PRINCESS FRANCOIS

Curriculum & Instruction is an area I have a deep interest in. Partly, because I feel this is one of my strong suits. Also, I have a passion for this because I feel this allows me to maximize impact on students. As a result, I have invested a lot in our school's vision of classroom talk in instruction. I may not be able to be in every single colleague's classroom on a daily basis, but if I can aid a teacher in their practice, then I am indirectly impacting student learning. 

Since I am still fully in the classroom, I feel that I have a greater understanding of curriculum & instruction, from both the teacher and school leader perspective. I realize the importance of keeping up with education trends such as Common Core and the Danielson Framework, so there is a common language and so my feedback reflects these expectations.  I have learned throughout my internship the importance of being able to adapt to changes and being willing to take risks in curriculum and instruction for the sake of maximiing student learning.  I am able to use both perspectives to my advantage when collaborating with teachers and administration. 

For example, when I collaborated with my principal to develop a Professional Development plan that will maximize improvement in teacher practices, I thought about from a teacher perspective what would I want to get out of professional development and what will help me be most engaged and challenged at PD. I also thought about how can we work smart, but not necessarily harder, to maximize the time of common planning for teachers to get the most out of it and to facilitate teacher collaboration.  From an administrative perspective, I thought about how can we use the resources that we already have to make improvements that would lead to drastic change. That included creating systems of accountability for department teams and grade teams. That included rearranging teams and utilizing Lead Teachers to their full potential. To maximize the effect of lead teachers, we had to invest in their own leadership development to build capacity. It is a constant battle trying to balance a teacher's and a school leader's wants for the benefit of improving curriculum and instruction. It is not easy as I learned but it is possible. It requires being open-minded, setting a goal, and taking into account the perspectives of those involved.