Growth Mindset takes Action
I’ve always loved seeing lists, quotes, resolutions, and goals splashed across the internet in the countdown to a new year. The fresh feeling, the new beginning, the excitement and change embodied in this simple act of affirming an intention. While I’ve always enjoyed reading other people’s resolution lists/words, it’s never been an intentional practice of mine. However, in 2021 the spirit has moved me, so to speak. I picked the word “Growth”. With my master’s program wrapping up, and a restructuring of my work life, the time is ripe for growth and reinvention.
In looking forward to my longer-term learning goals, growth is at forefront of everything. It’s a logical time to lean into new challenges, experiences, and projects. Overall, my future learning goals fall into some broad categories. I am looking to grow my capabilities in project management. I want to learn to be a more culturally responsive educator as my knowledge in this area continues to grow and expand (across the k-16 spectrum). I also want to grow my educational leadership capacity and skills.
I am currently working on building Project Management skills. I have experience with the administrative side of management and in academic programming. However, I have not had many opportunities professionally to work on creating budget proposals or on account management. I am currently taking Coursera courses to get foundational background in useful technology and an overview of these skills. I’m finishing up Excel courses and will take Project Management next, hoping to complete both of these specializations by the end of June 2021. In my current professional role, I’m beginning to write and develop professional development training modules for presentation to educators in international schools and also abroad in higher education contexts. I hope that by increasing my knowledge surrounding budgets, business plans, and project management that I become an integral part of the management and training team as well as develop and lead my own projects.
In looking at my continued growth as an educator and professional, I want to increase my practical knowledge of culturally responsive education. Throughout my graduate courses, I received a great deal of theory on being a culturally responsive educator. One of my goals when entering my graduate program was learning to better bridge stakeholders needs across the k-16 spectrum and the adult learning world. I now want to grow in the practical application of culturally responsive curriculum, specifically learning to address this in curriculum design. To this end, I am serving as a community member on a local school district’s working group to realign and assess their k-12 curriculum and instruction for equity. The working group is divided into smaller focus groups tasked with producing implementation recommendations. I am serving with the group redesigning the district’s English Language Arts and Social Studies pacing guides to integrate culturally responsive instruction/pedagogy as well as to address and add socio-emotional learning prioritization and implementation. The initial work for this group will be done over the next 6-9 months with recommendations then going to the decision-making bodies for planning and adoption. I expect to grow a great deal through this work and from there I would also like to continue my learning through webinars and university focused offerings. I’ve been attending the “Rising to our Responsibility” webinars and am looking for other similar growth opportunities.
Ultimately, all of my goals lead me to continue implementing a growth mindset for continued development and expanding knowledge as an educator. I have goals in educational leadership and must continue to seek out opportunities for advancement. I’ve taken the “New Supervisor Essentials” class through Michigan State University’s Human Resource course offerings in the past and would like to continue making use of these resources. I am also looking to the Educator Support and Resources at Michigan University for guidance. I need continued training to progress as an online instructor and to flourish as a leader. I intend to attend or complete at least at least one class or training per year, in these skills, for the next three years.
Finally, it might seem like a simplistic goal but one thing that I appreciated about my graduate program was all the wonderful research and theory that was presented as reading material. I believe that the best leaders are voracious, life-long learners. As a student that appreciates reading as an opportunity to encounter new material, I am also currently working through this booklist. My goal is continuing to read 5-10 books on leadership and education every year. Growth may be my word of the year for 2021, but I also plan to continually work to grow as a leader, educator, and overall, as a person.