Drape's Takes

Today marks the final day in our first two weeks of participation with teachers involved in the Jordan School District 21st Century Engaged Classroom professional development opportunity. An outstanding opportunity for teachers in our district, this program has been the result of hundreds of hours spent by members of my team and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars as budgeted by our state legislature.

At a glance, this is what the program entails:

• Lots of professional development
• Lots of instructional tools
  
• A Secondary and Elementary level focus, with lots of follow-up, follow-up, follow-up
  
• A fairly rigorous set of requirements for Teacher Trainers and Trainees (we train the Trainers, then they train the Trainees)

In the end, the discussions were exceptionally meaningful, the content was very extensive, and the teachers - more often than not - finished with that deer-in-the-headlights look. As our mantra in planning this whole thing was consistently "less is more", we honestly tried to maintain manageability for every teacher involved. With three months to practice what we've preached before the next school year begins, hopefully the teachers we've worked with will be able to implement a number of the strategies and tools into their teaching in such a way that will increase learning all around.

Great stuff, can't wait to see what the teachers are able to accomplish!

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