Professional Development
Ralph Waldo Emerson would preach that "books are to inspire us, not to stop us from thinking." Emerson stressed the idea that one must act upon what they read in order to learn from one's experience. Another Transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, is notorious for his sage advice to "Be not simply good; be good for something." These wise words are exactly how I reflect upon my experiences with Professional Development.
Oyster Bay High School has given me a myriad of valuable Professional Development opportunities for growth. Within each conference/workshop, I utilize the information given and use it to create lessons appropriate for my students. Throughout each of the following workshops, I have learned useful strategies and have brought them back to my classroom to further my instruction, and thus positively impact the students' academics.
Oyster Bay High School has given me a myriad of valuable Professional Development opportunities for growth. Within each conference/workshop, I utilize the information given and use it to create lessons appropriate for my students. Throughout each of the following workshops, I have learned useful strategies and have brought them back to my classroom to further my instruction, and thus positively impact the students' academics.
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- Tri-State Consortium Training
- Falling in Love with Close Reading of Literature and Reading Response
- "All Students Can Do This!"
- It's Rigor, Not Rigor Mortis: Strategies that Create Attentive, Close Readers Who Actually Want to Read
- LILAC: "Critical Thinking for Critical Times"
- Research Guide Implementation HS English and Social Studies
- Preparing for the New Common Core English Regents
- Exploring the Common Core Modules for ELA
- Vertical & Horizontal Articulation in Writing
- Using Learning Progressions & Writing Rubrics to Assess Student Writing & Give Meaningful Feedback
- Socratic Seminar Training: Teaching Thinking Skills That Improve Students' Ability to Read, Write, Speak, and Listen
- Seminars with TC staff developers (Cornelius)
- Weekly faculty meetings: Examples of discussion topics include: "Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships;" the Attribution Theory; Danielson training, "Grit," and Metacognition.
Oyster Bay High School has afforded me the opportunity to truly thrive as an educator by exposing me to these professional development courses. There has not been one single workshop that I have attended that has not shaped and re-molded an aspect of my teaching. Along with these incredibly educational experiences that my colleagues, students and I have been fortunate enough to experience, the following educational resources have been exceptional texts that are resources for me as I grow to be the best possible teacher that I can be:
o Falling in Love with Close Reading Christopher Lehman & Kate Roberts
o Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Diane Lapp
o Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents by Deborah Appleman
o Why Didn’t I learn this in College? by Paul Rutherford
o Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School by Matt Copeland
o Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings by Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford
o The Skillful Teacher: Building Your Teaching Skills by Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, Robert Gower
o Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins
o Implementing the Framework for Teaching in Enhancing Professional Practice by Charlotte Danielson
Emerson stressed that a man thinking is much more significant than a man with thought. It is with these Professional Development opportunities that I am able to gain credible, inspirational, and research-based teaching techniques and strategies. I am constantly "a man thinking," creating, changing, and improving lesson ideas to suit my students needs, challenge them, and create an overwhelmingly intellectually enhanced classroom of individuals.