As I get ready to head down south to Orlando, Florida to the FLAEYC Conference, I want to share some thoughts about professional development.
This is a very important aspect to the job at hand and to the future that we are helping to create and form. I stress to you that you can only grow, nurture, and inspire if you grow, nurture, and inspire yourself. It is hard sometimes to get to the workshops held at your local coalition or other early childhood central agencies. It is expensive to attend state or national conferences. Seek external help from your local central agency, look for sponsorships that may be associated with the conference, and bunk up! These conferences are worth your time, so get some gals together and share a room.
Even though there are more convenient ways of earning your in-service hours or CEUs, like the Internet, please be aware that they may not always deliver the valuable hands-on experiences that you seek. Just as our kids learn through sensory, so do we. Try doing half and half and see if that works for you and meets your needs.
Stay inspired out there and until next time...go teach the children!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Below are some of the pictures from a training that I facilitated titled, "From Blah and Boring to Learning and Soaring", how to set you classroom at a higher standard of learning. I enjoyed the training so much that I shared it at One Goal Summer Conference in Tampa, Florida this past summer.
As we look at lesson planning, we can't help but to also look at how our program is implementing these plans. How are we setting the stage for learning? Where are we getting our information from that causes us to write those words in those squares?
The trigger to all lesson planning should come from observations, assessments, curriculum needs, adaptations, program evaluations and much more that reaches far beyond the paper that we print on. This is a term that continues to rapidly become a part of early childhood vocabulary, intentional teaching.
I have been saying it for some time now; you should always have a purpose in everything that you do in your classroom as a teacher and through your program as a director. Why are you planning? How can you make adaptations and meet the needs of the children if you haven't did any observations? And, more so, how are you planning anything without making those observations?
To truly complete a lesson plan, you should first consider your children, where they are at the time you are planning, make decisions based upon observations and assessments that have been done recently, and have a reason for putting your pen to the paper.
I will soon be training a workshop titled "Finding the Intentional Teacher In You". I will be excited to share some of that information with you.
Look forward to spending more time with you all on my blog. If you have preschool friends, please invite them and post comments. I am always happy to answer questions.
As we look at lesson planning, we can't help but to also look at how our program is implementing these plans. How are we setting the stage for learning? Where are we getting our information from that causes us to write those words in those squares?
The trigger to all lesson planning should come from observations, assessments, curriculum needs, adaptations, program evaluations and much more that reaches far beyond the paper that we print on. This is a term that continues to rapidly become a part of early childhood vocabulary, intentional teaching.
I have been saying it for some time now; you should always have a purpose in everything that you do in your classroom as a teacher and through your program as a director. Why are you planning? How can you make adaptations and meet the needs of the children if you haven't did any observations? And, more so, how are you planning anything without making those observations?
To truly complete a lesson plan, you should first consider your children, where they are at the time you are planning, make decisions based upon observations and assessments that have been done recently, and have a reason for putting your pen to the paper.
I will soon be training a workshop titled "Finding the Intentional Teacher In You". I will be excited to share some of that information with you.
Look forward to spending more time with you all on my blog. If you have preschool friends, please invite them and post comments. I am always happy to answer questions.
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