As I consider my summer experience at Bayer I realize that it provided me with a unique opportunity to grow as both a person and educator. Having the experience of working outside of the education sector, but still being able to contribute my education knowledge and background left me with a meaningful connection to Bayer and an increased passion for my role as an educator in my classroom.

I spent a lot of time being a genuine student over the summer and this was a useful part of the experience for me. Although this is only my fourth year teaching and I recently attended Duke for my gifted education licensure all of the settings that I have participated in as a student in recent years have been in an area that is my forte—education. This summer I was a student in an area that I had little background knowledge in (crop science) and it opened me to the experience that my students most likely encounter on a daily basis in regards to at least subject area that is taught. I also have to consider that I had an advantage over my students: I didn’t have to worry about receiving a formal grade for my work and experiences. A number of my specific take away ideas from the summer stem from this root of being a genuine student tasked with learning about product cycle of Bayer CropScience.

From this experience of being a student I have intentions of shifting my vocabulary instruction. In various ways I had been taught that ideally vocabulary should be taught in context so that students could make meaning of the new words presented to them. Even better, would be if students “discovered” the words along the way through a problem-based learning task or full blown project-based learning. What I found out this summer in my role as student was quite contrary to the concept of vocabulary in context. What I longed for over and over was a preview of the vocabulary words so that I could see, hear, and touch the words before I went into the meetings where every fourth word was unfamiliar to me. I was meeting with new and varied departments each day and it was difficult to keep up with the masses of information that I needed to take in. As a result of this experience, my intention is to specifically preview vocabulary words with students both at the beginning of a unit and the start of lessons in order to lay a foundation for when I do bring the vocabulary into context. I used to think that it would not benefit students to show them new words in isolation but I realize now that hearing and seeing a word before being expected to apply it to a new skill or concept is valuable.

Being a teacher leader is so much easier said than done. A lot of our professional development has centered around empowering us to be leaders in both our individual schools and districts. Fortunately, I have already had many opportunities to lead in my school and district. What I have found frustrating and troubling is the general morale and work ethic of teachers. I haven’t been teaching long enough to know if this is typical or if there is a correlation between public policy and its effect on teachers. I think that our professional development topics related to teacher leadership have been beneficial, but I also am not sure that I feel equipped the way that the program wants me to be in order to be a successful change agent in my current setting. Something I struggle with is that as a teacher leader I genuinely want to learn and know as much as I can about my students, for my students, from others. I want to collaborate and have targeted conversations with those around me to find out what can work for our students. That culture does not exist everywhere and I often found myself daydreaming this summer of the potential of ideas for working collaboratively but now that I am back in school reality sinks in.

Being inspired by the EdCamp model that we were introduced to at our June PD summit at NCCAT, I thought about offering a miniature EdCamp at our school during staff meeting time since many co-workers have mentioned a lack of quality PD and I have experienced success with this model. I surveyed my staff and asked the following questions 1) what is your top PD need? 2) what is a secondary PD need? 3) what PD area/topic do you feel like you could contribute to? It was a quick Google survey…or so I thought. After sending the survey twice, I received only five responses from a staff of about forty teachers. I feel like for the EdCamp model to work, individuals need to be invested in it, and if people are not willing to complete the survey, I would be surprised if they would be willing to try out this new structure. Examples of situations like this come up often in my working environment that make me question the usefulness of the teacher leadership PD if we know that many teachers are content with their current situations and not looking to partner or collaborate with others. In my experience the most successful examples of collaboration with other teachers have been those in which both parties were genuinely invested in the project/idea. This brings me back to the fact that I was able to absorb the teacher leadership PD information in such a way that has enabled me to meet goals that the Kenan Fellows program has outline for participants.

The examples are endless of what I have been able to take away and use with my students from my experiences this summer with Bayer CropScience. A more direct link is that as a result of my work with the Passage Home program, I am now the field trip coordinator on a my grade level. I know that throughout the year and hopefully in future years, my opportunity with this fellowship will continue to surprise me in new ways as I find multiple applications of my project and work that can lead to positive outcomes for my students.

Imagine my surprise when I am sitting in back to school PD and a fellow teacher presents something identical to mite research that I had observed during my Bayer experience. A slight difference was that trees were being used instead of mites. How could mites and trees even remotely resemble each other? The teacher had arbitrarily selected something that could be copy and pasted all over a piece of paper. Students were tasked with estimating how many trees were on the page. The teacher led us through different strategies and ways that students could use equations to determine how many trees were on the page. All that I could see were the quadrants that bee researchers used in the Bee Care center to count mites.

A strategy used by researchers to help count all of the mites is to break up the samples into quadrants so that the total number of mites can be estimated with greater accuracy. Sure enough, the teacher proceeded to present examples of students who had broken up their page of trees into different area to help count the trees on the page. So I started thinking how neat it would be to do this lesson with my students and use the mite example to help students see how research use some of the same skills they are capable of, even as fifth graders.

I developed a lesson plan that can be found by clicking on this link to share at the district level: Mites Lesson. My students have not yet arrived and I can already see how I will be able to use my summer experience to enrich learning for my students. Had I not had the fellowship I did, I would never have made this connection while the teacher was presenting.