Professional Development 2009

Gotta love this picture! I NEVER like pictures of myself (they look too much like me!) but this one is from a column published recently of me playing Go Fish (very innovative and cutting edge, don't ya think?) with one of my favorite students!

A while back I did a question and answer interview about the professional development at Chets Creek Elementary for Teacher Magazine's Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook. I LOVE the way professional development opportunities are offered at my school. I look forward to them - no more "sit and git" at the Creek (where you just "sit" and and hope you "git" something!) At the mid-term this year we logged over 150 professional development opportunities at our school for our teachers presented by faculty in our building. Included were book studies, the Principal's book-of-the-month, video conferencing, grade level and subject level weekly Teacher Meetings, demonstration lessons, Geeks-at-the-Creek presentations, BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop), and live conference blogging. AND it's all on-going, embedded into the school day! The opportunities center around what WE each want to know as educators. We drive our own learning opportunities here which means we get a chance to model lifelong learning for the children that we teach! It just doesn't get any better than this. Make sure to check out the column.