Eric Vanston's Education Leadership Showcase
"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself.
When you become a leader, success is about growing others."
-Jack Welch
When you become a leader, success is about growing others."
-Jack Welch
My journey through this program was centered around the idea of educational leadership, the process of guiding the abilities of students, teachers, and parents towards achieving positive educational outcomes. Reflection, professional development, diversity training, and coaching are all different strategies I have learned to utilize in order to reach those positive outcomes, some of which will be showcased in this page. I am proud of not only what I have accomplished academically, but also how it has changed me personally, and I look forward to using these skills to guide students, parents, and teachers to work towards a common goal. Please take a look at some of the highlights of my journey to my master's degree.
Designing a Professional Development Session
EAD 801 For my final paper in EAD 801, we were assigned a group project to design a professional development session, and how we would implement it in a school. We focused on helping novice, white teachers, work in urban schools. The percentage of minority students is increasing while the percentage of minority teachers is decreasing, so it is becoming more and more important for young white teachers to be able to relate to minority students. |
Plan, Teach, REFLECT
TE 804 One of the most important parts of being an effective leader is being able to reflect on your practice. During my internship year, reflection was a very important part of everything we did. For this project, I spent a lot of time developing a "cool stuff lesson" which was supposed to be different and better from and other lesson I had planned. After teaching the lesson, I spent a long time reflecting on every single aspect of it - what went right, what went wrong, and how I can improve it in the future. |
Moving to Korea!
Korea I believe that taking risks is a big part of becoming a better leader. As a result, when I finished my student teaching in 2009, I decided to move to the other side of the world to Seoul, South Korea. I was a math teacher, moving to a different country, to teach English. What was supposed to be a one year excursion turned into a three year event that truly changed my life. Here is the blog that I kept while I was abroad that chronicled all the crazy and amazing things I was able to experience. |
Music Videos!
Korea After teaching adults for a year, I spent two years teaching at Surak Middle School in Seoul. As part of a summer camp activity, I had students make music videos where they attempted to act out the lyrics to American songs. It was a great way for them to practice their listening and understanding, as well as have fun making the videos. I really enjoyed working with the students to complete this project, and I was very proud of their results. |
Racial Achievement Gap
EAD 822 A large focus of my leadership program was educating a diverse population. Leadership means identifying with everyone, not just the people who look like you, which is a current problem in our education system. For my final project, I studied data from a local high school and examined the racial achievement gap. Here are my findings: |
Prom Night in Mississippi
EAD 850 To continue my study of diversity, I watched a documentary called "Prom Night in Mississippi" about a school who just a few short years ago decided to have its first mixed race prom. I compared the ideas shared in the movie to other forms of racism around the world, and the effect it has on the world. |
Parental Involvement
EAD 822 Certainly you do not need a degree in leadership to be aware that parental involvement is an important part of education. I wrote this paper to examine the levels of parental involvement, and look for a reason as to why maybe different communities have varying levels of said involvement. Many teachers may simply assume that these parents do not care as much as others, but I believe it is quite the contrary, and there are issues that go much deeper. |
Literacy Case Study
TE 846 As we continue to closely examine test scores and data, literacy is becoming an important part of every curriculum, not just the English teacher's. A good leader of the future will need to be well versed in literacy assessment and strategies. In the following case study, I worked with one student to help build his literacy using pre tests, multiple lessons, as well as a post test in the end. It helped me to see how important literacy will be to me as a math teacher, but also to all teachers and leaders. |
Recovery Nutrition
KIN 856
Leadership is not constricted to the classroom. I have aspirations to become a leader through coaching as well. I have learned that coaching is also not limited to the playing field, it is also important to educate our athletes on proper nutrition, specifically immediately following a practice or competition. Getting the right amount of carbohydrates and protein within thirty minutes of activity is very important in helping your body recover. This is a pamphlet that I have created to give to my athletes that explains the importance of recovery nutrition as well as some potential snacks that would give them the proper amounts of carbs and protein.
KIN 856
Leadership is not constricted to the classroom. I have aspirations to become a leader through coaching as well. I have learned that coaching is also not limited to the playing field, it is also important to educate our athletes on proper nutrition, specifically immediately following a practice or competition. Getting the right amount of carbohydrates and protein within thirty minutes of activity is very important in helping your body recover. This is a pamphlet that I have created to give to my athletes that explains the importance of recovery nutrition as well as some potential snacks that would give them the proper amounts of carbs and protein.