Our commitment to Academic Professional Development
At the Kindle Farm School, professional development is essential to our mission. Education is an ever-evolving field requiring a commitment to lifelong learning. Professional development provides opportunities to stay current on best practices and stay relevant to the changing educational landscape. While professional development doesn't always have to be purely education-based, this year's efforts have been focused on math, literacy, and universal design practices.
Earlier this year, Kindle Farm began an excellent relationship with the All Learners Network (ALN), a community of educators committed to improving math instruction for all students. We have been fortunate to have a representative from ALN come to Kindle Farm and provide in-person professional development and monthly online coaching sessions for all staff members. Within these sessions, staff are learning how better to meet the needs of our diverse population of learners. Our ALN representative has been working hard to provide staff with the best instructional practices and improve math content knowledge. Through this partnership, we have also gained access to the All Learners Online platform, which provides educators with endless resources, activities, lessons, and even asynchronous courses to help empower our students, meet them where they are, and give equitable access to math in and out of the classroom.
Another area of professional development that Kindle Farm has been focusing on this year is literacy. Our literacy content teachers have been engaged in a year-long comprehensive reading instruction course through the Stern Center called "Mindplay." The two central goals of the course are to increase teacher knowledge and improve student reading and spelling. These teachers are learning why and how students struggle with reading from professionals in the field. With nine separate modules diving into subcategories like phonology, fluency, and reading comprehension, teachers are learning research-backed methods and strategies for better literacy instruction within the classroom. This course has provided our teachers with the knowledge they need to teach reading to all students, particularly those struggling. This course is set to finish at the end of the month.
To continue with the theme of inclusive learning, some staff at Kindle Farm have participated in a handful of professional development sessions involving Universal Design for Learning or UDL. Within these training sessions, teachers have learned about barriers that get in the way of student learning. Upon learning about those barriers, we can connect them with our students and think critically about ways in which they can remove them within the classroom while promoting and empowering student learning. Staff have learned how to design lesson plans that highly reflect UDL practices and implement them in their classrooms. By embracing UDL principles, we can recognize and honor our students' diverse learning needs, strengths, and preferences.
The impact of effective teaching extends far beyond the walls of the classroom. By investing in professional development, we can directly improve student outcomes. Through these educational experiences, we gain new insights into best practices, student engagement strategies, and inclusive learning for all students, ultimately helping us create more enriching and impactful learning experiences.