Teacher Inservices Focus on Improvement
Teachers district-wide spent Thursday, Aug. 16 working with Karma DeForest from Smoky Hill Education Service Center on how to select the most important academic vocabulary words and how to teach those words to ensure that students can call them their own. DeForest used many cooperative learning techniques to engage teachers and to make the learning active. At the end of the day, teachers had time to collaborate in order to determine the vocabulary that students have to know to be academically successful from one grade level to the next and into the next phases of their education or life.
On Monday, Aug. 20, Kellie Gillespie from the Southwest Plains Regional Service Center worked with USD 224 teachers on how to team/collaborate effectively and on what Robert Marzano's research has show about the most effective teaching strategies to use in class. Teachers were again introduced to various games and activities to help students learn, whether that be visually, orally, or kinestetically.
On Sept. 10, USD 224 will have a two hour late start so that teachers can continue collaborating on academic vocabulary lists and other Marzano best practices.