This year, we were excited to welcome 25 new teachers and staff to our school community. As a part of our commitment to ensuring that we provide them with the resources and support to be successful, Joe Lloyd, Director of Staff Relations (HR), along with Nicole Koch, a long-time partner from Innovative Designs in Education (IDE), facilitated a workshop for all of our new teachers, counselors, school psychologists, and social workers. The theme for the workshop, ELEVATE, (a core part of our District Vision Statement, focused on creating a positive culture in our school community while setting high expectations for students to learn the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for a variety of post-graduate choices.
We read the article, A Letter To New Teachers, by Chase Mielke in Ed Leadership (ASCD), the author states, “One of the best things you can do as a new teacher is look for the colleagues in your building who still love what they do. A major part of this shift is adopting an internal locus of control—an understanding that our conditions can be influenced by our actions.” We used a text based protocol to discuss the full article and the implications for teaching and learning.
We worked on defining Culturally Responsive Teaching – 4 Misconceptions – and on how to build the learning capacity of each and every student.
An activity followed, Bucketing of Effective Practices:
- What makes an effective teacher?
- When We Were students…
- What teacher had the biggest effect on you?
- Become a student of your students
We also watched a video Video Teacher as Ferry vs Teacher as Bridge, which illustrates the metaphor of teacher as ferry vs. teacher as bridge builder as a significant paradigm shift in allowing students to take more ownership over their learning in the classroom.
We ended the day with a comical clip on why paper is still important.
- Why paper is still important – https://vimeo.com/62470169
- Stop and jot
- Notebooks (Journals, science, )
- Published writing
- Displaying student work
The theme for the next workshop, Engage, will focus on Social Emotional Learning, student engagement, and how to foster healthy, productive relationships among students, staff, and the community.
