Professional Learning Format and Structure

At Foothills Community School, the majority of professional learning is personalized based on the teacher’s professional development plan. This professional development plan is based on self-identified needs as well as data gathered from our yearly Youth Truth Survey, district surveys, as well as walkthrough and evaluation data gathered by the administration. At the beginning of the school year, each teacher sits down and completes a Professional Development Plan based on data from the previous year. They select goals which will reinforce the goals and direction of Foothills Community School. The administration then looks at these PDPs and makes suggestions in one on one meetings with each staff member. These PDPs are then revisited two more times throughout the year so teachers can spend time reflecting on the progress they have made toward their self-selected goals. Teachers at Foothills Community School are dedicated to strong support groups and have organized their own Wednesday meetings to address their own professional development coaching, modeling and mentoring time. This allows all staff members to discuss the challenges and expand upon professional learning needs amongst their peer groups. Along this same line, teachers and administration have developed an on-demand network that utilizes text messaging to send requests for mini peer observations, critical friends feedback, coaching, or modeling so an available teacher or administrator with the needed skills in the area being requested can demonstrate for understanding (either in-person to model/support/provide feedback or via messaging to guide). Another source of our continuing professional learning format and structure are our weekly meetings. Each weekly meeting starts with the teachers, administrators (both school and district) or invited guests leading a mini-PD for each other. The goal for these mini-PDs is to support the implementation or refinement of revolving technological or curricular advancements that we can use to support evidence-based best practices for our quarterly projects. As well as these methods, teachers also engage in formally arranged peer observations, lesson studies or critical friends feedback sessions once a semester (twice per year) within the school or network of schools (local or regional partners). Micro-teaching is another way that we utilize support and feedback within our work. We have partnered with an elementary school to develop a critical friend feedback group to support learning.

Evidence: Professional Learning Format and Structure

Microteaching, Lesson Study, Peer Observations, Coaching, Pineapple Chart and Modeling evidence/examples: https://www.wevideo.com/view/1211589128https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F9x4S9vdNNK6tmFr-vEAy7p7iz8PXVd8z3z3KoK_u1c/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1_U0imrHqJyBMNNIN5nUJUbY9SOmTJkYuE_was8Ltl-E/edit?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kxFOXiAd8yWZrieHuIGrq7ccWLDGbI87?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1kywe2WgCqFD40FeLz1MlwWjB375XhH-x3ry6BNxNuOE/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zcDWBe4AkFpA6lfmxQ-NR3sJdqgammXVpoI0ZO94c6g/edit?usp=sharing

Self-identified Needs: https://twitter.com/STEMFCS/status/971126699260866561https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MZUKbBBT44GurfEKsljrw_Ezr_72FQOl5aKbo6eRA9Q/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1JKW70lJtfAA-kN4y2t37S94AywYF7FPCncXu995jFUI/edit?usp=sharinghttps://twitter.com/STEMFCS/status/1204503856991875072

Professional Development Choice/Voice: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SnkPyawKUpOa9GlJAnbyBu18ZcRsvTHd4hnd-PM7aVg/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/14wqxa3dyHzCYIv00sieHFJxb0NUSrfou3OU89ksdun4/edit?usp=sharinghttps://twitter.com/STEMFCS/status/988406348546224129https://twitter.com/STEMFCS/status/1156380284637667333

The teachers at FCS not only believe that attending specialized professional development is important, but taking what we have learned as a stem school to other schools is as important. All teachers are in this together and the more we share, the more we learn and grow.

photos.app.goo.gl/PQ4PbaFdcKC5Sgtb8

HMHCO Podcast: FCS Teacher: https://www.hmhco.com/blog/hmh-learning-moments-teachers-in-america-tracy-childers-marion-nc

Every teacher at FCS was asked to give a professional development covering a book the teacher read over the summer. The books were provided by administration and were themed around our goals made for the 2019-2020 school year after looking at the data. The pics below are from Poor Students Rich Teaching by Eric Jensen. The bags on the teachers' head represents the struggles that our current students face. When a student is in poverty and/or has experienced trauma, it often times is hard to learn so the bag represent the impediment to learning.

Copy of Learning Journal.docx

ECarpenter Video Reflection.docx

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