Working on the Work Days

WOW Day

Working On the Work Days

A Chets Creek Professional Development Dream…

Every Wednesday, an entire grade level of colleagues at “The Creek” gather together to spend an entire day developing professionally. They begin by observing a demonstration lesson and debriefing the lesson, then spend the rest of the day dedicated to content knowledge learning lead by a content area coach.

Sometimes the demonstration lesson is taught by a colleague and sometimes modeled and delivered by the coach. Regardless of who implements the lesson, this tradition opens the door for collegial dialogue in an overwhelmingly closed door profession. Bringing a wealth of ideas and best practices to the forefront of our dialogue allows for the development of a collegial community built on Relationships, Risks, and Results.

After the lesson and debrief, the day is spent with the professional learning group discussing reading strategies, delving into math problems, analyzing data, spilling over student work, building rubrics together, creating units of study, or a plethora of other things. Whatever the task, our “Creek Teachers” are up to the challenge.

“Where are the students?” you ask while their classroom teachers are off learning together. Are they in their classroom with a substitute teacher learning from substitute plans meticulously pecked out on the computer by their classroom teacher? Nope! Are they at home playing their day away? Nope! Are they on a field study? Nope! Then, where are they?

With great pleasure and much anticipation, students are happily rotating on a full-day schedule to all their resources in the Magic Kingdom (Art, Music, PE, Media, Technology, Science). The learning opportunity for students is tremendous as the Talented Resource Team embraces their unique role in professional development at "The Creek" and has diligently planned a day of instruction for an entire grade level of students.

At “The Creek” WOW Day occurs every Wednesday and cycles through each grade level: 5,4,3,2,1, and Kindergarten. The Resource Team then has a Wednesday Planning Day and the cycle begins again.

The students are moved from one resource to another by volunteers that willingly and lovingly give of their time to create this special day for teachers and students. WOW Days at "The Creek" are beneficial to all.