This week, I was able to attend my first Teacher Institute Day. While other teachers seemed bored and complained about being there, I felt like a sponge soaking up information, and enjoyed my experience just being there.

Throughout the day, there were various meetings and times for teacher collaboration. I got to observe how the teachers took scores from state wide assessments such as the PARCC test, as well as district wide assessments like Discovery, and analyze those scores in order to improve student learning for upcoming years. They compared their scores to other schools in the district, as well as the state, and I thought it was really interesting to see how they used this data in order to guide discussion on areas of improvement and goals the school could made.

I also got to attend a presentation on Guided Reading. I found it really beneficial to attend this meeting, as teaching students to read is a fundamental part of their elementary education, and the teachers presenting had a lot of great information, strategies, and theories when it comes to small group reading instruction. I have already seen improvements in my guided reading instruction after utilizing the materials and knowledge I gained from this meeting.

Overall, this day was a professional learning opportunity for me. As I sat there and engaged in this day, I really started to see myself less as a student teacher and more as a professional educator.