Professional Development

 Dear Readers,

I am still working on this blogging idea.  For some reason I struggle with getting my ideas down on a blog.  I feel like some of the students when trying to figure out what to say.  A topic I am comfortable writing about would be data teams.

Black Hawk has had data teams for professional development for almost a year.  The staff has been tremendous at adapting to the idea, and that goes to the former principal Shawn.  He had been working with teachers and data for awhile, so the transition to data teams went fairly smooth.  I did a flipped faculty meeting by creating a power point of the data team process.  The staff went through the slides the day before and when we met as a group we could focus clearly on questions.  I worked with the building data team and we continued to tinker with how notes would be conveyed.  Daniel from the AEA helped us create a google spread sheet to collect data, which acts as a data wall.   The process itself has helped us in creating an environment solely focused on helping students achieve.  We are still beginners with growing pains and I don't always have an answer to all questions.  The power of twitter has helped with answering some questions, a simple google search with other questions, and reading books with other questions. 

I am writing the blog to say thank you to the School Board and District Administration for allowing us to follow this path.  The majority of the staff continues to say "thank you" for allowing the time to collaborate with colleagues and try to do what is best for students.  I hope to be able to continue using professional development to support the initiative and give staff the ability to almost individualize instruction for our students.