As I mentioned in my blog, my #oneword is a call to action for me to be mindful of the moments that make up my day. The moments at home, the moments at work and the moments that happen in between.
"The principal will actively participate with teachers in meaningful professional learning that results in increased language acquisition & development for all students."
The statement you just read is one of two professional goals I have for the 2015-2016 school year. (It's actually a two year goal.) Serving on a Title I, bilingual campus, you can imagine how important language acquisition and development is for all of our students. Yesterday was President's Day; a student holiday & teacher professional learning day. I was able to spend the morning with teachers, attending sessions developed by our teachers, supporting our growth towards the goal highlighted above. Teachers developed two sessions which we rotated through, Moving Students Writing & Vocabulary/ESL Strategies & Whole Brain Teaching. The session were great. The teachers who facilitated the learning worked extremely hard preparing an interactive, participant guided session and did so based upon feedback provided by the very teachers who would be attending. Check out one of the sessions here:
Fractions
The feedback received thus far has been positive and I am excited to continue to use the feedback we receive to further provide our teachers with the learning opportunities they articulate needing.
As a leader, I want to provide learning opportunities that are worthwhile, meaningful and applicable for all of those in attendance. Much like teachers in the way they prepare learning opportunities within classrooms, for students. Teachers are asked to do so much, I should not be asking them to sit in sessions that are not applicable or necessary. (We should not be asking students to do that either.)
Imagine the joy I experienced today, as I walked into a 3rd grade classroom and witnessed the very strategies shared, not even 24 hours prior, being incorporated into today's math lesson. I was so excited! I was excited the teacher found value in yesterday's learning. I was excited the teacher was able to apply her learning so quickly and I was excited how well the students were able to demonstrate their understanding of fractions. Specifically, the difference between a numerator and a denominator.
Check out my video tweet below:
