Becky Marder

EDUC 6410
November 29, 2018
Reflection on Professional Learning and Leadership
Through working with my mentor LTDS and completing the assignments in this class, I
have had opportunities to experience a broad range of professional learning and leadership. The
International Literacy Association (ILA) mandates that reading professionals “recognize the
importance of, demonstrate, and facilitate professional learning and leadership as a career-long
effort and responsibility.” I believe that my learning experiences have addressed this standard in
multiple ways.
A key learning experience from this semester has been spending time at my practicum
site. One of the benefits of working with an LTDS is that they travel around the school
constantly and work with every person in the building. Therefore, I have been able to observe
and participate in a broad range of classrooms that utilize a broad range of literacy strategies.
Throughout these observations, I have seen the wide array of responsibilities that fall under the
LTDS at a school. I have experienced how professional learning occurs across many different
communities in the school. This is directly connected to ILA Standard 6 which outlines how
professional learning must occur across the community, parents, and the entire school staff. I
have observed my mentor LTDS in roles ranging from a listening ear for problems professional
or personal, to a trusted administrator in school-wide decision-making meetings. She spends time
in the day assisting in classrooms and providing advice as an instructional coach, but she also
spends time creating professional development that the entire school participates in. She has a
deep skill base that she must tap in to fulfill her varied roles of the day. This is consistent with
the recent change in the expectations of literacy leaders in schools. Now, literacy specialists are
tasked with teaching students and teachers, being a resource for their teachers and an agent for
change, and overseeing reading assessments and data-driven instruction (Galloway & Lesaux,
2014).
One thing I have learned from watching her navigate these spaces is the importance of
understanding the context of each scenario. Each person and each grade level present with
different needs. It is a literacy leader’s job to be well-informed in needs of their school. This is
connected to ILA Standard 6 such that my mentor LTDS uses her knowledge of different grade
levels and teachers to tailor professional learning according to the diversity of needs. One way
my mentor LTDS does this is to meet with grade level heads to acquire a better understanding of
how she can assist that specific grade level. These meetings help her to get a grasp on what
strategies will work within the grade level - not only the kind of help the teachers need, but also
how she should go about presenting the new information. Some teachers are much more
susceptible to receiving help, and as a literacy leader in the school, it is this understanding that
leads to effective leadership. In order to create effective professional development, literacy
leaders need to spend time with teachers (L’Allier, Elish-Piper, & Bean, 2010).
Beyond fostering strong personal relationships, another important context to understand
is grade level data trends. I have learned how important it can be to dive deeply in to the school
data. Understanding grade level trends and being able to present them in digestible ways for
teachers is so important for effective professional development. It serves as proof for teachers as
to where they need to focus their efforts and what is working and what is not. With my mentor
LTDS, I have explored school data to a degree that I never have before. I have learned how to
analyze data, how to track specific students using data, and how to use data to inform my
practice. Together, my mentor LTDS and I have tackled the data by creating graphs and charts.
That way, we could compare assessment results to previous results and compare results across
grade levels to observe trends. I also learned how to pull out the profile of a specific child in
order to more deeply understand that child’s needs. The data helps teachers to progress monitor
with students to see if an intervention has been successful and to illuminate future areas for
development. I have also observed the use of data as a tool for creating strategy groups in the
classroom. By understanding data, teachers can create groups of students who need specific
instruction in specific skills. Therefore, students can be grouped in more meaningful ways
beyond just reading level. This experience reflects ILA Reading Standard 6 because this kind of
understanding of data leads to professional development that is determined by assessment of the
needs of the community.
I have observed many instances of literacy leadership at my practicum site. My mentor
LTDS is a very obvious leader within the school, and this leadership often extends beyond
literacy. Grade level data meetings are a clear example of LTDS leadership. My mentor LTDS
and the other coaches in the building do a lot of pre-work to find a way to present data in ways
that people who spend less time with it (i.e. teachers, administrators) will be able to understand
it. The following meetings are used to explain the data and show teachers how can they can
utilize this information in the classroom. One specific example I observed was an RTI2 meeting
led by the coaches. For each grade level, the coaches put together a document showing the
different levels of their students based on MAP data. Then, teachers worked together to create
RTI2 groupings. There are a lot of students who require many different interventions at school,
so these meetings are an opportunity to group the children and also to work out any scheduling
kinks. The whole process is all led by the coaches during this data meeting.
I have also observed literacy leadership within grade level planning. My mentor LTDS
attends all weekly and quarterly planning meetings. During quarterly planning, she leads the
grade level in developing a plan for the entire quarter. Mentor texts and culminating tasks are
given by the district, but my mentor LTDS helps the teachers to create weekly tasks and text-
based questions for each text. Then, she is able to take a back seat during weekly planning
meetings and give some responsibility back to the teachers to work through their daily plans.
This process reflects the collaborate nature of effective professional learning as outlined by the
ILA Standards. Another key aspect of the work of a literacy leader is to facilitate professional
development in the school. I only observed one professional development day, but I know that
the coaches present one big professional development afternoon every month. In the professional
development I observed, the coaches asked teachers to reflect upon where they were in relation
to goals they had set. Lastly, I observed an event of literacy leadership in which the two LTDSs
worked with the principal to formulate the school’s literacy vision and discuss how they wanted
to communicate their literacy values. It was a lengthy discussion involving many different
administrators in the school putting their heads together to come up with a unified vision for their
literacy program.
