The past few months have been all about transitions for me. I have had a very steep learning curve as I transitioned from my school-level guidance position to the district office. Federal grant writing, curriculum oversight, professional development, and making sure everyone has what they need to get the year started have resulted in very long days.
One area I have had to learn a lot about was the implementation of professional development, and my coursework through ACE has been instrumental in that. I wanted to design professional development that I would have wanted to be a part of as a teacher, and hope that thus far things have been successful.
The state of Florida completed the full implementation of our new B.E.S.T. standards this past summer, which in turn resulted in trainings for all teachers in the new standards as well as both the adoption and implementation of new curriculum. While I focused on those trainings for prior coursework with ACE dealing with the implementation of professional development, for my most recent coursework I chose to focus on our beginning teacher program and mentorships.
During the summer months, I am stretched incredibly thin, but this course has forced me to evaluate how we implement our beginning teacher program and ways to improve upon current practices. Our superintendent is also relatively new, he took office in November of 2020, and has encouraged district staff to evaluate how we do things…don’t keep on doing it because it’s always been done that way.
I have already begun reflecting on how to improve upon things as we go forward, with an increased reliance on virtual meetings and online targeted PD using the Teaching Channel.
Many of these adjustments can also be applied to other learning groups as well. We have multiple PLC groups working through the same platform and are working to increase collaboration with those groups as well.
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