Recent RWP Partnerships & PD

At RWP, we firmly believe that the most effective professional development (PD) for teachers is determined by teacher-identified needs and presented by other local educators. An additional benefit derived from this locally-focused teacher-to-teacher PD is the development of strong collegial relationships between teachers across school campuses, districts, and our Humboldt/Del Norte community at large.

To this end, we embrace opportunities to work with schools and districts to deliver meaningful PD experiences for teachers.  Depending on teacher/district needs, this can look very different.  When contacted by a school or district, our process is to begin with a needs assessment administered to all impacted staff.  Using that data, we tailor our PD workshops and sessions to address the concerns of these specific educators. 

All RWP presenters and facilitators have participated in our three-week Invitational Summer Institute in order to be considered Teacher Consultants (TCs). Because our professional development utilizes these local educational experts, our PD is much more affordable than that which is available through large-scale corporate professional development.  While we regularly include resources and books from top-rated researchers and educators across the country, our PD remains affordable because it is local and rarely involves travel expenses or large honorariums.

Following are a few examples of the custom-designed professional development initiatives we have undertaken in the past.

• Trinidad and Fortuna: At the request of staff from two very different districts (Trinidad Elementary District and Fortuna Elementary), RWP provided yearlong PD workshops based on the study of a specific text resource which outlined writing strategies that could be used across grade levels and content areas.  Ironically, both the Trinidad Elementary School staff and the staffs at the two middle schools in Fortuna (Toddy Thomas and Fortuna Middle) selected Summarization in Any Subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning by Rick Wormelli (ASCD, 2005).  Over the course of the school year, RWP Teacher Consultants conducted workshops in which tschool staff read and discussed sections of the book and then selected strategies to be implemented in all classrooms at each school site.   The workshop facilitators then observed all teachers using the chosen strategies across content areas.  Finally all teachers came together in after school sessions to analyze and discuss implementation and success of the strategies, and to select new ones. 
• Arcata: In another yearlong series of PD workshops, Arcata Elementary School staff determined that they wanted to work together to analyze Common Core Anchor Standards in Reading and Writing to in order to develop a cohesive scope and sequence of units and activities adressed multiple standards across content areas and grade levels.  An additional outcome was the establishment of common rubrics.  An RWP TC facilitated meetings throughout the year with the entire staff to meet these goals and produce documents to guide instruction for years to come. 
• Loleta: Another example of innovative professional development facilitated by RWP is our work with Loleta Elementary School.  At that K-8 school site, teachers requested a yearlong discussion of text types as delineated in the CCSS, as well as opportunities to develop schoolwide language arts terms with anchor charts, as well as common structures and organizers for writing in each text type across all grade levels and subject areas.  To that end, RWP conducted a series of after school workshops to facilitate efficient and effective collaboration.  An added benefit that resulted from this collaborative PD was the elimination of redundancy in writing assignments in different grades (i.e. no more animal reports at multiple grade levels) and the creation of cohesive campus-wide writing curriculum.
• A final offshoot of this project was that RWP was able to arrange individual coaching for two Loleta teachers who were partnered with similar grade TCs in other districts.  The teacher met in person on several occasions, communicated regularly, and even observed in each other’s classrooms.

In addition, RWP TCs have consistently made presentations as a part of PD days for a number of school districts.  Topics have included the following:

• Civil Discourse in the Classroom
• Dignity Across School Campuses
• Close Reading
• Developing Effective Text Dependent Questions
• Grappling with Complex Text
• Choice and Inquiry
• Trauma-Informed Teaching
• Meeting Students’ Social/Emotional Needs
• Helping Students Express Identity Through Poetry and Art
• Effective Argument Writing
• Using the Language Arts to Talk about Identity and Race
• Empowering Digital Authors Using Book Creator
• Firing Up Struggling Writers

Please contact RWP's PD Coordinator Anne Hartline at anne.hartline10@gmail.com  if your site is interested in discussing a partnership or a PD event faciltated by an RWP TC.