English department teachers Zachary Thrower and Lara Guidry meet with their colleagues on Oct. 28 to learn about a new program called Marca which English teachers will be using in their classes. “We had our second training tutorial on Marca, which is the writing tool I’ll be integrating into some classes. Specifically, we were learning how to build units by uploading resources and etc.,” Thrower said. Photo by Karla Dougan.
By KARLA DOUGAN – Broadcast Staff
The Clarke Central High School and Cedar Shoals High School English departments will meet at W.R. Coile Middle School on Nov. 3 for their first district professional learning day.
“Both high school English departments will be together and it’s broken down that way– sometimes it’s not that way, it just depends. We don’t know what is scheduled for us to do. It varies every time,” English department cochair Erin Cawthon said.
According to the Georgia Department of Education, professional learning is the program that all school systems in Georgia use in an effort to “strengthen the development and performance of educators at all levels in order to improve student learning and achievement.”
The Clarke County School District has 11 district learning sessions scheduled for the 2014-2015 school year.
“Typically they have activities and things like that they make us do and discuss and it’s geared towards whatever the district wants us to focus on at that particular moment,” Cawthon said.
English department teacher Lara Guidry is new to the department and says she is excited to learn about differentiation and finding methods to teach students with different and diverse needs.
“(I am looking forward to learning) how to design lessons in a way that reaches every student in the classroom at their level,” Guidry said.
