TEACHERS HELPING TEACHERS
PHS Teachers travel to Texas to gain new skills to better the high school
Photo Courtesy of Lenita Moore
PHS math and science teachers stop and a historical site during their trip to San Antonio, Texas.
Teachers all around the U.S. participate in a program called professional development. Professional development refers to the continuation of learning and education after entering the workplace. Teachers learn how to further their classrooms in terms of success and growth.
Solution Tree is a common resource for books and lessons on professional development and hosts Professional Learning Community (PLC) events. Nov.7-9 staff and administrators from PHS traveled to San Antonio, Texas for a PLC conference.
“[PLC] is a way of doing things where everyone in the school is involved in the student’s education works together,” science teacher Lenita Moore said. “[PLC) is an ongoing process to gather information and take action to create better educational outcomes for all students.”
Around 47 schools across the U.S. and additional staff from different parts of the world came together to participate in sessions and activities to help better the education of America and other countries around the world.
“I was encouraged to see and hear that many of the changes that we have made recently to our schedules and classroom practices are in the best interest of all students,” math teacher Mr. Russ Schwahn said.
It can help them to understand what the PLC system looks like and see how it can help teachers by working together. Administrators can then encourage their teachers to ‘share the load’ of teaching and not feel like they have to do it all by themselves.
— Mr. Russ Schwahn
Different sessions emphasized different ideas of collaboration and challenges in the education career.
“One of the biggest things that I learned was how important the collaboration between teachers was on a regular basis,” special education teacher Stephen Whipple said.
Some sessions focused on skills that could benefit the students in the future to be successful.
“We learned how to assess what students have learned, and then how to create interventions to address those students that are still struggling with concepts,” Mrs. Moore said.
PLC has brought the opportunity to help schools across the country that haven’t participated in the conference or are struggling in certain areas.
As this conference keeps progressing, improvements are being made and attendees are welcome to provide feedback.
“I think they could have touched on how to implement the PLC system into smaller high schools (like ours) more effectively,” Mr. Schwahn said.
