Professional Development / Spotlight on South Plainfield

Spotlight on South Plainfield

Professional Learning Day - June 5, 2012

On Tuesday, June 5, the professional day activities will begin at 8:30 in the high school auditorium with all staff attending a brief presentation from the central office administration (Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent). This will include an update of the pending NJ reform initiatives PARCC and EE4NJ by Dr. Cocchiola, and Dr. Genco’s perspective on plans for program/staff expansion for 2012-13, curriculum mapping, and PLCs.

Following this explanation all staff will report to their assigned areas. A schedule with the assigned areas will be emailed shortly. In most sessions there will be four 30-minute “Share & Show” segments from 9:30 – 11:30, and four from 12:30 – 2:30. Ideas and strategies will be shared by teachers in their areas of expertise or interest to generate discussion on “what works” in the classroom.

We are sure you will enjoy this innovative approach to professional development.

Dr. Cocchiola, Assistant Superintendent

Purpose of the Day: To share ideas and/or successful classroom activities used this school year.

Goal: All staff will have the opportunity to participate in an "unconference" professional learning experience. By the end of the day they will have participated in rich discussions on a variety of educational topics which will serve as a springboard to future classroom implementation and PLC discussion.

What is an Unconference? An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. There are two unconference models in education: "TeachMeet," originally conceived in Scotland in 2005, and "Edcamp," originally conceived in Philadelphia, PA, in 2010.

What is an Edcamp?

Edcamp is an "unconference" model for professional development used by teachers across the United States and now the world. It is an organic, democratic, participant-driven professional development model for people interested in education. There are no keynote presentations and participants set the course of the day. Sessions are interactive, conversation-driven and not typical lecture style presentations.

The first video explains it best:

This next video explains how an edcamp works:

How to Sign up to Share with your Colleagues:

The South Plainfield Local Professional Development Committee has designed a modified edcamp experience for the professional development day. If you are interested in sharing your ideas with your fellow colleagues (you do not have to be an "expert" on the topic-just have an interest), please use the link to the Google Doc Session Schedule below. To sign up for a 30-minute session, fill in the topic of your choice and your name (or names if you'd like to work with a colleague) in the box under your school and/or content area for the time of your choosing. If you think you need more than 30 minutes for your session, you may complete more than one box.

The morning will focus on curriculum-based topics. The afternoon will focus on technology.

Google Doc Session Schedule

The following is a suggested list of ideas that you may want to consider. Feel free to come up with your own:

Curriculum-based:

Classroom strategies in your content area

Strategies involving differentiation

Managing centers to differentiate learning

Writing strategies in your content area

Flipped classroom

Standards based grading

Multisensory techniques

Defining best practices

Student motivation

Formative assessment

Effective use of portfolios (in any content area)

Word Study

Rubrics

Daily Exercise (Do Now)

Technology-based:

Google docs

Drop box

Skype

Document cameras

iPads/iPods in the classroom

Web 2.0 sites

Smartboards

Edmodo/Schoology

Social media in the classroom

Using cell phones for instruction

Global projects

Social bookmarking

Digital storytelling

Common core and technology

Podcasts

QR codes

Schoolwires (school website)

Brain Pop

Study Island

Alternatives to Powerpoint (ie. Prezi)

Vokis, Blabberize, Glogster, Voicethread (and other creation tools)