Courtney Eichhorn
Educator - Leader - Learner
Professional Development Transcript
This page outlines and describes the various professional development opportunities in which I have participated to date. To view additional information about each learning opportunity, please select the green headings and/or the green text within the explanations.
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June 2016
Hours: 24
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LETRS stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. The training offers 12 modules of information in regard to better instruction for improving students' literacy abilities. My school district has started offering LETRS training to interested teachers in an effort to improve literacy instruction across the district at all grade levels. Being a special education teacher, the content proved highly applicable. I was correct. The three modules I attended focused on understanding the challenging nature of learning how to read, phonemic awareness and phonics, and orthography/spelling. I came away from these trainings with knowledge of "why" my students often struggle with reading, the development processes required, and daily strategies to incorporation into my teaching to improve even the most basic aspects of literacy. I have full intention of completion more modules in the series that offer interventions for vocabulary and writing.
September 2015
Hours: 5
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Every year our school district is invited to attend a variety of school improvement conferences on different topics at Kansas State University sponsored by the local Council for School Improvement. I was selected to attend an all-day literacy instruction session with Kylene Beers and Robert Probst. The conference focused on what to do when students cannot read, particularly at the high school level. The presentation and accompanying activities were based on Beers' book When Kids Can't Read- What Teachers Can Do and Beers' and Probst's co-wrote text Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading. As a result of this professional development opportunity, I was able to go back into my classroom and teach struggling readers with new and engaging strategies. The information was immediately applicable. In fact, the "Notice and Note" strategies is now one of my favorite methods for helping students become true active readers. I have utilized it with my special education students when working with complex texts such as Fahrenheit 451.
October 2015 - March 2016
Hours: 17.5
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TESA is the acronym used for Teacher Expectations, Student Achievement. The program strives to change teachers' interactions with students by understanding how their own perceptions and behaviors in the classroom influence students' academic progress. My current school district adopted the TESA program as a mentor opportunity for experienced teachers. During TESA, I was able to observe fellow teachers at all levels of our school district. In turn, they came and observed my classroom. When we met once a month for class, we debriefed what we had noted during our visits and discussed each teacher's data outlining details such as how often the teacher called on female students versus male students and whether proximity occurred for all students or just those that were perceived to be high-achieving. The data provided clear evidence for my own strengths and weaknesses in the classroom aiding me in becoming more aware of my practice and ensuring my engagement in reflection. TESA also covered many other factors including praise, latency, equitable distribution, and questioning levels. The experience opened my eyes to behaviors that I would not have noticed myself. It also provided the opportunity to appreciate all grade-level teachers and their content. The learning from this professional development was invaluable and immediately applied to my classroom.
September 2014 - February 2015
Hours: 14
Cooperative Learning was another mentor program for experienced teachers in my school district. The program is founded on the work of Dr. Spencer Kagan and his cooperative learning structures for the classroom. The purpose of Kagan Learning Structures is to increase student engagement in the classroom through multiple strategies designed to target specific learning outcomes. This opportunity clearly defined the true definition of cooperative learning and ways in which the teacher can structure the classroom to make such experiences productive and effective for all students. Although the content was often geared more toward my elementary colleagues, I was able to adapt several of the techniques to fit the unique circumstances of my special education classroom. The hands-on nature of the professional development allowed me to actually practice the cooperative learning structures during meetings and design lessons incorporating a variety of methods. The result of implementing even a couple of Kagan structures in my classroom such as "Round Robin" and "Celebrity Interview" have been monumental in helping otherwise apathetic students become active and excited about academic content.
September 2016
Hours: 7
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is the Response to Intervention (RTI) initiative used by my current Kansas school district. Because I am a special education teacher, I offer Tier 3 intensive support to students with literacy needs. I also work cooperatively with general education teachers who provide Tier 2 levels of intervention to students who are slightly below grade level in reading abilities. I additionally write these plans as a Team Leader. In an effort to better structure the continuum of interventions available to students, I was able to attend an MTSS session led by the Director of Secondary Education in our district, to learn a guided and consistent method for targeting student weaknesses in fluency, comprehension, phonological manipulation, and vocabulary. As a result, I could share the methods for instruction with my fellow English teachers in an effort to improve students' literacy competencies in all areas, including overall academic achievement. The professional development further consisted of learning and practicing a variety of valid instruments such as the Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) test and the MAZE comprehension assessment in order to maintain progress monitoring records. I now utilize both tools plus others for collecting growth data and building evidence of present levels of performance for writing Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for my students.
