I've given 2 professional developments in my school over the past few years and I am very proud of both of them! A few years back my principal decided we should be giving every single student in the school individual reading and writing goals. The students were expected to be accountable for these goals, they needed to be able to tell anyone who asked what goal they were working on and there had to be documentation of what goals they had already accomplished. This was a HUGE undertaking! Many teachers I knew were using post-it notes or index cards attaching them to the students reading bags and writing folders. I hate spending time writing the same thing over and over again so I hit the computer. Using the state standards as a guide and a packet of information from T.C. I created goal sheets. I created a version for the students to keep in a goal folder and then another version that was sent home with the students weekly so the parents could see what goals we were working on, what goals their child mastered and what goals they would eventually be working on. Over the last few years we moved away from the individual goals, however my goal sheets have been sought after by most of the staff in my school (and some of my friends who will be moving on to new schools have already requested my sheets for their new grades!) Over the years I have worked on modifying these goal sheets to match the new Common Core Standards. I have also modified these sheets so teachers can use them to write their conference notes on them. I am so proud of these sheets and have found them so useful over the last few years. I enjoyed doing the PD on these sheets!
My second PD that I did was on writing good test questions. It's a funny story how a Kindergarten teacher came to do a PD on writing good test questions. A few years ago I took a college class about assessments in special education. I was expecting the class to focus on how a teacher would modify or give assessments to students with special needs - instead the teacher focused on what is a good test and who do you write good test questions. This was such an eye opening experience! I learned so much from this class that I immediately presented my knew knowledge to my principal and he asked me to do a PD. Over the last few years I have worked closely with our Social Studies consultant and helped him with writing good test questions. Secretly I always wished he would ask me to give a presentation to some of the other schools he does consulting with... but I guess I should have flat out asked him! Oh well!
I really love when my colleagues ask for my help - from help with technology, or creating documents on the computer to sharing my two presentations with them it gives me a thrill to be able to share my knowledge and talents! I hope one day I can share all of this with more people!
