Professional Learning
This year, the Professional Learning team expanded their work nationally and refined their process to meet the needs of all of the schools and districts they work with across the nation.
Our spring Thinking Strategies Institute was the most attended PEBC institute ever, bringing educators from across the country to collaborate on new teaching techniques with PEBC trainers and lab hosts. In the fall, we developed Working the Workshop, our first-ever online, self-paced institute that will be launched in early 2020!
Our national reach has enhanced our work and grown our partner network. PEBC has formed new relationships with districts in New York, Idaho, and Texas. This growth is attributed to our focus on what works and our ability to be nimble in thinking about what is best for our students in different environments.
In the new year, Wendy Ward Hoffer will publish her fifth book, Phenomenal Teaching. This book details the PEBC Teaching Framework, providing a wide range of examples and ideas to foster phenomenal thinking and learning in classrooms at all levels.
Teacher Preparation
This year, we continued our focus on providing a high quality and relevant preparation experience. Our Residents engaged in learning opportunities in their placement classrooms, in lab classrooms, and at experiential sites.
Through the implementation of Edthena, a video coaching platform, we continued to provide a high level of support to our resident teachers. Alongside in-person coaching, Residents are receiving targeted feedback on their practice and the residency team is able to gauge the effectiveness of theory to practice.
We also expanded our instructional model and moved toward blended learning by offering online modules through Canvas in conjunction with in-person seminar. This has allowed residents to dive deeper into the content while also providing opportunities to rehearse and apply learning.
An area of particular focus for the residency team this year is culturally responsive teaching. Our foundational text for this work is Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond. Residents are fully embracing the culturally responsive model as they engage in classroom practices.
