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Encouraging Teacher Individuality within a System of School Initiatives

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Brian Field
PID A39876182
August 10, 2015

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Many school initiatives today try to implement policies that attempt to create a universal
quality teacher. Evaluation systems and school definitions of What quality teaching is? create
assumptions that all teachers should be alike and interchangeable. Schools have good intentions
to improve the quality of teaching; however, their degree of success becomes lost in the
execution. My graduate work in the Teaching and Curriculum program has developed my view
that certain skills, like data and failure as a teaching method uses in creating the universal teacher
has their place in the classroom, but should be allowed to develop individually under the
teachers discretion. If we want to create quality teachers, than we must move away from the
mentality of creating universal teachers and focus on an individual approach. Ken Robinson
discusses the consequences of removing creativity from the classroom which result in ...highlytalented, brilliant, creativity people think they are not [intelligent], because the thing that they
were good at at school wasnt valued, or was stigmatized I would expand this concept from
students to teachers creativity as well. If we want to help develop quality teachers, we must
allow them to create their individual identity. While schools push initiatives that support the
universal teacher, they should alter their focus to allow for teachers to develop their individuality
in order to create quality teaching. I will discuss my own experiences of how I re-image school
initiatives of data usage, concepts of failure, and strong efforts to focus on passing standardized
tests that accommodate to my own individuality.
The most popular initiative in schools right now is to focus on utilizing data to have
teachers demonstrate that they are effective teachers. My current school district has an
evaluation system where data is collected three times a year and a teacher must show student
growth. Due to the high stakes nature of this data, which is dependent on a teachers
employment, data has been stigmatized as malicious and many promote on it being dispelled.

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During my graduate work, I further looked at data usages role in the classroom. Data allows
teachers to reflect on their practices and determine their effectiveness. However, this can only be
achieved if the teacher is allowed to gather data that encapsulates on what they want to improve.
The outcomes are only as useful though if teachers are provided the opportunity
to engage and reflect on their practices. To be a quality teacher, one must
demonstrate measurable outcomes of improvement among their students, which
will likely be achieved through the consistently reflecting and alternating their
teaching practices based upon the outcomes. (Field 2015)
Removal of data from the classroom, would limit a tool that teachers can utilize to reflect on
their practices. Broad sweeping data initiatives limit teachers to utilize the data effectively.
Schools need to promote data utilization on an individual scale to promote quality teaching.
(Artifact 1: What is Quality Teaching?)
In my classroom, I have implemented the use of data to evaluate how I should redirect
my teaching methods as well as measure student progress. I began compiling data on students
writing progress and narrowed it into sub categories. An example of the data collected can be
viewed in figure 1.1 in the appendix. The data allows me the opportunity to see if students
understand the concept in addition which students are successful and which are not. The
students also have the opportunity to see if they are improving as well and determine what they
need to focus on to improve their writing. This can be seen in figure 1.2 in the appendix. The
program that I implemented demonstrates the usefulness of data has at allowing teachers and
students to reflect on their performance.
One can argue that school programs are designed to allow for teachers to establish their
own goals, but the problem aligns with data being connected to teachers evaluations. When
data is connected to a teachers evaluation, goals are naturally chosen to guarantee the teachers
success to ensure that they pass the evaluation. This diminishes the teacher ability to actually

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utilize the data to improve their teaching practice. Teachers must be able to challenge
themselves and have a practical purpose for the data. That is why data must allow the teacher to
utilize it for a specific purpose and not have its weight be on their evaluation. The teacher can
experiment with their practices and refine them in order to become a better teacher.
Schools also have implemented initiatives that incorporate the idea of failure in the
classroom. My district is looking at implementing a zero-fail policy on all grades. The lowest a
student can receive on any assignment is a 53%. The goal of the policy is too extinguish failure.
This policy promotes a negative connotation on the concept of failure. However, a practical
approach beyond K-12 education emphasizes that failure has a necessary function in the learning
process. This no-failure culture extends not only to the students, but also to teachers. If
teachers are to seek success then they must be allowed to fail. Innovation is created through
consistent reflecting and revising. Teachers must be allowed to re-evaluate their lesson and
revise them for improvement. If schools view failure as a pass or fail approach, then teachers are
not provided the opportunity to individualize their instruction to account and allow for
experimentation Practices will often be adapted to follow the norm which the school views as
quality teaching. Teachers must be allowed to adapt and individualize their instruction.
Understanding the importance of failure in my classroom, I began to alter the culture of
my classroom to see failure in a growth mindset mentality rather than a fixed. Students were
forced to see their work as something that needs constant revision. Greg Siering remarks that
We should consider, instead, ways of structuring assignments and grading in ways that allow
students to take intellectual risks on those smaller levels, where they still have time to learn from
mistakes. (Siering 2012) My graduate work led me to see the benefit of problem-based learning
to facilitate the use of failure in the classroom. (Artifact 2: Failure is an Option: Encouraging

