Deepening Practice Teacher-Led Professional Development

This past school year saw the initiation of a new teacher professional development group. Led by Dr. Eric MacDonald, interested teachers met a few times over the course of the year to discuss scholarly research.

Dr. MacDonald shared, “We read and discussed blog posts by noted literacy researcher Timothy Shanahan, the Literacy Research Association’s dyslexia research report, and research articles on executive function skills, and growth mindset, as well as articles that questioned what is commonly believed about learning styles. The discussions focused on how the ideas in the research matched what happens in Benchmark classrooms and/or how we might implement some new ideas. We hope to continue to meet in the future and for other staff to join us.”