Professional Developement Presentation

Polly Brake came in today and talked to us about her professional development program at Grace Christian Academy.  I think that it was interesting that she pointed out how these programs do not just appear over night.  It had taken years for here to get the program where it is today.  It has occurred in steps where when she was hired in she pretty much was creating the program on her own.  I thought it was interesting how she talked about when she finally realized she did not have to create the program all on her own it started to take a little bit of a different direction.  It took someone pointing out her class was boring to help her look in other directions.  I think that is something to remember when we have our own classrooms and to not take every negative comment as a put down and become defensive.  How will we know something needs fixed if someone does not tell us.  We need to look at these comments and instead of becoming defensive analyze it and see if there is something we need to change.  This lead to them getting smart boards, promethean boards, and mimios so that interest may be raised in the students about the lessons if they could be interactive with the lesson.  Another point she made that I think is important to remember is that she said this is still a work in progress.  They have the technology available but there is still training to be done with the teachers so that they can get the most out of these boards.  I like the fact that she is providing this training and not just saying to the teachers here are the boards and expecting them to figure everything out about how to use them.