Effective Professional Development

I am currently in my very first year of teaching, and feel I have grown so much and learned a lot throughout this year. The school in which I work is a fantastic school; we have a great school community, awesome teacher support, lots of parent involvement, and fantastic students. My principal is also wonderful, and has provided me with much support and many resources over the course of the year. I have been very blessed to work in such a great environment for my first year of teaching!

However, even with all of these great things that my school has, one thing we are lacking is technology. I have one computer in my classroom (my school laptop), a projector, and a smartboard. Students really only use computers during their weekly computer class, and we have no iPads or tablets of any kind. We had WiFi installed in our building just last week, which was very exciting! As a result of this lack of technology, I have received very little in the area of professional development (PD) with regard to technology. During my first year of teaching, I think PD is extremely important, so I definitely would have appreciated more.

The importance of PD cannot be overstated for any teacher, regardless of level of experience. When teachers are continually improving themselves by learning new techniques and teaching strategies, they are becoming more effective teachers, which leads to higher achieving students. This constant PD in the area of technology is especially relevant today, with all of the new advances in technology that are constantly happening.

Throughout my first year of teaching, I have received some PD in the area of discipline, but almost none in technology. This makes sense given our current shortage of resources, but our school did just receive a cart of iPads to share among the building. There are 12 classrooms who will be using them next year, but I have high hopes that I will be able to implement them into many parts of my classroom. I also know we are going to have some PD towards the end of the year about effective use of iPads in the elementary classroom, so I am very excited about that. For example, I'm hoping to set up a guided math system next year with math groups, instead of my current whole group instruction system. This will help me differentiate my math lessons, and one of the stations can be fact practice or concept review on the iPads. I am looking forward to this opportunity, and can't wait to take part in the professional development that goes along with it!