Sam Mossman's Portfolio Page

About Me

My name is Sam Mossman, and I am from Long Island, NY. Currently, I live in Wappingers Falls, NY. I have been a certified ELA teacher for 8 years and have worked in graes 8-12. I currently teach middle school 8th grade ELA. I have a bachelor's of science in Secondary Education with a concentration in English with a minor in creative writing and a master's of science in Secondary Education with a concentration in English. I am currently enrolled in the CDIT master's program at the University of Albany. I chose this master's program because I enjoy working with curriculum and planning instruction.

I am also currently a fellow in Hudson Valley Writing Project's Leadership in the Teaching of Writing Institute. This institute is the second one that I have participated in. The first was the Early Career Leadership Teacher Institute that I was a fellow in during the 2019-2020 year. I then returned as a fellow in that program and helped to co-facilitate it for two years, from 2021-2023. I find that my work with HVWP has really changed how I approach instruction in my classroom and how I structure my curriculum for my students.

My Topic and Purpose

My topic for my course will be using an appreciative inquiry mindset to help teachers and students to look at their work from one that values students' strength and potential instead of focusing in on what they are missing or not doing correctly. This belief that Appreciative Inquiry is an important part of teaching comes from my work with the Hudson Valley Writing Project. I am currently in their year long institute, Leadership in the Teaching of Writing. In that institute, we spend the summer working with their Student Work Inquiry Protocol which is based on Appreciative Inquiry to help us look at student work from our classrooms. Each teacher in your inquiry group would share a piece of students work, and we would work our way through the protocol to teach us how to look at student work in a way that requires us to only focus on what they understood, ask questions when we were unsure of intention and then suggest next steps to help the teacher to guide the student in how to be better. This protocol holds a special place in my pedagogy for me because it comes from approaching student work with a strengths mindset instead of a deficit one. Many times, it is easy to get bogged down in the "My students can't...", and this protocol gives a clear way to encourage discussion around what they can do and what we as teachers can do to help them get better instead of looking at what they can't do and lamenting how we will ever move them forward in their learning.

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

For teachers, this course will provide them with ways to use this inquiry protocol alone, with colleagues, and with their students to look at students strengths and potential, along with providing guidance for next steps. This course is designed for teachers of any discipline to look at their student work and have students engage in a similar practice.

In this course, users will address the questions:

What is Appreciative Inquiry?
What are the agreements and steps in the Inquiry Protocol?
How can this protocol be used to look at student work from their classrooms?
How can this proctol be adapted for use with their students so they can begin to engage in Appreciative Inquiry too?

Needs Assessment

Instructional Problem: With education suffering from the loss of really great teachers from the profession and the added complications of students learning gaps from the digital learning that took place during the pandemic, it can be hard to focus on the positives and strengths of our students. It can be easy for teachers to get sucked into the vortex of deficit thinking of all the things that our students cannot do. It can sometimes be hard for educators to stay motivated when they are constantly up against this litany of all the things that students cannot do and they can miss or forget to focus on all of the things that their students do well or to look for the good in the things that students may not have mastered yet. Not only does appreciative inquiry help teachers to focus more on the positive of their students, it can also be used to help students reframe their thinking about their own learning to think more about what they or their peers are doing well instead of focusing on the things their peers could not do. Many times, when students are tasked with peer reviewing or offering feedback to their peers, they end up in the same pitfall as their teachers and they are only looking at the negative things that their peer did not do, instead of searching for all of the wonderful things that their peer did. One way to combat this for teachers and students, is to engage in appreciative inquiry where the focus is on the positive and the potential of a thing instead of getting stuck in the negatives.

The Nature of What is to be Learned: Educators taking this mini-course will learn how to conduct a student work inquiry protocol that can be used with any student work from any discipline and also have a strategy for how to adapt that framework for use in their own classrooms when students are talking about each other's work. After diving into appreciative inquiry, participants will use the student work protocol to analyze a sample of their own student work and to begin to think about how to apply it in their own professional learning communities and in their classrooms.

