Professional Growth Plan For the 2018 School Year

Cassidy Mckelvey
Goal One: This school year I will research how collaborative learning affects school community,
student citizenship, and general student happiness.
Rationale: I will investigate this topic because collaborative learning continues to be a district
goal. I will research efficiency on activities by; promoting a positive school environment,
teaching students to be good citizens, and assessing positive effects on student morale.
Method: I will create a school-wide collaborative project enlisting the help of every member of
our school (including support staff, ELL, Janitorial staff etc.) By doing this, I will experience
school-wide collaboration first hand and be able to better understand how collaboration affects
school community. I will also work more collaborative activities into my every day lesson with
my grade 1 class.
Resources:
 Anecdotal notes taken during the process of creating our collaborative artifact
 Scholarly journals on collaboration
 Input from other educators
 Beyond Monet
 Literature on Tribes, Kagan, and 7 Habits

Connections to KSA’s
#1: Contextual Variables
Know how to analyze and respond to many variables at once by making reasoned decisions
about teaching and student learning.
 This goal will help me expand my knowledge on how collaboration helps student
learning. This goal will help to inform my decisions when making lesson plans in the
future. If I find that collaboration does make a positive difference in student learning, I
will build more grade appropriate collaboration into my lesson.

#5: All Students Can Learn

Know and identify how students learn while recognizing individual learning styles.
Respond to these differences by creating multiple paths to learning for individuals and
groups, including those with special learning needs.
#7: Meeting Student's Needs
Know how to engage students in creating effective classroom routines. Know how and
when to apply a variety of management strategies, in keeping with the situations that
provide for minimal disruptions to learning
#9: Approaches to Teaching and Learning.
Know a broad range of instructional strategies appropriate to your area of specialization
and subject discipline taught, and know which strategies are appropriate to help
different students achieve different outcomes
  This goal will help me understand how to better understand student learning styles and
how to best support student learning.

#12: Engaging Parents/Caregivers

Know how to develop and implement strategies that create and enhance partnerships
among teachers, parents, and student
 It is my intention to create a collaborative mural showcasing the entire community of
George Davidson. This can only be done with parental involvement, as they are an
integral part of our community. Not only will parent council have a direct say in the
project, but parents will also get updates of the project’s progress. They will be invited
to the final reveal of our mural. This goal will help me build strengthen my relationships
with the parents of my students and parents of other students in George Davidson.

#14: Making Contributions

Know strategies to independently and collaboratively, enhance, and maintain the quality
of your school to the benefit of students, parents, community, and colleagues

Evidence of success:
 Final product presented at assembly
 Reaction from student body
 Student grade appropriate survey
 Exit slip for staff members
 Use of collaborative and Seven Habits Language by the students

Timeline
Feb 1-27th- Gather materials and access cost of mural.
-Do a pre-assessment questionnaire with my class so that I can measure my
students’ growth.
Feb 5 , 7 , and 9th- Begin doing collaborative lessons in Social. Focus on rules of working in a
th th

group such as taking turns when talking, splitting jobs between your group
members, attentive listening, giving feedback, and showing mutual respect.
Feb 12 , 14th, and 16th- Work collaboration into every social lesson. Focus on more elaborate
th

collaborative skills such as how to give proper feedback to others. Model

collaborative language to the students.
Feb 19 , 21st, and 23rd- Give students the opportunity to use collaborative language in lessons
th

by asking them rules of how to work with others. Start doing collaborative lesson
plans in Language.
th
Feb 28 - Address School Council to see if I can get funding for the project. Attend the School
Council meeting on February 28th. Present idea and costs. Ask for if they can
contribute $150 to cover the cost of the mural
March 7th- Consult staff at morning staff meeting. Present the mural with them and ask them
to choose a day and time to start working on the feathers with their class.
March 12th- Do a mid-assessment to see if there has been any improvement in the student’s
use of collaborative language or collaborative thinking
th
April 9-13 - have all feathers gathered during this week
April 10th- Do final assessment
April 13th-20th- Assemble the feathers
April 20th-26th- laminate the final mural
April 27th-Present mural to the student body at Legacy Leaders Assembly

Reflections

The Beginning – February

At the beginning of my practicum placement, I was told that the students do not have many
opportunities to work within a group because of their lack of cooperative skills. We started
working on building cooperative and collaborative skills in the beginning of February. I found
that the students often wanted to work independently and were easily frustrated when
working in a group. We began discussing the benefits of group work and started to build their
collaborative skills. My focus was that the students were taking turns and dividing up the work
within their groups. This extending to conversations about how to talk appropriately within a
group. For example, we discussed what would happen if everyone just shouted out their ideas
apposed to taking turns. Through these conversations, students began to mirror cooperative
language such as turn taking, mutual respect, and attentive listening.

March- In March I really saw the impact that collaborative group work was having on the
students. They were able to use collaborative language when decided on “The rules of group
work”. The students only needed small reminders when working with others on proper
behavior and had become more unified when working in a group setting.

Goal Two: I would like to continue to work on my classroom environment by exploring different
classroom management techniques and learning different intervention techniques when
confronting behaviors.

Rationale: Creating a positive classroom environment is a dynamic and essential skill. You must
be able to manage your time, build relationships with students, problem-solve, and do so many
other important tasks simultaneously. Due to the wide scope of this skill and the importance of
having good classroom management skills as an intern teacher, I believe that this is one of the
most beneficial times to be working to improve this area of my teaching. As an intern teacher, I
am coming into a classroom half-way through the year. Therefore, I believe it is important for
me to build my own classroom rules and set my own expectations for behaviors. However, I do
not believe that classroom environment is solely composed of rules. In fact, I would argue that
classroom management is more a highly preventative measure. I want to learn techniques to
better equip me with de-escalation strategies and preventative tasks to stop problem behaviors
and learn different intervention techniques for when conflicts arise.
Method: I would like to attend seminars on behavioral intervention at the Alberta Teachers
Convention, discuss these matters with other educators, and research and test different
intervention techniques.

Resources:
 Alberta Teachers Convention Seminars
 Various scholarly literature
 Other educators
 Ross Greene

Connections to KSA’s
 #1: Contextual Variables
 #7: Meeting Student's Needs
 #8: Respecting Students’ Dignity
 #14: Making Contributions
 #15: Career-long Learning.

Strategies:
 Be able to implement three or more strategies to prevent or intervene problem
behaviors
 Be able to deescalate a variety of problem behaviors with an enhanced dialog

Measures of Success
 Students approach me more often and have conversations about conflicts they are
facing
 Students will trust me as they see me as a support after having difficult conversations
about their problem behaviors
Timeline
Feb1-30th- read academic literature and decide which strategies would work well for my class
Feb 22-23- attend the Alberta Teachers Conference in Medicine Hat. Go to seminars that help to
teach behavioral intervention
Feb 24-28- Re-evaluate how to implement strategies of intervention.
March 1-April 15th- implement strategies in daily instruction
April 15-27th- reflect on process and what I have improved. Assess how this knowledge can help
me in future years.

Reflections