Professional Development (part 2)

If you read my first post or my profile you will know that I am a part-time SERT.  I job-share with another woman and in addition to the two of us, we have four Educational Assistants (EAs) at our school.  We have students who are withdrawn from the regular class to work on a modified or alternate program and we go into classes to offer support within the classroom environment.  I love my job for many reasons but I particularly like working with a team of people. 

When I first started teaching I had my "own" classroom and while I enjoyed it, I sometimes felt isolated.  I would have loved to have a mentor or even another teacher who taught at the same level as me to bounce ideas off of (I started in a very small school with split grades).  When I started in the Resource Room I felt as if I was a first-year teacher all over again.  The learning curve was huge.  The difference this time was that I had another SERT to mentor me and a group of EAs to share ideas, difficulties and successes with. 

This year I am leading our own TRDP sessions for the Resource Room staff.  (Previously we had joined the rest of the staff.  I am leading them because my co-SERT has one of her days off on TRDP days.)  The primary reason that we are doing our own topic is that the classroom teachers are working on curriculum mapping and we in the RR don't have the same set-up.  Most of "our students" have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) for a modified program and the IEP  is our curriculum map. The IEPs are the responsibility of the SERT but since the EAs have daily contact with their students they have valuable insight and have been a great help in developing the IEPs for the students that they work with.  Our TRDP sessions have generally consisted of three parts: 1. instruction on how to write a component of the IEP (done by a SERT)   2. opportunity to write goals/accommodations/etc. in consultation with me 3. discussion about reading strategies from this book.

This is the first year that we have had such direct input from the EAs on IEPs.  I think it has been a great success.  I am not sure if it would have been possible if we had not had the time to collaborate together at school on such a regular basis.  Our discussion on the reading strategies and our opportunity to share our experiences really helped us in our teaching but also had a team-building effect.  Our EAs have repeatedly expressed how much they have enjoyed the sessions this year.  Last year they did not feel that all of the topics were relevant to them but this year is quite the opposite.

Now I am planning for the next term--TRDP will start again in March.  I had originally planned to continue working with IEPs and the monthly plans that correlate with them and was also planning to do some sessions on mathematics instruction.  However, since starting this course, I am thinking more and more about the possibility of incorporating more technology into our instruction.  I am thinking of sharing the resources that I have learned about and using our time to try out some different digital lesson ideas.  I am even thinking about how to better lead these TRDP sessions--perhaps by using this blog or perhaps a webpage (which I don't yet know how to do).  Definitely lots to think about.  Any suggestions?