About the Learners: The learners (educators) are any teachers of any subject. Whether they are new teachers or well into their career, the learners may be seeking new ways to look at student work and help students to engage in the feedback process about their own work. Due to the negative lens that many teachers use when evaluating student learning, learners may use this information to reframe their thinking and that of their peers or students when it comes to students' potential.

Existing Efforts to Address this Gap: There has been research into the use of appreciative inquiry into the classroom but often if focuses on the pedagogy of the teacher and has yet to make the jump from looking at student samples to having students looking at each other's work using a protocol used in that is grounded in appreciative inquiry.

Intent Statement: This mini course will help teachers to learn and practice appreciative inquiry using a specific set of expectations and routines and allow them to begin thinking about how to allow their students to participate in appreciative inquiry as well.

Analysis of the Learner and Context

Learners: Participants of this mini-course will be pre-service or in-service teachers in any content area that engages in writing. Anyone can take the course that is looking for a new way of analyzing their student work. Learners’ experiences teaching in a variety of environments and cultures around student work will vary, but they will all understand their content area and have a desire to improve their practice and collaboration with other teachers when it comes to looking at student work.

Instructional Context: Participants will engage in learning by accessing and taking the mini course through the KNILT platform. Participants will be able to go through the mini-course at any time they wish, and they will be able to access whichever modules they wish to again after the course is completed. Ideally, the learners should be able to use the lessons from the mini-course with their professional learning communities, teams, or other collaborative environments and then use a related protocol with students in a classroom setting. For pre-service teachers, the protocols in this mini-course will serve as a framework to adapt to their pedagogy and strategies for them to use in the future.

Goals: After the completion of this course, it is the goal of the creator that participants will have an understanding of how to approach student work with an Appreciative Inquiry mindset and understand how to utilize that same mindset when instructing students in assessing each other’s work. This course has the goal of instilling in teachers a new way of approaching student work as an educator but also helping students to approach each other’s work in a way that is uplifting and asset-based while offering next steps and clarifying questions to help structure critique of the work.

Performance-Based Objectives

After completing this mini-course, learners will be able to:

Clearly articulate what appreciative inquiry is
Apply their understanding of appreciative inquiry to utilize a student work protocol on provided student work samples
Utilize the protocol to look at their own student work samples and reflect on the process
Identify ways they can utilize this proctol in their own professional learning communities
Design a lesson where students utilize the protocol to offer feedback to each other

Task and Content Analysis

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

Before taking this course, the participant should:

Be able to use computer skills to navigate online directions
Understand and create lesson plans to meet the standards set forth by their school district and/or state
Understand the importance of looking at student work as a data point

Unit 1: Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry

After this unit the participants will be able to:

Define Appreciative Inquiry
Explain the steps of Appreciative Inquiry
Explain the benefits of Appreciative Inquiry when looking at student work

Participants will take a self-assessment quiz based on their understanding of Appreciative Inquiry and its steps and benefits.

Unit 2: Practice with Appreciative Inquiry with Sample Student Work

After this unit the participants will be able to:

Explain the Student Work Protocol
Utilize the Student Work Protocol to look at examples of student work
Reflect on the experience of using the Student Work Protocol when looking at student work

Participants will use a journal prompt to reflect on their experiences using the Student Work Protocol that is based in Appreciative Inquiry and discuss the possible benefits of using it in their classrooms.

Unit 3: Implementing Appreciative Inquiry

After this unit the participants will be able to:

Utilize the Student Work Protocol on their own sample of student work
Identify ways in which the Student Work Protocol is different than their normal routine for looking at student work
Reflect on the experience of using the Student Work Protocol

Participants will use a journal prompt to reflect on their experiences using the the Student Work Protocol on their own student writing and plan how they will bring the Student Work Protocol back to their own classrooms.

Unit 4: Examine Examples of Students Using an AI Protocol

After this unit the participants will be able to:

Explain the student version of the Student Work Protocol
Examine student samples of students using the student version of the Student Work Protocol
Make a plan for using the student work version of the Student Work Protocol
Reflect on the experience of using the Student Work Protocol when looking at student work

Participants will design a lesson where students utilize the student version of the protocol for their own students to use when looking at each other's work.

Curriculum Map

References and Resources

Link to Mini Course Page