TPE 13: Professional Development

In order to improve and refine my craft, I have engaged in various types of professional development. As a life-long learner, I must always challenge myself to find ways to further my thinking around my profession to become a more relfective and effective teacher. I think that it is a practice that only improves with self-reflection and active professional development. Attending professional development sessions also provide teachers the opportunity to connect with others in their profession and subject-area where they can break the isolation that many teachers may feel in the daily routine of work.

This process of development also provide teachers with the necessary feedback that will improve the teaching practice and essentially impact planning, teaching, and employing new strategies to engage the young scholars in new and creative ways. As a new teacher, I feel as though I have improved best as I go through the metacognitive process of relfection and conversation with peers, veterans, adminstrators, and various observors.

On a weekly basis, I attend a in-house professional development, or as we call it at Street Academy, our "Professional Learning Community." We work to have cross-curriculuar goals as well as discuss instructional strategies that identify effective modifications and accomodations for our students with I.E.P.s, as well as good practices for all students. I have also attended the ARE, Association of Raza Educators conference, where I was able to connect with other Latino teachers about our role as stake holders in community schools in addition to instructional ideas. Last year, I had the pleasure of attending the NAME, or National Association of Mutlicultural Education conference, where I was able to learn about how to teach students effefctive academic writing, and the necessity of academic writing in the pursuit of social justice in educational institutions. In addtion to these ongoing conferences and meetings, I have been involved in TEAMS, which is a function of AmeriCorps, which held monthly professional developments that included various well-known key note speakers, such as Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Lisa Delpit, and Patrick Camangian.