Professional Development- CASE and New Teacher Dinner

Both of these came at the perfect time and provided great professional development this semester.  A few weeks ago I chose to make the trek back to State College to participate in the CASE professional development workshop.  This was hosted by Teach Ag! Society and was the perfect time to come up and discover a little more about CASE.  I really like the inquiry that the CASE curriculum focuses on and how every learning objective is linked together.  It was more than learning about curriculum though, it helped me see some things that were happening in my classroom, because I was able to be the student for the day. 

1. I got distracted...which means so do my students.  At one point during the lesson Dr. Foster and the rest of our table got distracted talking about something pretty far off topic, then we quickly realized that we were missing the boat, when the facilitator pulled us back in I realized...wow this is happening with my students. 

2. Questions are so important...I know this but it's easier said than done.  There was a point where I was answering written quesitons and realized I didn't fully explain....turns out my students do this as well...the things we learn one day as a student.

3. Literacy strategies are needed throughout.  CASE has quite a bit of background information reading, creating unique strategies to help students through this is important. 

4. Taking time to have any kind of professional development is essential. 


Additionally I attended the Eastern Region New and Beginning Teachers meeting.  What was funny about this was that most of us were from Lancaster County, so we decided to all hop in the car together to head to Harrisburg.  The meeting was great because we each were able to share a tool or resource or idea that we have used or created, and as a new teacher, these are awesome resources to have.  I also appreciated it because new and mentor teachers alike at the meeting just care about students and about each other and making the profession better- a group of people I want to spend time with.