School Year 17-18 Has Begun!

The first TLC workshop is officially in the books and it was a success!

We collected the faculty's preferences for workshop topics for the year through a Google Survey. The TLC provided five choices:

• Project Based Learning (continuing from last year) 
• Communication Skills (inspired by students' perceived need)
• Content Area Literacy
• Differentiation Strategies
• Instilling Grit and Growth Mindset

The TLC came to these choices by simply throwing out ideas on what we thought would have a large impact on student achievement-we came up with 11 choices, which was clearly too much.  Then, the TLC narrowed it down by voting for our top five, which was rolled out to the faculty.  It was important for us to provide the faculty with choice, but not just an open ended vote.  We wanted to it to be concrete and clear, so there would be a majority, but many voices of our faculty would feel they were heard.  The survey was simple-teachers voted for their first and second choices.  And, here were the results, out of 109 teachers, 65 put differentiation as either their first or second choice:

So, we revealed the SY 17-18 Goal: Inspire teachers to experiment and explore with various differentiation strategies to increase student achievement.  But, we didn't do anything else with differentiation during that workshop; instead, we started to build relationships. 

The first thing we did was have everyone line up by years of experience in education, so the newest teachers were at one end of the classroom and down the line, at the other end, were the most veteran teachers.  We took a minute to applaud the veterans and acknowledge the experience and wisdom they bring to the room.  Then, we grouped up by six, based on where you were in the line, and discussed what the hot new trend was when you started teaching.  As a 16 year veteran, I found myself discussing the start of NCLB and standardized testing.  Other groups talked about a strike that had been happening, the beginning of inclusion, a civics test all students had to pass, and many other topics came up throughout the day.  

After that short discussion, the groups jigsawed up and formed a new group with teachers from varying years of service.  Quickly, each person shared the 'hot trend' when they started and the takeaway was that a lot of the trends were the same, but with different names and that some trends went away for a while, but are cycling back.  Then, the most interesting discussion came as each person shared in their group why they became a teacher.    

I really learned a lot about my colleagues through this simple question. Some people shared that they love the content, others that they struggled in high school, some were just joining the family business, and many never intended on teaching at all-the honesty and willingness to share impressed me and by the end of the session, everyone new a few people a little deeper.  We connected a little more than if we had not spent these 30 minutes together-we, as teachers, have a glimpse into each others' motivation and experience.  Our community is building: we respect each other more and know a small bit more about where we have come from.