A Culture of Teaching and L earning

N o rm ing is th e a c t o f s e tt in g u p a c o n s ta n tly e v o lv in g s e t o f c la s s r o o m g u id e lin e s th a t s tu d e n ts a n d th e te a c h e r c re a te a n d th e n r e e v a lu a te to g e th e r a t k e y p o i n t s in th e year.

A hallmark of the MKA experience is a faculty eager to learn from the extensive professional development opportunities offered each year. Here, Upper School English teacher Cindy Darling shares her experiences o f faculty in-service training at MKA.

This past November, faculty from all three campuses arrived at the Upper School ready to attend two technology training sessions of their choosing. Faculty could pick according to level and topic. I attended the workshop on Weebly and then the workshop on Norming in the Classroom. Weebly offers teachers the opportunity to create websites in simple, user-friendly formats. I was excited to create a site to use in my upper level English electives. Brookside Head Ginger Kriegel and Science Teacher Sue Tumarello guided us through a spirited tutorial of the basics of Weebly. Then, true to their student-centered approach, they broke us up into groups according to our subjects and grade levels. This allowed teachers to not only leam the new interface from each other but also to collaborate on how to integrate it into the curriculum in their particular area. The morning produced a room full of vibrant, enthusiastic teachers who all became students for the day.

The Norming session I attended, led by Upper School teachers Kerry Verrone and Ben Goodrich, followed up on the norming work that I had begun at this past June’s Ethics Institute. Norming is the act of setting up a constantly evolving set of classroom guidelines that students and the teacher create and then reevaluate together at key points in the year. The shared power this forms as well as the meta-cognitive awareness it encourages is truly effective. The teachers at this session were a mix of those who had already started norming in the classroom and those who were just beginning. After attending this in-service training, a few key moments stood out in my mind. I realized that the benefit of these days goes beyond the simple skills imparted. These well-thought-out sessions encourage teachers across campuses to build a common vocabulary both of technology and of pedagogy. It was exciting to hear how Laura Demaria is using norming in her Middle School classroom. Christian Ely’s thoughts on how norming can be used in working with theater students showed me that we can facilitate community building both in the traditional classroom and in other settings. Those of us who attended this session now have a common reference point and a set o f colleagues from all three campuses whom we may call upon for advice, reflection and further ideas.

Seeing this professional development run in such an extensive and effective way allows one to understand that the 1:1 Learning Initiative, starting in September, is a natural and exciting outgrowth of this longstanding institution of professional development at MKA.

MKA is so much more than simply a school at which I teach. Anything organized to the degree of magnitude that the in-service training and professional development offerings are, shows a school’s commitment to the art of teaching. Here, teachers and administrators are constantly modeling, critiquing and finally forming good teaching practices. And because of this, the students benefit.

review spring 2010