PD Day: Teachers Teaching Teachers

On November 8th, school was closed for Election Day and Teacher Professional Development. Teachers, para-professionals and para-educators from across the district participated in the Best Practice Palooza. They got to attend 4 out of the 60 breakout sessions offered. Most of the sessions were presented by teachers to other teachers.

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Classrooms were packed at Northville High School today, not with students but with teachers from across the district for best practice palooza also known as professional development day. It's a break from having the regular day in day out of you know being in front of students and teaching all day so from my perspective it's nice to have a day to step back and just sort of be in the audience for a second instead of being the center of attention you know and yeah just try to learn new tools to try to take into the classroom and relax a little bit which is what my sessions I kind of went to involve that as well. Staff got to pick four sessions to attend from the 60 that were offered like self-care through yoga, games for big kids. Never have I ever had a red bull. If you've had a red bull go across. The inclusion movement at Northville High School, my class is called Neurographic Art and I learned about it during lockdown when I started coloring and coloring books just keep myself busy and I liked all the different colors and stuff and I wanted to do something different than just coloring books so I saw this video and I'm like oh what's that, so it's basically creating your own coloring book because you just scribble around the page and then wherever you have intersecting lines you soften those lines so nothing is sharp and then all the little blobs and squiggles that you have you color in however you want. Shading just straight out black color, you can use crayons, colored pencils, paint. So we're doing colored pencils and permanent marker lines today. And grade level collaborations. With my department colleagues we're always collaborating about like what we're going to do in class in any given day but it's nice to see from some of the other teachers in the district to get out of my department a bit because I'm usually just talking to them and just hear ideas that worked in their classroom and get a new perspective. Most of the presenters are Northville Public School teachers sharing what has worked well for them with other teachers. We learn best from our peers. So when we see best practices in action and we learn what's happening in our district we can rely on one another and consult with one another to make sure that we're doing things what's best for kids. It's just impressive how many people have so much to share and it's great to have the opportunity to learn from one another. For Northville Public Schools, I'm Katie Rork, the district communications specialist.

Academic NPS Fast Facts Why Professional Development? Dedicated time to learn new teaching strategies for our students. Stretches student growth through the delivery of the latest in education research. Models lifelong learning to our students.