In the hot month of July when students are still enjoying their last weeks of summer vacation, ACA teachers are already in full school mode. All new ACA teachers receive 2 full weeks of specialized professional development and all returning teachers, regardless of how long they have been teaching still receive a full week of customized professional development before the first day of school.
We Are Morning People!
And it doesn't end there, every Monday morning is a late start day for our students. This is not so our staff can catch up on sleep, no! Our teachers are here at 7:15 every Monday morning meeting with their Professional Learning Communities, grade level leads, or their teaching coach. These Mondays are invaluable times for our teachers to dive deep into their lesson planning and best practices with each other.
The Power of Cohorts
Our Professional Development is broken up into cohorts where teachers work with others that are focused on enhancing and building similar parts of their teaching practices. These collaborative groups lead to rich discussion and more opportunities to learn from each other which ultimately leads to improved student outcomes across grade levels and content areas.
Some of the cohorts we have are:
New Teachers
Diving Deep
Good to Great
Engaging Academics
"Not Another PowerPoint!"
In addition to attending the sessions with their cohort, the value of each of the individual sessions is immense! The teachers aren't simply sitting and watching an hour long PowerPoint. No, they are watching videos, interacting in small groups and doing actual role playing of the current topic so teachers can give each other immediate feedback and brainstorm best practices.
Here are just a few of the Professional Development sessions our teachers experience:
Joy Factor
Nonverbal Signals
Precise Direction
Positive Framing
Do It Again
Planning for Error
Private Individual Correction
Art of the Sentence
Format Matters
