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Professional Development Transcript

As a teacher, I believe that it is incredibly important to make advance our craft and learn new things. To me, professional development is a great way to achieve this. Throughout my time as an educator I have attended multiple PD's that have truly been beneficial. I am always seeking out new seminars to attend that apply to my classroom in order to not only better myself, but my students experience too. Below you will read about the professional developments that I have attended and how they applied to my work. If you have any questions about my experiences and would like to learn more please feel free to contact me!

Pilot Light

There were two components with the Pilot Light program that I participated in. The first was a quarterly in person professional development session with all of the teachers in the Chicago area that were a part of Pilot Light. In these sessions we came together to talk about how we were incorporating the food standards within our classrooms. The great thing about these in person meetings was that it was attended by teachers from all content areas and grade levels. While we did take the time to talk with teachers in our content areas, it was also great to see how a junior high math class incorporated food standards into their classroom. The second component of this professional development program was that 6 days throughout the year we had chefs from the Pilot Light team come in and cook meals for our students. These meals would always line up with what we were teaching for that day. For example, when talking about Africa we used it as an opportunity to have the chefs make us Doro Wat and Injera. It was a wonderful opportunity to have students not only try new foods from different regions of the world, but also have that food connect back to what we were talking about. 

The Newberry Library: Scramble for Africa

Despite being a one day professional development session, I thought that it was incredibly relevant for my class. Taking place in the Newberry Library of Chicago, myself and eight other teachers gathered together to talk about the colonization period of Africa, better known as the “Scramble for Africa”. In this session we looked at different documents related to the time period and discussed how Africa was affected because of it. The best part about this professional development was at the end, we were allowed to look at roughly ten different artifacts from their special collections unit pertaining to this time period. As a history fanatic this was something that I greatly enjoyed.

Chicago, Illinois 

October 2018-June 2019

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Chicago, Illinois 

November 4, 2017

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KIPP: AP World History Conference

While the first AP World History professional development that I went to was a great way to introduce myself to the course, this professional development put on by the KIPP schools was an in-depth breakdown of what to expect when the school year started. The most beneficial takeaway that I got from attending this conference was how to effective grade AP papers the proper way according to the College Board rubric. Before taking over the class, I had never assigned my students an essay. However our instructor provided numerous examples of what would exactly get the point and what would not and it was a tremendous help. Another incredibly beneficial part of this conference was that we ran simulations that could be done in our classrooms as a means of helping our students understand the material on a deeper level.

Chicago, Illinois 

June 27-30, 2017

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College Board: AP World History Conference

Much like the KIPP conference that I attended, this one day seminar was a way to not only help teachers who were new to AP World History but also provide a refresher for those who have taught the course. Some items that were addressed within this PD were acronyms like SOAPStone (speak, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone), as well as a general overview of what the course looks like. Overall, I felt like it was a beneficial program to have taken part in because it allowed for me to get an understanding of what I was going to be teaching the following year as well as be able to connect with teachers.

Chicago, Illinois 

March 17, 2017

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DePaul University: Decision 2016- Bringing Elections, Past and Present, Into your Classroom

Chicago, Illinois 

October 22, 2017

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Almost one year after the 2016 presidential election I attended DePaul University's professional development on how to not only incorporate the most recent election, but also previous elections, into your classroom. In this professional development myself and roughly twelve other teachers had the opportunity to analyze political cartoons, look at researching techniques through the Library of Congress, as well as other resources that could be used to address past and future elections within the United States. Despite teaching world history, I felt that going to this professional development was still very beneficial because these elections do affect not just what is happening in the United States but the world and to be able to speak on what is happening is important. I also think that as a history teacher, it is important that I continue to learn about other disciplines within the social studies framework rather than simply focusing on just world history.

Teach Plus: Standards Based Grading

Chicago, Illinois 

February 17- March 23, 2016

The purpose of this professional development was to understand what standards based grading was and was not, and how we could potentially modify assignments, or lessons, that would follow the standards based grading model. I ultimately attended this professional development because I knew nothing of what standards based grading was and I wanted to get to know more about what exactly it was. After completing the program, I will say that the true standards based grading structure that was addressed has not found its way into my classroom. I have incorporated some elements from this professional development into my teaching however the model my school operates on does not reflect the all out standards based grading method that was talked about during this PD. Please click on the following link to learn more about Teach Plus

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Image Credits:

  1. Pilot Light image taken from https://pilotlightchefs.org/

  2. Newberry Library image taken from https://www.newberry.org/

  3. KIPP image taken from https://www.kipp.org/

  4. College Board image taken from https://www.collegeboard.org/

  5. DePaul image taken from https://www.depaul.edu/Pages/default.aspx

  6. Teach Plus image taken from https://teachplus.org/

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