Running

head: LOOKING FORWARD 5-YEAR PLAN 1

Looking Forward 5-Year Plan

Meghan Rotkosky

National University

TED 690: Capstone Course

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Abstract

Professional growth is important for any teacher. The following is my 5-year plan to be accessed

and referenced throughout my future as an educator. While this plan spans the next 5 years, I

believe it is important to consider professional growth and development as a process that does

not end but evolves over time. This paper uses the benchmarks from Domain F of the TPEs,

defined as: Developing as a Professional Educator. This domain encapsulates TPE 12

(Professional, Legal, and Ethical Obligations) and TPE 13 (Professional Growth).

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My 5-Year Plan: Looking Forward

In researching my options for articles to include in my Professional Development Quest

Portfolio (PDQP) I came across many different opportunities for professional growth and

development that were geared towards secondary science educators. It is hard to anticipate what

options would be available to me in the district I get hired into, but there are many different

opportunities that are available to help me grow and flourish as a science teacher and I hope to be

able to take part in a good amount of them.

Years 1 and 2

For the beginning of my 5-year plan I would like to focus on the new content standards

that will be integrated into the California education system for the first two or so years. These

content standards, Next Generation Science Standards, are standards that have been created to

provide educators with flexible designs utilizing cross-cutting techniques, engineering practices,

and performance expectations to create a deeper understanding of science concepts. While not

every state or district has adopted these standards, California has chosen to switch to these

standards by 2018.

With all of the changes coming to science content standards, I think it would be

beneficial to attend talks, workshops, and webinars that give insight into the changes that will be

coming with these new standards and I could learn invaluable information on how to integrate

the standards into my teaching strategies and techniques in meaningful ways. The National

Academy of Sciences states, science content increases and changes, and a teachers

understanding in science must keep pace, (p. 57). Its important to make sure that my

professional development includes ways in which to enhance my understanding of these content

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standards and the best practices. Its important to me to understand these content standards if I

am going to expect my students to understand them.

There are many different ways that I can achieve this goal of furthering my understanding

of the new content standards. There are workshops, plans, opportunities, and programs available

through many different organizations including the NSTA (National Science Teachers

Association), Science Magazine, the National Geographic Society, the CSTA (California Science

Teachers Association), as well as through the Next Generation Science Standards organization

itself.

Year 3

After considering how to professionally grow within my own content standards, I would

like to focus my professional development efforts on technology in my classroom for the next

year or so. Science, engineering, and technology are so closely linked and there are so many

more opportunities to integrate science into the classroom than there were just several years ago.

No longer do students have to navigate through the moral or ethical implications of dissections in

a classroom, students can do interactive lessons online if they object to the hands-on approach.

This is just one example of the benefits of technology in the classroom. Students, especially

those I would be teaching in junior high or high school, use technology in almost everything they

do all day long and integrating technology in the classroom not only helps with engagement but

also provides opportunities for learning in a way that they are comfortable with and often prefer.

Ive always been really comfortable with technology but I know that there are many

things that I can learn about technology in the classroom. In my student teaching experience one

of my master teachers used Google Classroom and that was something that took me quite a bit to

get used to. While she also used different applications and programs in the classroom, I found
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Google Classroom to be the hardest to tweak to my liking. At the time there werent any training

opportunities available in the district for me to participate in and the task of training me to use

the program properly fell on my master teacher. I finally was able to find tutorials online and by

the end of my student teaching I was even able to teach her a couple of things within the

program.

Years 4 and 5

For the next several years I would like to focus my attention on further developing my

teaching strategies. I would like to take time to further develop my abilities and comprehension

in GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) instruction. Living in Southern California, I

believe it is important to make sure that I have the abilities and techniques to teach a diverse

population of students. The Orange County Department of Education provides training within

the Project GLAD training model and is the official National Training Center. This training

center has been operational for more than 25 years and conducts a GLAD conference yearly. The

likelihood is that I will be working somewhere within the Orange County and this conference

would be a great way to continue my professional development goals in this area.

I spent half of my student teaching time in an exclusively PBL (Project-Based Learning)

planned classroom. The collaborative nature of the classroom and content was intriguing and I

felt like the student-led atmosphere of learning was something that I could envision doing in my

own future classrooms. Though it was a great experience, there were several instances where the

PBL lesson plans did not go as they were intended. There were a few situations where students

did not follow through on the directions, where deadlines and benchmarks were not met by the

majority of the class, and where students were unable to be given the autonomy to select their

own group members due to behavioral issues. These are all challenges that needed to be resolved
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and at times my master teacher was at a loss as to how the planning should be altered. I think that

attending PBL conferences, attending PBL training sessions, and working collaboratively with

other PBL inclined teachers would be beneficial because it would give me the opportunity to

learn through the experiences of others. The Buck Institute for Educations PBL World

Conference is a yearly conference that includes keynote speakers, networking and collaboration

opportunities, and workshops that deliver resources for educators that want to learn more about

project-based teaching and curriculum planning. I would love to attend a conference like this and

make connections with other teachers that are engaged in PBL planning.

I know that my options depend greatly on what my school or district is willing to allow

me to do but I hope that I will be able to attend workshops, seminars, conferences, and TED talks

in the future. Hopefully I will find a school/district that puts as much emphasis on professional

growth and development as I do. Learning is an ongoing process and I hope to have at least

tackled one of these goals at the end of five years. I plan one day to be the science chair or lead

at my school and I know that even if that goal is attained I will still be learning and growing on

my own professional path. I intend to keep the attitude of learning always and I think that not

only will I benefit from it but my students will as well.

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References:

National Academy of Sciences (1998). National Science Education Standards.

Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Retrieved from www.nap.edu/read/4962

Next Generation Science Standards. (2017). Retrieved from www.nextgenscience.org