Teaching Practice Human Transport Systems: An Electronic Collection of Student Work ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT
Meeta Brown, Assistant Principal, Weare Middle School
Professional development is the cornerstone of an ever evolving and improving organization. Schools and education are all about learning, learning for both students and adults. Teachers are very busy people, multi-tasking all the time. They must be organized managers as well as dedicated learners. It is essential to make professional development opportunities accessible, meaningful and useful as well as mandatory.
Equally essential is the need to have staff. At Weare Middle School we are working to link professional development to the New Hampshire Curriculum Frameworks that a team of teachers has benchmarked for each grade. In the process of linking the benchmarks to what happens in the classroom we are working to help teachers understand and use differentiated instruction as a tool for meeting the needs of all learners. Aligning curriculum, knowing what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, differentiating instruction for all learners, and utilizing varied assessment to guide student learning are key layers of the professional development plan at WMS.
Professional development is more than a workshop, book, or single activity. It requires time to digest information; experiment with the information; process with colleagues what works and doesn’t and why; and, then try again.
Technology integration is a tool for managing student data, supporting individual
students through enrichment and/or remediation/practice, expanding available resources for research and exploration as well as supporting effective writing. Students and staff need to learn how to use the technology tools available to them and when to use them. Then they can use those tools to extend learning.
The SAU #24 – New England College Partnership has served many purposes for the staff and students at Weare Middle School. The partnership offers support, a sounding board, and resources. The partnership has helped to bring the different schools together to action plan around common goals and to share resources to reach those goals. Areas in which the most growth has taken place are understanding and implementation of effective service-learning; coordination of technology hardware, training, and planning; and regular communication among partners. The partnership serves as a coordinating body which has helped in numerous ways to improve the learning that takes place at WMS.
Author:Derek Geddes
and Sara Montalbano School:A Collaborative Project with Weare Middle School and New England College Organization:Weare Middle School and New England College Credits:Debra Nitschke-Shaw, Director of Teacher Education
Emily Perkins, pre-service teacher New England College
