My 2018-2019 professional goals

Proficiency Based Learning (hereafter referred to as PBL) has been an emerging initiative in our district for three years with varying degrees of implementation. As facilitator of the music Professional Learning Group (hereafter referred to as PLG) during that period, I have consistently attempted to understand what was being asked of teachers surrounding the PBL rollout, and I have consistently tried to build this work into our agendas. These conversations, among our PLG, have never amounted to much and we have instead gravitated to focusing on the topics considered to be of more consequence to our programs like further aligning our band curriculum, administering and tuning our common assessments at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade level, and putting together our annual festival series for band and chorus.

We have had little traction with the work of PBL implementation. There has been no clear and guiding vision for what PBL should look like embedded within our music programs, there has been no useful and practical material to help us set goals for this work and, among the music teachers, it has been unclear how PBL is actually different from the way we have been assessing our students. Our focus for music curricula is largely skills based, especially at the elementary level, and proficiency is what we have always assessed. 

Recently, there has been some guidance that has provided us with a ray of cautious optimism about the PBL work for our group. We have received a K-12 curriculum document designed for and populated by the Art PLG that could serve as a template to guide our work. Within it there are performance indicators taken from the Core Arts standards, as well as places to populate sample tasks and learning targets. We are planning to attach rubrics to this document as well. There is a considerable amount of work ahead to do this work (considering the time we have to do it) in a way that will make it meaningful and useful. The current idea is for us to begin with the High School level and work backwards because this will inform what our elementary students should be prepared to do by the time they leave 6th grade. 

My 1st goal is to work with my present summative assessment activities - the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade common assessments - as the substance I will use to populate this new PBL document in order to view something familiar through a new lens. My hope is that this will inform my instruction in a new way and serve to propel a positive momentum toward using PBL to enhance my work with students. My 2nd goal is to keep an open mind about developing PBL. There is a weariness among many of my district colleagues, not just music folk, surrounding the PBL initiative that can be infectious. This 2nd goal involves choosing to be positive about the potential that can come from the work of implementing PBL rather than being exasperated by the scope of what is being asked of us as it relates to the relative dearth of time we have to do it. I think keeping an open mind about developing PBL and trying to look at it from a fresh perspective is a worthy goal. 

After the goals meeting with Kaiya on 11/9/18: The 4th Tuesday of the month is time set aside for me to work on the HUUSD Learning Expectations, while the focus of the job alike group should be to work on the Curriculum Document with the music group as it aligns with the Core Arts Standards. Before the end of December, I should choose, design, and implement one Creative Expression standard from the Learning Expectations document with students. (Maybe one a month after that?) This work has been presented to me as being largely experimental for this year to see if it is a helpful path toward implementing proficiencies. I should clarify this work with Lizzie Carlson and Carolyn Adams. With the Curriculum Document, I need to find the Core Arts Standards' Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings document and as a group we might begin by populating the Curriculum Template document with that information. ?