Thursday, February 7, 2013



District-Wide Professional Development--Technology Integration
By Jamie Fath and Jason Kurth

As February 15 quickly approaches, we wanted to highlight some important points. This day was designed to be a learning opportunity for all teachers and administrators. We attempted to offer a broad range of sessions that cover most content subject areas. Please do your best to find relevance within each session you attend.  

This day is focused on technology tools and you will see some cool things. Without quality instruction and a strong curriculum, these cool tools won’t have a noticeable impact in your classroom. We want everyone to be looking through the lens of their own curriculum -- looking for tools and ideas that will enhance your instruction and/or engage students in relevant and rigorous content.  Related to this conversation about effective integration of technology, you might find this short blog post interesting - How should communities assess their schools’ integration of digital technologies for learning and teaching?

The goal of the day is for each of us to take at least one tool or technique and implement it into our classroom, daily work, or professional life. The purpose of the afternoon is to meet the diverse learning needs of our staff. Some teachers may elect to work in ‘parallel play’ with others to implement a new tool (or several!) into upcoming units and lesson plans. Other teachers might want one more structured learning opportunity with one of our presenters to further explore new or different tools.

Data Day
Monday, February 18th is our district's "Data Day", a teacher-quality professional development opportunity that focuses on collaborative discussions around data and student learning.  Our conversations will be guided by the following questions:


  • What do you notice about the data?
  • What positive shifts have you seen?
  • Where are the targets for growth?
  • What are our next steps?

Some data points to consider for this day include:


  • Unit Assessments
  • Early Literacy Data
  • Progress Monitoring Data
  • Behavior Data
  • Attendance Data
  • Grades
  • Participation Data

    The schedule for the day is as follows:


    • 8:00-9:30--Whole group data discussion. Please attend the building where you are assigned on Monday mornings.
    • 9:30-11:15--Collaborative Team Data Discussions
      • Grade Level Teams
      • Department Level Teams
      • Job-Alike Groups
    • 11:15-12:30--Lunch
    • 12:30-2:00--Collaborative Team Data Discussions
      • Grade Level Teams
      • Department Level Teams
      • Job-Alike Groups
    • 2:00-3:30--Team Sharing Please attend the building where you participated in the morning.
    • 3:30-4:00--Next Steps

    The contract day for Data Day is 8:00-4:00. Attendance for payroll will be taken during the morning and afternoon sessions during the whole group data discussion and team sharing.
    More information will be posted next week for job-alike meeting locations. We are looking forward to team discussions around teaching and learning!


    RESOURCES FOR COUNSELORS
    In this article in ASCA School Counselor, Virginia high-school counselor Darrell Sampson sings the praises of counselors using blogs to stay in touch with best practices and reach out to colleagues in other schools. In a sidebar, he recommends a number of blogs:
    -   DBS School Counselors: http://dbsschoolcounselor.blogspot.com
    -   School Counseling by Heart: http://schoolcounselingbyheart.wordpress.com
    -   Elementary School Counseling: http://www.elementaryschoolcounseling.org
    -   The Counseling Geek: http://thecounselinggeek.blogspot.com
    -   Scrapbook of a School Counselor: http://schoolcounselorscrapbook.blogspot.com
    -   Savvy School Counselor: http://savvyschoolcounselor.com

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