Reflection On Collaborative Professional Development

The collaborative professional development session has helped me grow as a literacy leader. I feel like this project has made me more confident, creative, and overall more of a professional. Before we started this project I knew some information about phonics. However, since I had to present on phonics, I took my role seriously and learned as much as I could. I am proud to say that I now feel like I can teach and help my colleagues confidently because I have the necessary knowledge. Not only do I feel confident with the content of phonics but I also feel ready to communicate and collaborate with my colleagues. This experience has given me the opportunity to figure out how to speak professionally. I learned when communicating to colleagues I need to keep in mind that they are adult learners that need to not be talked down. Instead, they need to be respected and have the material explained to them while allowing them to work hands on if there is an opportunity to do so.
Instead of presenting like any other presentation, I worked with my group to find the best possible approach. I learned that there is more to presenting then just talking. To help our learners I created folders for all of their paperwork. This allowed everything to be organized and save time by only needing to pass out one folder instead of multiple sheets. Knowing that there are many different types of learners we included hands on activities and a note sheet too go along with our presentation. This was to help kinestatic learners as well as those who needed help following along and taking notes. I feel like by adding the folders, activities, and note sheets the presentation was stronger and more