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.