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Failure in the Classroom through Problem Based Learning)Problem-based learning provided the
students to consistently revise their approaches to reach a solution. Rather than having
traditionally fixed mindset, problem based learning allows for a variety of outcomes to complex
scenarios. In class I utilize a policy reform simulation, to encourage students to actually fail.
Students had to simulate a hearing to Congress on how to reform complex problems such as
Social Security and Medicare. (Artifact 3: Policy Reform Project) Every day I would visit their
group and point out why their policy would fail. I have learned that Criticism and failure are
important elements of problem based learning where the students need to understand their errors
and revise them. Encouraging students to only take risks does not produce more effective
learning. (Field 2015) Students had to revise it every time in order to get closer to their goal.
In addition to creating a culture of failure in the classroom, I also shared the data that I
collected with the students in Figure 1.2. (Artifact 4: Thesis Data and Reports) Students could
view their progress on thesis statements and where they needed to improve. Students were very
receptive to seeing their growth when I put it into percentages for them. They could visually see
that they were improving even at times when their grades were not what would be considered by
them successful. The success of this strategy was that I was able to assign low point value to the
task so the students did not feel that it affected their grade majorly. This caused them to focus
more on their growth. The students started to develop a growth mindset and view success in
their progress rather than just receiving the grade.
Today in schools, our academics are so focused on standardized testing. If a course or
subject does not have a state mandated test associated with it, it is pushed aside as not important.
This connects to the comments made by Ken Robinson about how students who are creative do
not feel they are intelligent. If a state test cannot track your knowledge then it is not important.

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While standards have their place in schools and education, the stress of standards associated with
tests limit the creativity of educators, just like they do to students. With the evaluation system
and intense focus of standardized tests teachers have become severely limited in the ability for
creativity and risk. Just as risk is essential to failure, it has an influence in creativity as well. If a
teacher is fearful to take a risk on a creative lesson, they will lose out on a valuable experience to
grow from. Through the MATC program, I had the opportunity to reimagine a classroom with
creativity. (Artifact 5: Re-Introducing Creativity in the Classroom) Providing students with the
opportunity to view information and skills in another perspective, method, or magnification, it
can enhance their overall understanding of the curriculum and skills necessary to grow. When
thinking about these types of lessons, it is clear that with the time and standards you cannot
spend much time on these valuable educational opportunities. Schools have become too focused
on recall and remembering and less focused on skills and deep understanding. Creativity takes
the ability to look at the same concept in many different and new ways. The way our schools are
structured with evaluation systems and the intense emphasis on standardized tests, it limits
educators opportunities for creativity and, in turn, the students.
It was impossible for me to remove myself from standardized tests, but re-imaging how
the students learn the material so that they are able to be successful at the standardized test and
still have the freedom of creativity was my goal. There were a couple of methods that I took
particular attention to which was re-imaging, patterning, and playing. With re-imaging I had my
students review a set of documents. They had to group the 10 documents into whatever pattern
they felt was logical and then they wrote their thesis statement. Once they wrote their thesis
statement I would review it and then told them to re-image and re-pattern it in a different way.
This forced the students to look at it from a different angle and through a different lens. What

