new tools we will use and I will share with my fellow teachers.

Step 4: I plan on adding to the cool tool page when I come across more easy to use, fun, free cool tools=)