NCTE Members Stretch Their Professional Development Budgets with Topical Resource Kits (The Council Chronicle, Sept. 05)

Materials Provide a Guided Learning Experience

Since the November 2004 launch of Professional Communities at Work, NCTE’s topical resource kits, members across the country have been using them to facilitate conversations and inform practices within their professional learning communities.

For example, Judy Wallis, language arts director for Spring Branch School District in Houston, Texas, uses the kits and other professional development material as models for coaches who must gather study material and set up teacher professional development sessions.

Wallis, who has supervised and coached literacy coaches for 17 years in two Houston school districts, says the key is to keep from overwhelming coaches with resources. Instead, she focuses on building a stock of available resources to meet “on-demand” needs. Monthly meetings with coaches provide time to preview materials, allowing coaches to know of their availability.

Mary Napoli, assistant professor in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education at Penn State–Harrisburg in Middletown, Pennsylvania, is using the Writing Workshop Kit with her undergraduate students enrolled in a language arts course. In addition, she’s shared some articles from the “Writing Workshop” issue of Language Arts with colleagues who delivered after-school seminars for the Harrisburg City School District. She also shared the kit with the Capital Area Writing Project director in hopes that the kit would inform practicing educators who want to improve classroom instruction. 

“Personally, I have found that the writing kit provides the most up-to-date information that challenges preservice educators to reflect upon their individual writing experiences, to acquire new knowledge about writing as a recursive process, and to implement writing workshop with their own students,” Napoli says. “The information provides sound theory-to-practice connections about the writing process, the workshop model, and using literature as a springboard for writing.”

The kits are being used in a variety of other ways, including methods teachers using them as a “course pack” in their undergraduate classes; educators integrating them into work with the National Writing Project; and teachers using them to fulfill their inservice training. 

Organized around “Framing Questions” that ask educators to critically think about specific topics in literacy instruction, each kit provides a guided learning experience for teams of teachers who want to tackle tough issues in education. The questions provide the framework for professional learning, supplemented by professional readings and “Activities for Investigation and Reflection,” which ask educators to apply the concepts they’ve learned to their teaching practice.

The resource kits are an ideal professional development alternative to traditional consultant-led inservices because they allow teachers to tackle one question—or one key issue—at a time and allow teachers to work through the issues that matter most to them.  Unlike prescriptive professional development programs, Professional Communities at Work provide a flexible framework for working through the issues that can fit any school’s professional development calendar. 

NCTE is continuously developing kits to meet the needs of the educational community. We currently offer kits on: Writing Workshop, Grammar, Poetry, Adolescent Literacy, Bridging Literature and Mathematics, Supporting Secondary Writers, and Engaging Media-Savvy Students. 

For more information on the kits, please visit http://www.ncte.org/store/kits or call NCTE’s Professional Development staff at 800-369-6283 to discuss how the kits can be used in your school.