Professional Development

My career has officially begun! This past week I participated in two district-wide professional developments. I know this is just the excitement and the newness of it all, but I throughly enjoyed both PDs (nerdy of me, I know).

On Wednesday, our district had a PD on DRA (Direct Reading Assessment). We were trained on how to properly assess our students reading levels. As a reading teacher I was absolutely thrilled to receive this training.

This program that we will be using, DRA2, not only helps determine what grade level the student is reading at but it also helps to narrow down which component of literacy the student is struggling with most. This really helps with planning instruction and making lessons more individualized. This will be great for me and helping with the implementation of CAFE which you can read more about here.

Thursday's PD was held at out district's high school. Other area districts were also invited to attend. 900 teachers, K-12 were in attendance! We were able to choose 4 sessions, put on by various educators in the area. I chose a session on Marie Carbo, one titled "My student has the ability but not the desire. Why?", and two on RTI.

They all were excellent and I am thrilled to be a part of such a growing school district. In other exciting news this week, I got my school keys! The teacher whose room I will be taking over, said she should be moved out soon and that I can go ahead and start putting things in the room! :) I can't wait to get in there!

I also started selling some of the things I have created for my room on Teachers Pay Teachers. A link to my store is on the left hand side of this page. Please check it out and leave feedback! There will be more to come :)