Chris Vergatos

ETE 698- Professional Development Plan

A. Effective Leadership- A goal I have to become an effective leader is being an open-

minded and respectful colleague and teacher. This goal is worth setting because leaders

need to be open-minded to new ideas and perspectives because that is the driving force in

education. If one can not learn to collaborate with those that are different from

themselves, then it becomes very difficult to create an inclusive and safe environment for

the entire school. This goal will be accomplished through my actions towards others. I

need to lead by example to affect change in respect and open-mindedness in the school. I

will not need any resources to accomplish this goal rather than how I interact with others

throughout the school day and in my everyday life. Being an effective leader requires that

people feel comfortable around you and trust that you have their best intentions in mind

when making a decision. The first step to becoming an effective leader is to build strong

relationships with the faculty, staff, administration and students. This is not an easy task

and will take time due to the sincerity and genuine care for the people who make up the

school environment. When I was doing my student teaching, I became friendly with the

custodial staff and security guards. These relationships dont just provide valuable insight

into other peoples lives and experiences, but it provides scaffolding for relationships that

will develop with new students, new teachers and new staff as years progress. This is also

very beneficial in job mobility within the school. For example, if I am at a school for a

number of years and start as a teacher, eventually become department head, later

becoming vice principal, and finally becoming the principal of the school, the

relationships I have built along the way will help me and the entire school succeed. So for
 me to know if I am successful in accomplishing my goal for Effective Leadership is a bit

difficult. Within five years, I hope to become an effective leader who attains the goals

that I have laid out above. I think that through consistent behavior and attitudes towards

my colleagues, administrators and students, I will be able to become an effective leader. I

hope to be able to become a department head and begin working towards attaining an

administrative certificate by the end of this five-year professional development plan.

B. Advocacy- A goal of mine to increase advocacy in schools is to create a LGBTQ club at

the school. This goal is worth setting because it allows for the normalization of the

LGBTQ community inside the school and acts as a positive environment for students to

learn more about LGBTQ issues and socialize in a group setting. In high school, I was

able to get involved in the LGBTQ club at my school and we were able to protest

legislature that was being passed at the state level, which tried to harm the rights of

LGBTQ students. It was a wonderful experience because it gave me an insight on the

legal system and the open-mindedness and close-mindedness of the community. For this

goal to be implemented I will need the administration to approve of it, which could take

some paper work and, depending on the state, have some legal and political ramifications.

I will also need the help of a few staff members to act as club advisors and a designated

classroom for meetings. I will volunteer my room as a meeting area, unless another

location can be found within the school that is more suitable. Success will be determined

by the number of events that the club puts on or participates in during any given year.

The more active the club, the more successful they are, in my opinion. The club will

hopefully be started towards the beginning of the year to allow time for logistics, event
 planning and general organization of the club. Within five years, I am hoping that there

will be a culture of mutual respect among students within the school and that students

become comfortable with groups and clubs that they might not have previously been

familiar with, such as the LGBTQ advocacy club. If I can integrate organizations into the

school culture, which will help to empower students, and have these organizations be

mostly self-sufficient in terms of organization and leadership, then I think I will have

reached my goal of being an advocate for students. Within five years, positive

reinforcement and being open-minded to others who are different can have a domino

effect on the students, as well as the teachers and staff at the school. If the culture and

mindset of the school can normalize groups that might feel underrepresented or

discriminated against in society, then the school will be able to create an inclusive

environment for all of the students and a more accepting student body as a whole, which

will hopefully spill out into the community.

C. Life-Long Learning- A goal of mine involving life-long learning is to keep in contact

with alumni of the high school and ask them back as guest speakers to share their

experience and stories, as well as some insight into the next step for the current

students. This goal is worth setting because it will allow students to hear some positive

stories of people who were once in their shoes. This can also be applied to guest speakers

of all types from the community. If students can make a connection or find an interest in

something that they dont typically interact with throughout their day, then this method

can potentially influence students in a very meaningful way. When I was in middle

school, there were guest speakers, ranging from meteorologists to firemen to local sports
idols, that would come and talk to us and it was awesome to hear about their jobs and

some of the experiences they could have. To accomplish this goal I will need to work

with administration and be an active member in the community. There are a number of

ways to actively get involved in the community such as volunteering at the recycling

center, helping at homeless centers, participating in the Parent Teacher Organization and

going to school board meetings, among various other clubs and organizations to get

involved in depending on the location of the school. Resources needed will be free time

in my week to get involved in the community and create connections with community

members and alumni and flexibility to work around different schedules. Success of this

goal will be determined by my ability to bring in guest speakers and alumni to discuss to

students some of their experiences and have the students be engaged in a respectful and

appreciative manner. I want this to be something that the students look forward to and

can learn from to benefit their own lives. Within five years, I hope to have established

consistent relationships within the community and create an up-to-date list of contacts

that will be able to speak to my students depending on the time of year or subject that is

being covered. By developing good relationships with community members and

organizations, I can provide life-long learning presentations and activities for the school

and students. When integrating life-long learning into the schools, I am hoping that

students will begin to find interest in some of the topics that are discussed and hopefully

they can make suggestions for what other presenters or activities they would be interested

in learning more about. Depending on where I end up teaching within the next couple of

years, I am hoping there will be an abundance of resources and organizations that are

interested in coming to speak at the school. Some ideas I have that would be interesting
 and informative for the students and staff are park rangers, ski instructors, college

professors, college students, doctors, entrepreneurs and political figures in the

community. These are just a few examples of what Im hoping will be a long list of life-

long learning opportunities that I will be able to provide to the students to inspire them to

look at different career possibilities and also increase their overall civic engagement and

knowledge of different topics.

D. Reflective Practice- A goal of mine involving reflective practice is to change my

instructional methods to adapt to the students I am teaching through evaluation of

colleagues and other teaching professionals. This goal is worth setting because it allows

me to change my teaching methods to better help the students learning. If I can improve

my teaching methods throughout the school year to better assist my students, then I am

becoming a better teacher and they are learning more effectively. In order to implement

this goal, I will need to invite teachers in my discipline, in other disciplines, and the

administration of the school to sit in on my lessons. The more teachers that I have that

can provide feedback and constructive criticism, especially while I am a young malleable

teacher, the better my teaching methods will be in the future. It would also be helpful to

film my lessons and go back and review my teaching methods to check for consistency

and errors or mishaps in my lessons. This could potentially conflict with privacy rights of

students depending on the school. I will first run this idea by the administration and fill

out any necessary paper work that is involved, although I dont think it will be much

aside from permission slips for the filming. Success of this goal will be indicated by

teachers and administration willing to evaluate me informally and/or being able to film
my lessons and reflect on them. Within five years, I hope to have detailed data on how

my teaching practice has improved based on the reflections I have done and the

observations of my fellow colleagues and administrators. Using student driven data, I can

also see how my methods and strategies are effective or ineffective over the years and

reflect on how to improve my teaching practice. This will require a lot of consistent effort

on my part, but I think that by making time at the end of every day/week to generally

assess what went right and what went wrong and what steps I can make to improve for

the next day will help with achieving this goal. Reflective practice can be extremely

helpful in improving my skills as a teacher, but it has to be deliberate or it is easy to

forget about what you taught or how you taught it on a week to week basis. By the end of

five years within the teaching field I hope to have something tangible to use as a guide

for improving my practice and the gains I have made over the years towards becoming a

beneficial educator for my students.