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surprised me was that some of my best students could not do it. They were so focused on their
original pattern, that it was very difficult for them to see it in a different way. This forced the
students to be creative and think of a different angle to view the documents.
The second way that I instituted creativity in my classroom is utilizing the method of
playing. One of the most under-represented uses of creative skills that are being forgotten in
the classroom is modeling and playing. Modeling is taking the complexity of a concept and
simplifying it through representations or simulations for easier understanding. (Field 2014)
Students can learn a lot through playing. I started to do what is called Meeting of the minds. I
would have the students represent a particular historical character. They would have to research
the views of that historical character and embody the character. I would pose a historical
question and the students would play their role and express their views. The students
representing the characters actually learned more about the complexity of the historical
questions. They began to understand the various perspectives of all the players involved and
when asked to respond to the question provided much further in-depth answers.
As I started to integrate the use of creativity in my classroom and focus less on a
direction towards standardized testing I noticed that the students still demonstrated their
understanding of the content and were able to develop skills of creativity as well. Focusing on
implementing creativity in the classroom did not hurt my standardized test scores. As evidence
of this you can look at the class averages that the students received on their AP US History
Exam. In 2014 my class averages on the AP US History exam was 4.5 out of 5. The following
year when I started to implement more of the strategies of creativity, the class average remained
at 4.5.

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All of the initiatives that the schools have implemented including the use of data, looking
at ideas of failure, and standardized tests have their role; however, their execution is where it
begins to break down. I have demonstrated that by re-imaging each of these initiatives into ways
in which quality teaching can still be achieved is possible as long as you provide the teacher the
ability to have their sense of individuality. I have expanded this mindset into a teacher
leadership role. Last year, I mentored a new teacher at my school. A lot of the ideology that I
discussed in this essayed, I passed along to her. We would plan units together and I would
encourage her to develop her own individuality. Too often teachers are focused on achieving
that data goal and teaching to the standardized test. While she was nervous when I discussed that
her focus should be developing her own teaching personality and taking the freedom develop to
her own creativity personality rather than the tests. She ended up doing extremely well when her
test scores came in. (Artifact 6: Mentoring Certificate) I have since agreed to mentor a new
teacher this year.
In addition, I do not think that teacher leadership only involves just focusing on teacher
development. Most of our job is dependent upon our relationship with students in general.
Developing concepts of growth mindset and de-stigmatizing failure in the classroom is
dependent on students buying into your ideology. As a result, I have taken these concepts and
started to apply them as being a co-sponsor for the Class of 2017. This allows me to interact with
the leadership of the class who in turn can express the ideas to the rest of the class. This has a
two prong approach. By altering teacher mentality that school initiatives can still be achieved by
developing a sense of individuality in addition to having the students understand the role of
failure and creativity in the classroom can lead to more quality teaching. It is my continued goal
to develop my own conception of these ideas and utilizing my teacher leadership to progress

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these ideas. I took the opportunity in CEP 810 to understand the vast amount of resources that I
have by analyzing my Professional Learning Network through Popplet. This is going to be a
valuable resource of mine in advancing these principals to develop not only my own teacher
individuality but also help develop others teacher individuality. (Artifact 7: Exploring my PLN
through Popplet)
Through my Masters coursework, I evaluated where I look to enhance my knowledge of
practice. When looking closely at what you take in, you recognize where you are lacking and
what your focus of information has been. I did realize through this exercise that I have a strong
tendency to stick to what I know and what I strongly believe in. I have made it a professional
goal of mine from this point forward to incorporate new ideas and sources into my diet.
Realizing my shortcomings will help to make me a better-rounded and informed educator. Lack
of knowledge is ignorance and in becoming a quality teacher, there is no place to choose to be
ignorant. (Artifact 8: Information Diet)
Teachers need to begin to develop their own individuality in face of initiatives that often
have a range of success in execution. If schools do not re-adapt their methods to focus on the
individual teacher, then it is imperative for the teacher to take the initiative to readapt their own
practices to create their own identity. Too often teachers remain stagnant in their practices due
to frustrations they experience through school initiatives. Rather than being stagnant it is still
possible to continue to evolve your teacher identity and work within the initiatives. If teachers
want to remain quality teacher then they must continue to adapt their practices. The lessons I
have learned regarding the use of data, and the concepts of failure and creativity in the classroom
have demonstrated that focusing on the individual still can work within these initiatives.

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Reference
Siering, G. (2012). Why Risk and Failure are Important in Learning. Center for Innovative
Teaching and Learning.

Appendix
Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2