Alondra Salazar is a first-generation American educator who began working in education in 2010. She has been a front office secretary, McKinney-Vento Liaison, teacher, Social Studies Instructional Coach, and most recently, Student Culture Coordinator. She has an undergraduate degree in Social Studies and a Master’s in history; her passion is helping students identify what they are learning; this is her motivator for advocating for Social Studies education.
The Center for Political Thought and Leadership has given me the best professional development a social studies educator can get. The Civic Leadership Institute was well executed and built with teachers in mind. Real ASU professors taught the course with content and activities that could be done in our classroom. We got to network with other educators in our field and got the chance to learn about Constitutional Law, which was implemented through Moot Court, an elective I am teaching at my school this year.
The EAD has changed how I plan and collaborate with my team. Before being exposed to the EAD, I was already teaching Inquiry lessons, but I was still learning about the impact inquiry would have on my students. The EAD has given me answers to those questions of inquiry that I had, and on top of that, it has given me a strong foundation for building my inquiries. We have inquiry lessons already in place at our school, but the goal is to create further questions that reflect our community so our students can identify even more with them; that’s a big part of why I am a Social Studies teacher.
With my team, I use the design challenge questions to have Important conversations that relate to our lessons to ensure that we are hitting the seven themes, and if we are not, the questions In the EAD help lead that discussion. It Is an excellent tool for guidance when it comes to working in our PLC; It Is not a curriculum; it’s a tool that we can use to plan, revise, and reflect.
“The way to right wrongs Is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
-Ida B. Wells
Check out this post for more information about our civic teacher leaders.