1. A T urning Point in My Professional Development
I’ll admit that when I first became awareofEDUX9920 from a colleague, the possibility
of earning creditfor doing what I must do every summer in preparation for the following school
year seemed like a practical joke (we like those in our department).Low and behold, I was
pleasantly mistaken when I did the research for myself, but was not completely sold on the idea
until I received my course assignments for next year from my Resource Teacher. My RTassigned
me two sections ofAP World History and 3 sections ofInclusion Honors U.S. History. EDUX9920
became immediately appealing to me due to a brand new overhaul ofthe U.S. History curriculum
by MCPS, and hard truth that I only recently had completed my first yearofteaching AP World
History, a real bear ofa course. Either way, I knew that I could easily justify 150 hours of
coursework geared toward developing a plan to engage the new U.S. History curriculum and quite
possibly upgrade my existing plans for AP World History.
As I expected, almost all ofmy time and energy this summer has been directed toward
engaging the great task ofpreparing for a brand new course for which there arevery little to no
existing resources- Honors U.S. History.MCPS has v ery recently given the coursean overhaul,
adapting the course to new sate and national Common Core standards, the obvious focus on
source analysis and multiple types ofliteracy. Additionally,while I am comfortable with the
content,after teaching the course several years ago, the daunting fact remained thatthe new
curriculum demanded that I complete an overhaul ofmy own approach to the course in order to
match my objectives with the expectations ofCommon Core. Moredifficult,would be undertaking
the planning without access to any Common Instructional Tasks (CITs) or Common Assessment
tasks (CATs). The CATs will be the new county-widestandardized testfor each unit, but the
county has not created them yet.CITs would have to be developed by our team as we go, but the
main objectivewould be an emphasis on primary sourceanalysis. A great deal oftime and effort
this summer had to be directed toward not simply creating, but finding and editing digital
materials that I could apply to the course’s new focus.
I had a great deal ofsuccess reorganizing my old materials,and even extracting many of
the older resources into smaller entities that couldbe applied to individual lessons throughoutthe
entire year. I actually broke down each ofthe aforementioned resources into individual digital
files and reorganized them into unit folders that would follow the structure laid down by the new
curriculum guidelines. As a part ofthis reorganization, I downloaded the Adobe Acrobat-Pro
program so that I could edit many ofthe files that were in “pdf” format, cut them down,extract
pieces oftext,or simply save it in case I may need it later in the year. The reasons this is
important is that it allows me to either implant the material into my daily PowerPoints, and/or
print it out as a handout, whether it is a primary source, or some otheractivity to be used in the

2. classroom or at home.The result ofthis lengthy process is that I have a vast selection ofresources
that I can apply to all ofthe nine units throughoutthe year.
Collaboration has also been a productive component ofpreparing for the recalibration of
the U.S. History course. Throughout the summer, I communicated through email and went into
the building to work with one ofmy colleagues on the team. This was helpful simply for bouncing
ideas off one-another, but we were also quite successful at hunting down the hard copies and then
creating electronic versions ofreading guides that will be incredibly useful for as a reading
supplement for our remedial students. I also created my own guided-reading questions to either
accompany my daily PowerPoints, orthey can be used as guided readings for textbook homework
assignments. My colleague and I discussedat length the multiplepossibilities for using theseas
well as much ofour old material in our classrooms this year. For example, several ofthe
PowerPoints that I have prepared for both Units 1 and 2 match up slide-for-slide with each
individual question almost like a prompt. I believe this will be incredibly helpful for my students,
as they are freshman, learning how to listen, take notes,and make connections between text and
topics ofdiscussion in the classroom.Since the bulk ofthe students with learning disabilities are
placed throughoutmy classes (and my colleague’s), we haveagreed to continue brainstorming
and sharing ideas and materials that will engage and accommodateour students who havesimilar
skill sets.
Likewise, I managed to spend several productive hours with my partner and teammate in
A.P. World History. Together, we reviewed our calendar from last year, discussed what worked,
and what could be improved, and set up a framework for the upcoming school year. In the end, we
sketched a calendar for the year, noting when we wanted to give unit testsand quizzes, teach the
students how to write A.P. style essays, review material for tests, and debriefthose tests. For
instance, sincewriting and planning for AP World essays can be a complex and complicated
process for both student and teacher, we decided to pick out various models ofessays from last
year that we couldapply when teaching the AP essay to our students. Also, we made the decision
to put in a request for professional developmentdays where we can focus on range -finding and
feedback that we want to providefor our students on in-class essay assignments. We also made
plans to create new quizzes, discard old ones, and set aside time on the calendarto focus
exclusively on preparation for the AP exam. It is also worth mentioning that my U.S. history team
has already secured professional development days to engage in similar range -finding and
planning activities. I think our A.P. students in particular will benefit from the extra attention we
plan to devoteto essay writing in A.P. World History due to the difficulty ofthe questions that
students must be preparedto answer.Also, many ofmy students, in a post-courseevaluation last
year, noted that the one thing they would have liked to spend more timeon togetherwas essay
writing. It seems to continue to be a collective weakness for many students.

3. While I managed to collaborate, in all honesty, more than I had expected this summer, I
did quite a lot ofmy work alone, and there was plenty to do. Without detailing e verything that is
listed in my log, I managed to createvarious resources and PowerPoint lessons for over a unit of
U.S. History. In fact, I actually specifically planned out my entirefirst week ofschool, and as my
style ofteaching is scripting my lessons slide-by-slidethrough daily PowerPoints, this is a time-
consuming process. However, it is one that helps me to frame not just one week, but the rest of
the semester. Likewise, I created assignment-specific student calendars for my AP World History
course and edited my first-week PowerPoints from last year. Also, changing and adapting my
expectations and course bulletin to the changes in the curriculum early on has allowed me to send
off those materialsto be copied so that it will be ready for distribution by pre-service week.
Likewise, for both my U.S. and A.P. World courses, I have managed to edit and copy almost all of
my materials the first 2 units ofstudy to minimize the amount oftime I will need to spend in front
of a copy machine during pre-service week and the first few weeks of school (time will be sparse,
and I will most-likely need the time to developuniform formative assessments with my U.S. team
and modify material as soon as the county provides us with the standardized assessments).
Furthermore, it takes an incredible amount oftime and effort on my part to prepare my daily
lessons the way I feel is most beneficial to my students, and this entire process has been very
incentivizing to me to hit the ground running, allowing me to enter this school yearwith the
confidence that only comes from entering a new school yearwith a sizeable repertoire.
My experience this summer was ultimately productiveand beneficial not just for me, but
I believe it will prove to benefit my students as well. The courseincentivizes teachers to make the
extra effort to not simply do the work that we will do anyway during the summer, but actively
engage in a process ofindividual and cooperativeplanning that pays more attention to aligning
lessons and resources with continuously changing curriculum standards.In this case, with the
implementation ofCommon Core standards for the first time in Montgomery County schools,
EDUS9920 provided me the opportunity to go the extralength to re-calibratemy approach to
U.S. History in an effort to closely align my lessons and materials with the Common Core and an
emphasis on reinforcing literacy. I was able to find, create, and edit many resources from maps to
documentexcerpts that would support the concepts I intend to teach to my students this year
while pushing them to go much more in-depth with their analysis ofhistorical sources. Although I
still have a great deal ofplanning to do regarding the overhaul ofthe U.S. curriculum, I feel this
150 hours ofcoursework has allowed me to create an invaluable springboard to helping me to
make my students successful with new curriculumwhile preserving the integrity ofthe existing
content.