I gained many new insights from working at the school level to support teachers and
school-wide initiatives rather than at the classroom level to support students. One big lesson I
learned was that literacy leaders need to create specific, attainable goals for best practice that
have a clear rationale. Teachers need to understand the skill being presented, why it is relevant
for them, and how to apply it in their classrooms (Hasbrouck & Denton, 2005). This is one
reason why I think the literacy vision meeting was so important. It allowed for the literacy
leaders of the school to create uniform goals for teachers. It also provided rationale for the
LTDSs to communicate to teachers why they were asking them to do certain things. Leaders
needs to decide what is most important to student success and how this aligns with the vision of
their school in order to decide what information needs to be conveyed to teachers.
A lot of what I have described above aligns with coaching best practices. One thing that I
found that worked really well was casual observations. These low-pressure walk-throughs
allowed my mentor LTDS to be a familiar face in classrooms. Therefore, teachers were
comfortable asking her for help without fear of judgment. Along with this, I observed that my
mentor LTDS only provides constructive criticism if specifically asked to do so. During informal
walkthroughs, she always provides positive feedback to encourage teachers, but she only
addresses areas of growth if teachers invite her to do so. I believe that this strategy has its pros
and cons. In only providing positive feedback, it serves to further her relationship with teachers
and develops trust between them. The converse of this is that there are not many opportunities to
address areas of instruction that need improvement. She is honoring the teacher’s expertise, but
does not have enough opportunities to provide her own expertise.
Another thing I’ve found that works really well is to follow up planning meetings with
observations in the classroom. One of the tenets of effective professional development is follow-
up and feedback (Hasbrouck & Denton, 2005). My mentor LTDS spends a lot of time planning
with different grade levels and individual teachers, and she will often make a point to observe
one of the lessons they planned together. That way, she can evaluate how well the lesson worked
in the classroom. This informs her coaching and future lesson planning for that grade level, so
she can work collaboratively with teachers to discuss what worked and what didn’t work. This
kind of follow up and continued support is so pertinent for effective professional learning.
Teachers “need feedback and support as they apply what they have learned” (Hasbrouck &
Denton, 2005, p.72).
In terms of whole-school professional development, I really enjoyed the coaches’ use of
an opinion continuum. During the all-school professional development day, the coaches began
by reminding teachers of the school goals for math, reading, writing, and ELL support that had
been introduced at the beginning of the year. Ideally, these goals were to be met by October.
Four posters were hung around the room and each was labeled with the specific goal and a long
line to mark the continuum from August to October. Then, each grade level was given a color
marker. Teachers were asked to make an “x” on each poster representing where they felt they
were in relation to the goal. This activity was beneficial in a multitude of ways. First, it reminded
teachers of the goals that were set at the beginning of the year and asked them to reflect on the
progress they had made towards these goals. Because this activity was anonymous, teachers felt
they could be truthful. It was also beneficial to the coaches because it organized the needs of
each grade level. After the professional development day, the coaches reflected on where each
grade level stood in relation to the goal. This was accomplished analyzing the different colored
markings to decide what supports teachers needed and develop further professional development.
This is a key tenet of good professional development. As addressed by the ILA standards and
Hasbrouck and Denton (2005), effective professional development should always include
content that is determined by the needs of the school, teachers, and students.
I will take with me a lot of resources from my experiences that have major implications
for my future work in literacy. I have learned a lot about the day to day practices of a literacy
coach, as well as what is effective in working with adult learners and what is less effective. I plan
to synthesize all of the information I have described above to develop my own practice and
philosophy about what it means to be a literacy leader. One of the key learning experiences I will
take away is that collaboration is vital. Everything runs more smoothly when teachers trust each
other, when teachers trust their LTDS, and when the LTDS trusts the teachers. Planning is easier
and results in better lessons when teachers and coaches can all put their heads together. I have
also realized that there are many different effective strategies for working with teachers and adult
learners, and it is the LTDS’s job to find the best one for each learner. Just like students, each
adult learner will present with their own strengths, needs, and areas for development. Lastly, I
now understand the utility of following up with lasting professional development and coaching. I
have seen how effective it can be to see exactly how coaching sessions have played out in the
classroom. This is beneficial to both the coach and teacher so that they can work more
effectively with one another.
Moving forward, I do not want to stop learning about effective literacy instruction,
assessment, and professional development. This career is a career of lifelong learning and the
new strategies I absorb should always be research based. In order to accomplish this, I plan to
subscribe to The International Literacy Association’s The Reading Teacher journal in order to
stay up to date on current reading and theory. That way, my instruction and coaching can always
be research based and relevant.
 References
Galloway, E. P. & Lesaux, N. K. (2014). Leader, teacher, diagnostician, colleague, and change
agent: A synthesis of the research on the role of the reading specialist in this era of RTI-
based literacy reform. The Reading Teacher, 67(7), 517-526.
Hasbrouck, J. & Denton, C. (2005). The reading coach: a how-to manual for success. Boston,
MA: Sopris West. – Chapter 8, “Teaching Teachers: Providing Effective Professional
Development”
L'Allier, S., Elish-Piper, L. & Bean R. (2010). What matters for elementary literacy coaching?
Guiding principles for instructional improvement and student achievement. The Reading
Teacher, 63(7), 544-554.