SAMANTHA SMOLINSKI

My Professional Learning Network

Updated in March of 2023

PLN Reflection and Top 5 (2023)

(TOP 5- listed below in annotated bibliography form below)

What specific resources were helpful to you?

A specific resource useful to me was Teaching to Change the World, this was a
research text for educators that over the course of 2 years I completed in my program
and came back to many times throughout. While a lengthy read full of A LOT of useful
information, the book had one chapter that has always stood out to me, which would be
chapter 5. This chapter, titled The Subject Matters: Constructing Knowledge Across All
Content Areas, was particularly useful to me because it tied in many of the equitable
teaching practices I have learned and practiced over the course of my Elementary EDU
program. It brought to light the challenges teachers face in order to maintain an
equitable and motivating experience for their students within each individual part of
their learning throughout the day and modeled different ways to incorporate these
teaching practices in math, literacy, sciences, and so on through all the different subject
matters. The chapter then goes into depth about why you want to practice these ways
of teaching and did so in multiple ways that are accessible to all teachers of all different
styles.
This chapter remains a useful tool for me to look back on every now and then to
refresh useful ideas about each content area while teaching. The book is lengthy, and all
of it has been useful over the course of this program, but I would say that chapter
specifically was the reason I keep coming back to this book. With this, I also found
myself using specific resources and guides in this text, for example Focal Point 5.1 on
page 156 of Teaching to Change the World, is a guideline to making mathematics
lessons accessible and comprehendible by all students, while making them fun and
meaningful too. I found this passage to be important because of the way it not only
related to me and my past experiences with math, in which I had always struggled and
wish I had teachers do things like relate lessons to real life experiences, incorporating
funds of knowledge, etc. and the focal points even lay out problems and solutions with
struggles I may come across as a teacher. With this entire book I especially appreciate
that the information and tips provided are written for us readers to feel as if were having
a conversation with another teacher or group of teachers who really experienced them
working, and many experiences we read about in this text are exactly that.
How did you implement ideas or concepts from your sources?

I implemented many of these sources in my student teaching already and plan to

continue this in my future as an educator as well, one text that I thought was very useful
in my student teaching experience and again will be in my first years, and even should
be read by teams of teachers, is the book Visible Learning, by John Hattie. This book was
meant for newbie teachers, students going to the education program, and especially
student teachers learning from many different mentors along the way. I really
appreciated the advice that the author gives, as he links it to research recently done for
teachers all across the world. The information presented was very focused on
maximizing students learning and was presented in a step by step type of explanation
that made it easy for me as the reader to process and visualize myself using (which I did
many times while student teaching!).
Another useful tool I referenced back to and have even been able to find other
new useful tools from is the Blog I mentioned, By Dr Catlin Tucker, which had all kinds of
experiences and stories that I could learn from, resources attached for free access, and
professional development links to help push your teaching goals to their highest
potential and how to do that. From here I have gathered many tools, free resources,
stories, quotes, and so on that I could easily download and have saved so that they can
be looked back on for future use or general reminders as I move forward in my teaching
career. When building lessons plans for morning work or adapting to curriculum during
my student teaching semester, I would reference these tools from this blog and others
suggested within it while aligning them to classroom funds of knowledge and using
Michigan’s State Standards to build engagement and meaningful time spent learning
for my students in the school environment.
Lastly, my list of written resources, books, research, etc. about Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion have been tools I have referenced many times in conversations and in
preparing for job interview questions recently. They have been very useful in reminding
me why I teach the way I do, and what kind of school and classroom community I intend
to build. I have been a part of TEAM meetings, district planning, and different
committee meeting like DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) in my student teaching
internship placement, and in these meetings, I have been able to contribute information
that was then used by other teachers. Reading these texts also helped me to stand out
as the new young teacher in my classroom as I enacted equitable practices that were
intended for this specific community and my students. I was able to recognize many
important learning points due to my background in studying these resources, which I
plan to continue to read and reflect on in order to continue my growth in certain areas
that reflect my goals in finding the best teaching practices for my students and me.
I work in a district right now that has many multilingual students and in kindergarten
you are able to see that reflect on their work in the classroom, both in amazing ways
and ways where you want to help them grow academically but they require language
support. I want to be able to help all my students when they’re in my classroom
practicing their English language skills and then going home and speaking a whole
different one with their families, and the resource Unlocking English Learners Potentials
is a great resource I have used to do so.

Did any of the sources prove to be unhelpful to you?

Some of my resources were not the most useful or had portions within them that
I thought we’re not for me. With that said, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good information,
but I did not think it to be relevant to me or fit my teaching style. I say this because
some of the resources had data or information that possibly hadn’t been updated
recently or did not follow proffered practices the resources had earlier presented that I
felt actually were useful and equitable. I had a few resources on here as well that were
less helpful this year due to the fact that I had curriculum and kits that were provided by
the school, but I know that’s not always the case. These tools weren’t utilized as much
because the curriculum was already very full of information, and with the time we had to
teach there wasn’t often time to use some of these resources’ tips and extensions, but I
saved them for the future in case I’m not in a district that has these extensive
curriculums and different kinds of kits provided!
I also would like to point out that many of these resources are created with intent
that many different kinds of teachers, with different teaching styles, in different places
can adapt to the information and tips presented to fit their students’ needs in the
classroom. Some of the concepts talked about in Teaching to Change the World, just for
example, were less useful to me and probably won’t be revisited because I didn’t get
enough information about the discussion point to find it relatable in my teaching. Or in
other instances I may have gone a whole 50 pages and taken the most useful
information from the very last paragraph, but still was worth the read and buildup of
knowledge and/or experiences to find that useful piece that ties it all together.
TOP 5 USEFUL RESOURCES

Hattie, J. (2017). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing Impact on learning. Routledge.

