Pick Me!

Here’s My Application…

As a new teacher, I often take on the role of following others, including my principal and vice principals, my department head and my NTIP mentor. These individuals have offered invaluable guidance and support throughout the first few years of my career.

Recently though, I took on a leadership role of my own by volunteering as course coordinator for the grade 9 geography courses at my school. When I joined the department, we had a team of four geography teachers. One is an experienced teacher who transferred from another school and the rest of us had never taught geography before, so I was happy to jump at the opportunity to demonstrate my leadership abilities. As course coordinator, my job was to take the lead on organizing textbook distribution, consolidating resources, and aligning assessment.

Our school population has doubled since two years previously (we are a new school in one of the fastest growing towns in Canada) so having enough resources has been a challenge. At this point, we are still waiting for new textbooks that have been ordered to accommodate our growing numbers. So, prior to the start of school, I made sure that any classrooms that didn’t have their own textbooks had easy access to a set in close proximity for convenient sharing. This task demonstrated one of my strengths – organization!

Next, I created a google drive file where all geography teachers can share resources. This is especially useful for the new teachers who need more support, but also for experienced teachers who may want to refresh a lesson or two. I organized the files into unit folders, and added all my lessons to get the ball rolling. Recently, a new LTO joined our team, and so I sat down with her to answer any questions she had about teaching the course and offered her my resources (and of course directed her to the google drive!) Creating this drive demonstrates my passion for collaboration and teamwork. I thoroughly enjoy working with other teachers to share ideas and resources to improve my practice. As a leader, I think collaboration is super important in order to stay current and to be in touch with colleagues.

Another task I took on was leading a meeting with all grade 9 geography teachers to align assessment. Because we were all coming from different schools, we all shared the goal of achieving consistency within our assessments. We agreed on using the same major assignment for each unit, and also established a consistent test format for unit tests (same types of questions and total marks). This task demonstrated my ability to mediate, as at times the discussions about which assessments were more effective than others became a bit intense. I made an effort to ensure each colleague felt heard and reminded the group of our ultimate goal which kept us on track.

Overall, being a course coordinator has been a great opportunity for me to stretch my leadership muscles and try something new.