PAESMT

As an engineer, Melinda Knapp found herself desiring a career that she felt was more purposeful. She has found that in her teaching. After working as a Land Surveyor and Cartographer for 11 years, Melinda went back to school receiving her teaching credential in 2000, a Master’s Degree in Education in 2008, and is currently working on her doctorate in teacher leadership at Oregon State University.

What are you passionate about in your teaching?

I am absolutely passionate about learning. Learning more about teaching, how students learn mathematics, professional development, etc. The drive to learn has led me to where I am today. The topics, surrounding the notion that all students can learn mathematics and all teachers can improve their teaching of mathematics, inspired me to continue my education. I earned my Masters in Education from OSU due to my participation in the Oregon Mathematics Leadership Institute (OMLI), and I am currently working on my Ph. D. in Education (with an emphasis in Teacher Leadership) from Oregon State University. I hope to study the impact a teacher can have on leadership in a school and a district when they choose to remain a classroom teacher. I plan on continuing to learn and hope someday that I can contribute to the scholarship in the field of mathematics education. I am also passionate about collaboration and the idea of teachers “learning together.” I work closely with my math team at my school and we are continuously working to improve our teaching practices in order to improve student achievement. We create goals together, plan closely together, work on our content knowledge, and talk openly about our practices (good or bad). We do all of these things collaboratively and learn from one another. The idea of learning together extends into my classroom, as well. I am passionate about teaching math in a way that all students can learn. It is exciting for me to hear students ask each other questions, press for justification and generalizations and become confident mathematicians. When they work hard to solve problems, talk about solutions, and mathematically justify why these ideas make sense, they become more self-assured and confident about their own abilities. Once they have this, they are empowered to continue learning for life.

Why did you decide to apply for the Presidential after learning you were nominated?

I was nominated by one of our district office administrators that I highly respect. I felt it was important to follow through with the application, since he believed I could win. I also was motivated to apply because I believe the Studio professional development work that we are doing in my school district is very important. By participating in Studio (see below for more details about studio) I have had many opportunities to grow as a teacher, I felt like the timing was right to have the opportunity to share some of these things with more people. I have gone through many transformational professional experiences in the past few years, my school and district have made many improvements in student achievement in math and I felt it was time to start telling the story. This is my story, but it is a piece of the bigger story with my school math team and the district. It was hard work though! I spent many, many hours of writing, and reflecting on my teaching. The process of reflecting is never bad and serves to make you a more informed, better teacher through the process.

Who has been a mentor or inspiration to you as a teacher? I haven’t really had a specific mentor, but I have had many people I admire and have learned from in my teaching career. The people who inspire me are the people who continue to work at their craft of teaching and continue to learn. My former principal “challenged” me to become more of a teacher leader. I was working on my teaching practices in my own classroom and she said, “You need to share what you are learning with others.” In retrospect, I think she planted a seed of confidence with me that impacted how I saw myself in relation to other teachers. Teacher leadership is an important part of my identity as a teacher now. It is part of who I am and what I aspire to be. Another inspiration for me was the degree to which the OMLI changed the trajectory of my career as a teacher of mathematics. This truly is the factor that made me rethink how I was teaching math and strive to be a better teacher for my students. That was about 5 years ago and the impact still amazes me. I have been fortunate enough to work with so many smart and talented educators through OMLI and now in the professional development work we are doing in the Studio classrooms. I work closely with many educators from Teachers Development Group and they have taught me so many things and are the reason I changed my teaching practice to the degree that I have. They have been inspirational to me in my teaching and very supportive.

What would you say was the most valuable part of going through the application process?

Learning how to videotape a lesson was pretty helpful. I saw how great this is as a reflection tool. I plan to incorporate this into my practice next year and would like to be able to use videotaping with the math team. It would be very useful for delving into some difficult shared-inquiry questions around our math teaching practices.

What did you learn about yourself as a teacher and would you recommend this to others?

That leaders come in many forms and the “teacher voice” from the classroom is very important. In writing down all of the work I have been involved in for the past five years, I realized how important the work is to motivate change and continuous improvement. This is an excerpt from my application: “My definition of ‘supporting other teachers’ has changed drastically since the beginning of my teaching career. As a first year teacher, I had a designated mentor who helped as much as possible, but that particular style of mentoring did not include discussions about teaching practices — a topic I now feel essential. Now, as a leader in my school, I support other teachers’ professional growth by modeling continuous improvement in my own teaching practices. This approach promotes school change that can extend beyond individual teachers’ classrooms. When all teachers in a school learn together, all students in the school benefit — thus putting the teachers on their own path of continuous improvement. I have been the consistent leadership voice on the math team for the last five years. The Sky View Math Department now has a formalized structure of shared leadership that embraces a clear and current vision for our students. We meet regularly, with a clearly articulated set of norms, collaborative purpose, open communication, and have the ability to make meaningful decisions when necessary. Through my leadership, we began having important conversations related to teaching, student learning, and made changes that would benefit all students. These ongoing conversations have led to widespread systematic changes for students’ opportunities in math, in our master schedule, and increased rigor in all math classes. Our entire math department puts into action the idea of increased student achievement through continuous improvement in our teaching practices. My leadership extends beyond my school. Through a Math Science Partnership (MSP) grant designed to develop “studio classrooms” I regularly have teams of teachers and administrators visit my classroom. During a Mathematics Studio cycle (similar to lesson study), we collaboratively plan for instruction that emphasizes research-based teaching routines. While teachers and administrators gather student data, I enact the lesson plan in my classroom. The data are then collaboratively analyzed and used as the basis for reflection after the lesson. As a result of the professional learning, teachers generalize the impact of particular actions to their practice and set individual and group goals. During my 3 years as a studio teacher, I have worked with approximately 75 teachers and administrators from 18 separate schools throughout the district and state. The work has the potential for becoming a research-based model of professional development that can lead to improved learning for teachers and increased student achievement for students. Increases in student achievement for schools participating in the studio project are beginning to be seen. This contribution to excellence goes beyond my classroom, or school, and has potential to influence teachers, and therefore students, on a broad scale.” Melinda makes her home in Bend, Oregon with her husband Steve and teaches sixth and seventh grade students at Sky View Middle School.