Professional Development at Belleville Schools
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If you look at the school calendar, you will see that twice a month our students have early release. This gives the students a nice break from their day-to-day learning and offers staff an opportunity to increase their learning. Professional development allows our staff to discover, engage, and achieve just like our students.
On Monday, Sept. 14, the students had left the building, but the teaching and learning did not end with scheduled classes. Currently, the middle/high school teachers are working through The Fundamental 5, a book on how to improve instruction and enhance its rigor and relevance. In the middle/high school, teachers worked together in small groups to learn how to better frame a lesson. Framing a lesson helps students follow a lesson plan. For example, displaying the lesson objectives and closing tasks outlines the lesson for students. After those small group discussions ended, teachers had the opportunity to meet with their Professional Learning Communities, which consist of teachers in the same department. These discussions allow them to bounce teaching strategies off each other and set goals for the school year.
The elementary and intermediate schools also had professional development after the students’ day ended. These teachers met with Michelle Amend, the Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy Center Director. Together, they worked on writers workshop.
Amend worked with teachers to define writers workshop. The Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy (PCL) model defines writers workshop as a differentiated framework in which time is structured to ensure that students have time to plan, organize, and carry out writing projects.
Amend also showed them how to effectively plan for it in their lessons. They thought through questions like how to best help students think through their writing and how to integrate writing into personalized learning.
This last professional development day support staff also had an opportunity to gather. Support staff discussed new policies for the school district and learned how they can best serve students.
Staff talked about ensuring we all have the proper licenses such as special education assistant license through DPI. These discussions with support staff also help keep the buildings well connected.
Professional development is an essential part of the educational process. These collaborative learning opportunities allow our staff to expand their capacity to be effective and innovative teachers.
