PDC Meeting–October 14, 2010

Willard District PDC Meeting:  Thursday, October 14, 2010

In Attendance: Collins, Galloway, Ipock, Kramer, McKan, Nelson, Newman, Nixon, Peterson, Puckett, Robinson, Sevon, Simmons, Smith

Welcome: Welcome to committee was offered by Nixon

Minutes: Minutes are approved as read per committee vote

New Business:

2^nd Annual Tiger TECH Conference:  Group discussion includes suggestions and comments about the recent district-wide training sessions.  Discussion includes the following points:

• Staggered times accommodated both elementary and secondary schedules
• Some feelings of “teacher overload,” with no time to process & apply new information after sessions.
• New teachers seemed particularly overwhelmed with the new information, in relationship to all of the other deadlines in close proximity.
• Needed process time afterwards to apply.  Suggestion includes ½ day training, followed by a ½ process/application time for implementation and application for specific content & grade levels taught.
• Possibly too much variety in offerings of workshops (too many)
• Some offerings (Twitter) are blocked by our server which makes student access unattainable.
• Guest speaker made assumptions that audience was following along on her level, but not all in attendance had prior knowledge to such information.
• Rosebrough notes that the timing of the Tech conference was partly to introduce new information early on, allowing the half-day tech sessions throughout the year as resources to help teachers apply the desired skills and tools as needed.  The half-day sessions to come will be building-specific to direct help according to teacher needs and wants.

PDL Update:  Observations are due by the end of the semester, either completed in full or half-day sessions.  Observation forms are also due at that time. The next PDL meetings will be held in November.

Teacher Workday (9/24) Review:

• Willard North & Willard Central:  Joined Willard Central for Brain Gym Trainings (with speaker, full-day)
• High School:  Met in departments, dealing with content-specific needs
• Middle School:  Departmental meetings in the a.m. with curriculum-specific focus, p.m. technology training and staff-building activities
• East:  Online grade card, faculty meeting,  writing collaboration for district comps
• WOHE:  writing collaboration for district comps, faculty meeting, assessment walls
• Intermediate:  a.m. book study about grades, Smart-board training, co-teaching meeting

Beginning Teacher Assistance Program (10/6) Review: Guests from other districts came to observe and participate in this model program.  Sessions throughout the day provided district-required reinforcement and information as well as need-based help.

Miscellaneous Business:

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities

• Vocabulary Strategies:  Wednesday, October 20, 4-5 p.m. @WMS
• Delicious:  Wednesday, November 3,  4-5 p.m. @ WOHE
• Formative Assessment Techniques:  Wednesday, November 17, 4-5 p.m. @WMS

(MARC ALLIE WILL  SEND E-MAIL ATTACHMENT TO PDC REPS REGARDING UPCOMING DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES)

Adjournment by committee consensus

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