Summer PD

Our district has always been generous with their summer PD offerings. This year, they hosted a variety of sessions led by presenters from both within the district as well as outside experts. In addition, they offered three days in which teachers can choose to come to school to work with the instructional coaches. These sessions are always popular as they give teachers what they want most - time to work on planning classroom learning activities.

This year, the district has added summer book studies to the PD menu. The books chosen are Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Own Learning, The Wild Card: 7 Steps to an Educator's Creative Breakthrough, and Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics (PK-2 and 3-5). These studies are all done digitally through Google Classroom -- there are no face-to-face discussions. Participants are given six weeks to complete the study and can work through the activities at their own pace. I'm curious to see how these work out. While I like how technology allows staff the flexibility to participate when it best fits their schedule, I think I am going to miss the person-to-person discussions that a traditional book study offers.

Our building is also offering "Ear" Buds this summer. This is a group of staff who will meet virtually four times during the summer to discuss podcasts they have listened to. Each session revolves around a topic:

Session 1 - Classroom Management
Session 2 - Assessment/Grading/Feedback
Session 3 - Innovation
Session 4 - Your Choice

We had our first session yesterday and I thought it was a good discussion. Most of the people that participated had not listened to podcasts before and were blown away at the wealth of information they have to offer. I look forward to the next three sessions.

We are always looking for new ideas to enhance our summer PD, so if your district is doing something creative, please leave a comment and tell us about it.