Excellence in Teaching
At CDS your child is known and nurtured by an engaged group of teachers. Our goal is to provide an exceptional learning environment supported by teachers who use innovative professional practices and work together across grade levels to create a seamless learning experience for students from preschool through eighth grade. To accomplish this, we’ve made a significant commitment to professional development for faculty. This summer our teachers will engage with fellow teachers all around the country to discuss how children learn and best practices in teaching.
Reading Institute
The school is supporting collaborative work across grade levels in literacy and math instruction. In addition to a yearlong partnership with literacy consultant Diann Osterlund, CDS teachers attend the weeklong summer Reading Institute at Columbia Teachers College. To date, we’ve sent five of our teachers to received this training and this summer three more of our teachers will participate: Moriah Grey, Paul Richardson and Melanie Liu. Further, two of our teachers received this training while working at prior schools. Building this competency on the staff at CDS is one of our key goals.
At the Reading Institute, teachers tackle “the central role of curriculum development and planning in the teaching of reading, units of study in reading workshop, comprehension strategy instruction, the importance of assessment-based instruction, the role of the read-aloud book, methods of holding our students accountable for doing their best work, helping students grow ideas about literature, and classroom structures that support inquiry and collaboration.”
Literature can do things for readers that other types of texts cannot. It can provide readers with new ways of thinking about their world and themselves. It can help revise their versions of reality. Textbooks give children dates, facts and names of important people, while literature provides information that touches the heart and involves the emotional aspects of learning, especially historical fiction. Books that connect to our students - to their experiences, backgrounds, race, ethnicity, gender and social class -provide the conversations about literature that expand a student’s understanding of the text, his or her place in society and what it means to be a human being. Literature illuminates the life we lead and the people we are in the process of becoming.
Bridges Math
Another key goal is training a cohort of teachers in using the Bridges Math Program. Developed with support from the National Science Foundation, Bridges “offers a unique blend of problem-solving and skill building in a clearly articulated program that moves through each grade level with common models, teaching strategies and objectives. A Bridges classroom features a combination of whole-group, small-group, and independent activities. Lessons incorporate increasingly complex visual models - seeing, touching, working with manipulatives and sketching ideas - to create pictures in the mind's eye that help learners invent, understand and remember mathematical ideas. By encouraging students to explore, test and justify their reasoning, the curriculum facilitates the development of mathematical thinking for students of all learning styles.”
Bridges helps students construct mathematical knowledge using a hands-on approach. Last year all of our K, first and second grade teachers participated in Bridges training, and this summer our dynamic second grade duo Colette Zee and Amy Copland will participate in an additional three-day Bridges training at St. Paul’s School in Oakland.
Responsive Classroom
A Responsive Classroom approach is based on the premise that children learn best when they have both academic and social-emotional skills. The Northeast Foundation for Children offers trainings for teachers around the country. CDS will be hosting a weeklong Responsive Classroom training for area schools. All CDS teachers are expected to take the weeklong workshop. Ten of our newer teachers will take the weeklong training on our campus in August. And as a part of our parent education program in the fall, CDS will offer a workshop for parents on how to take the language of Responsive Classroom and use it at home.
Handwriting without Tears
Handwriting without Tears is a cutting edge program used by many schools in California to teach children to print and write cursive. CDS is training all teachers from preschool through fourth grade to utilize this method. Several of our newer teachers will take the training over the summer. Our goal is to have a smooth transition for our students using the Handwriting without Tears materials and methodologies, from specially cut wood pieces that form letters in preschool to cursive practice books in third grade.
Teach with Africa
While our focus is on training cohorts of teachers, we also support individual teachers with learning opportunities that enrich us all. Carli Lowe will be traveling to South Africa for eight weeks to participate in a Teach With Africa summer internship. CDS hosted two South African teachers in January, during their summer break, and we are delighted to support Carli in learning more about the challenges and joys of teaching in the townships of South Africa. This year marks our first year partnering with Teach with Africa, and it has been a rewarding experience for our students and our teachers.
Clarice Smith National Teacher Institute
Melanie Liu, our fifth and sixth grade humanities teacher, was accepted to the Clarice Smith National Teacher Institute at Smithsonian American Art in Washington, D.C. and will be studying how to integrate art, technology and curriculum with fellow educators this summer. This is a great opportunity for Melanie to gain expertise from museum educators, curators and technology specialists and develop new lessons to share with students and colleagues.
If you gave to the Annual Fund this year, you supported professional development at CDS. Excellence in teaching does not just happen, it needs to be expected, supported and nurtured. CDS is building a culture of intellectual and collaborative work among the faculty and the school is grateful for the support of parents and friends of the school who make this possible.
