My task for this aspect of my internship was to observe and interact with program directors or other administrators in the program. The administrative structure for the AGBMS School consists of an Executive Director of the School, Director of Education and three Associate Directors, which includes a Director of Deaf Services and an Admissions Director and Early Childhood Director.
The Early Childhood Director, Jessie Maag has spoken at length with me about her efforts to revamp the literacy program, and create a project approach to language and literacy for all the early childhood classrooms. This would be a coordinated effort that could require teachers to collaboratively work together e.g., in a lesson-study group format to discuss and integrate ideas that could support all teachers. This concept supports the professional development of teachers, as it helps teachers work together to form best practices in a particular area of focus. This supports the aspect of my research, that asks the question, "how can professional development of teachers build effectiveness and quality in the field. It is supported by the premise that when teachers are versed in early childhood educational practices in both theory and application in the classroom through observations and quality interactions with the children, they are able to engage in more meaningful learning that helps support early literacy.
The Director said that the idea is to construct a year-long theme which would be integrated school-wide. For example if the theme is "Seasons" -- each early childhood classroom, would initiate books of the month into the classroom that would be read 2 -3 times minimally a week, and would include realouds during circle time venues. Each classroom would implement their own developmentally appropriate ideas for other language activities. These activities would encompass areas such as sensory, phonemic awareness, music and songs. It was discussed that children that are exposed to words at least 5 different times are more likely increase vocabulary and literacy results.
The Director, as well as the Exective Director's focus is to attempt to build a community of parents, teachers,& administration that can work seamlessly together to enhance the literacy levels of all children within the school.
I like that this director is looking at professional development of the staff because I think sometimes when we look at child outcomes, we think about what we need to do in regards to the children. Profesional development is great. A resource for you that I attended a few years back that is still going strong is the Children's Literacy Initiative. You can Google it to get some moe information that may help you write the paper.
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ReplyDeleteIt is great to see that this school is taking an active role in trying to get the literacy program on the right track. Like the Director that you spoke with, I feel that it is important in almost every aspect of education to have parents, teachers, administration, as well as the children all work together to accomplish tasks and issues at hand. Without the help of one of these team members, it could be detrimental to the cause you are fighting for. It sounds like the director has a plan and will seemingly put it in full effect when everyone gets on board. Thanks for sharing your blog!
I agree that teachers should have 'purposeful' professional development activities however when professional development days are filled with busy work and ineffective activities it is so frustrating. Teaching teachers how to collaborate effectively is very important but implementing what has been learned is even more important.
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