This book explores the ideas of John Hattie’s Visible Learning for Teachers, Visible

Learning is how teachers can reflect on the lessons they give through the eyes of their

students in order to see the kind of impact they are having on students learning. The idea

reflects the characteristics of a transformative teacher, being able to structurally place

lessons and ideas so that they’re most effective for our students, and having the ability to

see when our teaching practices need to be adjusted is something we have to be able to

do. In this text you will explore expert advice from other educators and learn how they

prepare, evaluate, and carry out their lesson plans, this book presents great references to

look back on for becoming experts in these Visual Learning practices ourselves. This

book shares evidence as to how we can master these techniques and ways of thinking

through examples of critical self-evaluation of student’s prior achievement, targeted

learning, progression, and collaboration. An important theme presented in this book was

that “When teaching is visible, the student knows what to do and how to do it. When

learning is visible, the teacher knows if learning is occurring or not.” I would like to see

these practices and ideas of teaching through which makes this book another great choice

for my list of references.

Oakes, J., Lipton, M., Anderson, L., & Stillman, J. (2018). Teaching to change the world (Fifth).

Routledge.

Teaching to change the world is a collection of stories, lessons, and references that

revolve around relevant and open minded teaching practices for other educators to

explore. It is a social-justice oriented introduction to being an educator which explores

both the challenges we will face and opportunities we have to make change happen in our

classrooms. The text pays close attention to the inequalities associated with race, social

class, language, gender, and other social categories while also exploring the teacher’s role

in addressing these topics in the classroom. As teachers we will have to address many

controversial topics during class discussions, and this book gives us what we will need to

be prepared and feel comfortable engaging in these conversations with our students. The

book also introduced to me the importance of a democratic classroom environment and

how to be most successful enacting democratic practices into our teaching, like including

the students as equally important opinions in decision making situations. Overall, this

source provides a strong outline of what it means to be a transformative and trusted

educator, especially when it comes to teaching beyond the lines of the curriculum. I’ve

already learned so much through this book and I will always look back to it for reference.

Fenner, D. S., Snyder, S., & Breiseth, L. (2017). Unlocking English learners' potential: Strategies

for making content accessible. Corwin, a SAGE Company.

Diane Fenner and Sydney Snyder came together to create this book for teachers looking

to expand their student’s English skills through equitable learning practice’s that reach

all our student’s needs. This book not only gives teachers insight to recent studies about
 the English language and how its best taught in elementary education, but it’s also a

guide to better understanding the complex nature of teaching diverse students. This is

something I find very important and incorporating it into the lesson plans I see in this

book makes it an obvious choice in my list. The content differs throughout the text, but

every practice connects in the same way, through the importance of a supportive school

environment and motivational teacher. This book also offers research based

instructional strategies that are do-able for pretty much any classroom, these are

strategies that will help us to grow and find our identity as teachers in order to create

the most supportive environment possible. The authors use their own personal

experiences combined with those of colleagues and friends to bring us extensive

amounts of information regarding how to make English content and practices more

accessible for our learners. The book breaks down what each practice means, give us

examples of these practices used in the classroom today, and provides us with any

necessary information, guides, or tools we will need to prepare and get started on these

practices in our own classrooms.

Tucker, C. (2021, November 30). Blog. Dr Catlin Tucker. Retrieved April 2, 2022, from

https://catlintucker.com/blog-2/

This website, put together and published by Dr. Caitlin Tucker is a site that has many

available options to look through for future and current teachers, as well as care takers

and even parents! It’s definitely teacher forward though and Dr. Caitlin Tucker draws on

the experiences of herself and others in the profession to put together this site, which

contains a blog, books, resources she recommends, and a list of speakers and podcasts.
 The most useful part of this site, at least for me, will be the blogs. The concepts covered

remind me a lot of what is covered in my previous citing, Teaching to Change the World,

but it’s easier to navigate and read through, and is seemingly more relatable to my

teaching experience so far. The blog is constantly being updated with articles that relate

to running a productive and equitable classroom management system, student focused

blended learning, and workflow techniques for both teachers and for their students. As

well as giving me relevant teaching tips, Tucker provides feedback on the techniques

recommended to make information presented even more reliable and useful for her

audience. While I enjoy the blog portion, the other links from her site could be used

universally and I think make the site even more important to share because it reflects

different teacher’s styles.

“Show a Video Every Week That Inspires Your Students to Ask Questions.” Mystery Doug,
Mystery Science, https://mysterydoug.com/.

This website help’s educators when it comes to demonstrating the importance of diversity

within lessons and ensuring the lesson plans, we carry out are continuously engaging my

students by tying in interesting topics that are relevant to them and who they are based off

what we know (and continuously get to know) about them throughout our time together.

This site includes a resource tab that has “equity talks” that you can subscribe to in order to

hear updated and important things other educators have to say about making the classroom

you run a comfortable and safe environment. One thing I really like about the website is

that they have virtual fieldtrip links to a very diverse range of places, I find this to be very

important. Like with literature it’s always important that all of our resources that we chose

to use can draw on the funds of knowledge and different cultural aspects of each of our
students in the class. This site has a great range of options that I can used when creating

future lessons that engage and relate to my students and a number of suggestions as to how

these ideas can be tweaked to fit my classroom personally.