PD means seeing friends, learning and having fun

I was so fortunate to attend a professional development yesterday. For the last five years, our state's special population's office has supported a Train the Trainers cohorts. We started with SIOP (-Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol), worked on writing, and now, we are looking at WIDA and how we can integrate common core standards with the WIDA standards.

Today we had three wonderful presenters: Kelli, Maura and Nadra. Their goal was to instruct us in close reading, WIDA standards and, of course, common core. These three ladies are amazing! They are full of knowledge on how to best instruct English Language Learners in content area classroom while still supporting their English language development.

My day yesterday was NOT:

• boring
• dragging
• same old, same old
• full of wasted information

But my day yesterday WAS:

• fun
• entertaining
• educational
• fun
• learning experience
• did I say fun already
• energizing

I came home with so many ideas on what I can do to teach my students better, prepare lessons that are aligned both with common core and WIDA standards, and how to share these ideas with classroom teachers in order for our students to learn as much as possible. I think I am now ready to start planning for the two PDs that I am responsible during the first week in January. I needed this spark to start my creative process. I needed the encouragement of fellow ELL professionals. I needed someone to validate my work.