For Woodland Teachers Professional Growth is a Priority

Woodland teachers are dedicated to their craft of teaching and learning. Each year our faculty and staff take part in a minimum of twenty-four hours of professional development training because we know there is nothing more critical for student success than the teacher being the best teacher possible. As I have stated in previous notes, “the one factor that surfaced as the single most influential component of an effective school is the individual teachers within that school” (Marzano, 2007).

Woodland’s professional development opportunities are often supported through the generous gifts to our Annual Fund. Research has shown that the “best” teachers are also the teachers who are “students” themselves, meaning that good teachers are themselves “lifelong learners.” The complete list of professional development activities represent thousands of hours of growth for our teachers over the past twelve months. The preparation our teachers have put into making student learning as effective as possible is nothing less than impressive. Teachers, THANK YOU for your dedication to continual learning and growth for the benefit of our students.

A sampling of books and professional articles that Woodland teachers have used to remain on the cutting edge of teaching and learning include: Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov; Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith; Best Friends, Worst Enemies, Understanding the Social Lives of Children by Michael Thompson; The Case for Physical Education by Sue Douglass Fliess; A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine; Mindset by Carol S. Dweck; International Journal for Professional Educators, Gifted Child Quarterly, Teaching for High Potentia;, The Organized Student by Donna Goldberg; Teaching Adolescents with Disabilities by Deshler, Ellis, and Lenz;  Mindset by Carol Dweck; Literacy Work Stations by Dibbie Diller; Mr. Devore’s Do-Over by David Puckett;  What Brain Research Means for the Art of Teaching; History Worse Than Wikipedia by Mona Charen; Four Square and the Politics of Sixth Grade Lunch by Arthur Goldman; The Complete Learning Center Book;  The Need for Balanced Approach to Prepare Students Pre-K and Up by Jo Kirchner; Schools Where Everyone Belongs by Stan Davis; Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention by Stan Davis; Understanding the Framework for Change; Literacy Survival Tips; Teaching in the Digital Age by Brian Puerling; How to be an Unforgettable Teacher, The First Six Weeks of School by Paula Denton and Roxann Kriete; Assessment Portfolios for Elementary Students by Kathryn Henn Reinke; Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment; Creating a Focus on Learning-Learning by Doing; What a Difference a Word Makes; and Maximizing the Power of Formative Assessments.

Conferences, workshops, films, webinars, classes attended by our faculty and staff in the last year include: MAIS Learning Specialist meeting, 2011 Midsouth Technology Conference, InnovatED, EdWeb.net, Preparing to Write, Bully Prevention workshop, Handwriting Without Tears workshop, Singapore Math: Number Sense and Computation Strategies, Navigating Students to Resiliency, National Council on Economic Education’s – The Wide World of Trade, Reverse Teaching workshop, ADD/ADHD Forum, Superkids Training, Sessions at the Conference for Tennessee Kindergarten Teachers included Recognizing Red Flags for Common Learning Challenges, Dr. Jean Feldman’s ‘No More Worksheets’ and Transition Tips and Tricks, eMerging Readers: Literacy and Technology Merge, Strengthening Your Guided Reading: Building Literacy Through Small Group Instruction, Practical Consideration for Retaining Kindergarteners, Creating an ADHD Friendly Classroom, Bullying Basics and Bullying Prevention by Childcare Guidance, , Project Learning Tree, Growing Up Wild at the Big Backyard, Language Development Training, Psychoeducational Evaluation, The Inside Story from the Department of Child Services, Educational Records Bureau Workshop; Facing History’s “Bullying”, Stop Bullying Now, Real Solutions for ADHD Classroom Challenges, The Martin Institute, TAIS’s PK Roundtable, The Finland Phenomenon, Handwriting Without Tears - Top Ten Questions About Handwriting, Seminar in Early Childhood Education, Research Residency Seminar, Readings in Early Childhood Education, Child Psychology Applied to Education, Creativity in Teaching and Curriculum, Applying Accommodations for Children with Disabilities to Early Childhood Education, Planning and Facilitating Math and Science Learning in Early Childhood, Construct Science Content Knowledge Through Problem Based Learning, Literacy and Science: A Marriage That Works, Boosting the Brain with Humor, Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration, TAIS JK Roundtable, Memphis College of Art Fall Conference for Art Educators, Professional Learning Communities, Assessment for Learning, PD360 (professional development videos on demand), Bridges Team Building, and a variety of technology workshops such as Picasa I and II, Getting Organized in Outlook and My Documents, Powerpoint, Scholastic Online Ordering, Using the Smartboard, Class Newsletters, Creating a Table, Cool Websites, Podcasting, Web 2.0, Twitter, Advanced Google Searching, Destiny, Downloading You Tube Videos, Edmodo, Using Google to teach to Bloom’s Taxonomy, Prezzi, Social Bookmarking, Collaborative Writing on the Web, and Go Animate!.

Awards, honors, and memberships of our teachers include: Delta Kappa Gamma Society, Educate Memphis team member, WREG’s Teacher of the Week, Outstanding Early Childhood Education Doctoral Student Award, and Destination Imagination Board Member. 

Marzano, R. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development.