CVESD Professional Development's/ Other

I attended many professional development trainings, in the month of October in particular. All of these trainings were optional for me to attend. I think it is important to attend PD's to network with other VAPA teachers in my subjects and always keep learning.

10/2/17- Scope & Sequence PD

This was my personal first time meeting all the other VAPA teachers in the district, I believe 40/70 came to this PD. They had held one earlier in the summer, but I wasn't hired yet. During their summer meeting they had met with the CA Arts Project Director, Courtney Sawada, and her goal is for us to create curricular congruency with the National Core Art Standards (NCAS). This was my first time learning about the NCAS standards and how heavily as a district we are leaning on them for guiding instruction.
This was also a great time for me to network with other Theatre teachers about what they do in their classrooms and finding things that I liked that they did. Lauren Grey from Sunnyside Elementary stood out to me as we had similar backgrounds in improvisational theatre.

10/4/17- Office 365: Microsoft Innovative Educator PD 

I attended an online live webinar as part of Induction, hosted by Antwon Lincoln, the IT Coordinator for CVESD. I had no idea about the courses offered by Microsoft such as having live Skype Field Trips! It was definitely informative to know that their are courses and other resources available to me on the Microsoft Education website. I was so inspired by this webinar that I went and became a Certified Microsoft Innovative Educator myself.

10/6/17- New Educator Orientation

I attended the New Educator Orientation hosted at the CVESD Main Office. It was great to reconnect with new educators who I had just gone through the teaching credential program with!

10/11/17- Behavior Management PD

I attended an Induction PD on behavior management held at Hedenkamp Elementary School. The hosts, Kristen Roth- Rose and Heather Michel, spoke about different classroom management systems they have seen implemented and gave us new teachers time to discuss issues we saw in our classrooms.

10/23-10/27 Red Ribbon Week at Allen Elementary

Allen Elementary held a door decorating contest in honor of the Red Ribbon Week Theme: Your Future Is Key, So Stay Drug Free. My door was the school-wide winner. 

10/28/17- CVESD Shift Minecraft Build PD

I attended a PD to learn how to integrate Minecraft, a popular youth video game, within the classroom. I was intrigued whether or not this could be used at Sunnyside Elementary or Daly Academy. I was a little surprised that I was unable to "pick up" on how to use Minecraft quickly as some of my students do. I definitely will have to do more playing around with it before I feel comfortable using it.
This PD was useful to me because of the networking. I met another VAPA Art teacher who recommended to me using code.org, a popular computer science website known for their Hour of Code week, and doing lessons on it for my students.

10/30/17- VAPA: Arts Integration 101

I attended this induction PD and learned how theater, particularly tableau's, could be integrated within History lessons and Literature.

11/2/17- ELA/Math Extended Day Orientation

I attended an ELA/Math Extended Day orientation with the goal to teach an extended day program at Allen in 2018. I will be teaching 6th Grade ELA at Allen.

11/3/17- Music/Dance/Theatre PD: Literature & Movement

I am incredibly grateful for attending this PD where I learned firsthand different holiday themed music/dance lessons that I could incorporate at Allen school (and I did!)

11/13/17: Classroom Environment: Teaching/Learning Tool PD

I attended this PD for induction and we did walkthroughs of primary classrooms at Hedenkamp ElementaryI was amazed by the layout of these rooms as well as tons of evidence of learning!

12/1/17: Decorating CVESD District Bulletin Board

On 11/17, the cohort that Allen school is in, collaborated with the other schools' resource teachers and VAPA teachers to create the bulletin board below for the district office. I went to the meeting and also helped decorate the board.

12/1/17: Allen Elementary Winter Ball Volunteer

I volunteered to help sell food, later that same bulletin board evening at Allen School's Winter Ball, a school dance for all ages and their families.  I was glad to see students all dressed up and enjoying the dance. It was also nice to get to know the other parents who were volunteering throughout the dance.

12/14/17: Daly Academy Annual Holiday Night Volunteer

I volunteered to serve food to the students and their families. It was awesome to have Living Coast Discovery Center there with a snake and an owl as well as participating in the Staff vs Student "snowball" fight!