September 2014
Hours: 14
Co-teaching is the primary method of inclusion in my present special education position and it is rapidly becoming popular across the country. During summer breaks, new co-teachers (the general education and special education counterparts) are encouraged to attend sessions created to define and outline the various types of co-teaching models beneficial to meeting the needs of a diverse clientele. This particular session focused upon Universal Design and its role in the classroom for enhancing all students' academic achievement. The most integral lesson of the experience was the realization that certain accommodations and learning tools originally designed for students with special needs can be adapted for proper use in a general education setting. Co-teaching is often challenging because two teachers possess varying teaching styles and philosophy. However, attendance at this session improved my general education partner's perspective on scaffolding and universal accommodations for everyone that helped to bridge the distance between the lowest and highest ability students in one general education classroom. Although accommodating and modifying for individual instruction advances significantly beyond Universal Design for Learning, the idea established a foundation from which I could be flexible with additional alterations for students with IEPs, while the root of content remained the same for all.
November 2015
Hours: 4
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Special education teachers tend to deal with students who exhibit challenging behaviors. Part of my district's special education plan is to better equip its teachers with different categories of behavior, common functions of undesirable actions, and methods for shaping appropriate behaviors or replacing inappropriate ones. In this particular learning lab a representative from Project Stay was in attendance. Project Stay partnered with my fellow special education teachers to assist us in working with our most difficult cases of behavior. The program not only provided a sense of relief in finding new and exciting interventions to try, but it also encouraged me to clearly define my own opinion about what constitutes "bad" behavior. I was able to bring one of my students for a case study and analyze the perceived function of his actions and develop a plan of action to immediately implement at school. Additionally, the learning lab provided a wealth of resources for data collection and progress monitoring. Project Stay continues to be a resource as I work with students.
​August 2014 - Present
Hours: 5-6 total
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I am fortunate to have excellent resources at my fingertips. At my school, I have access to three instructional coaches, one of which specializes in literacy. Periodically throughout my three years at the Freshman Success Academy, I have sought the assistance of the literacy coach in order to build professional goals based upon the school improvement plan's literacy focus. Because I have actively practiced reflection, I have noted weaknesses in certain areas. These are instances in which I ask the literacy coach to help me develop lessons to specifically align with the unique needs of my students as they change from year to year. As a data expert, she is adept in providing curriculums and programs that I can experiment with. One such program was Six Minute Solutions as I was needing more depth in my fluency instruction. The coach modeled a quality lesson and then observed my own teaching to provide construct feedback. As a result of these individual professional opportunities, I have developed student growth measures to demonstrate adequate progress and simply gained an outside prospective to aid in my improved effectiveness. I am then able to utilize these learning experiences as support in my teacher evaluations.
August 2014 - Present
Hours: 25
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Every school year the Secondary English Language Arts department meets twice (once each semester) to brainstorm ideas for improving reading and writing across the curriculum and across the district as a whole. Vertical curriculum alignment from one grade-level to the next also occurs. In addition, the group reviews literacy screener data, the status of MTSS interventions, and school report cards in reading and writing from state standardized testing. As part of the literacy focus group, I have assisted in developing means for meeting the major shifts in curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards, particularly improving students' abilities to decipher and derive meaning from complex texts. During the group session, we collaboratively decide upon areas to fix and denote them as "focus correction areas." I then take those focus correction areas (FCAs) and incorporate specially-designed instruction into regular lessons in order to raise student competency in the identified areas of weakness. Often we use book studies to target deficits and determine appropriate research-based techniques for addressing the issues. The past two years, our literacy team's correction areas have focused upon writing. I have read and studied both the Vermont Writing Collaborative's book Writing for Understanding: Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively and Jay Heinrichs' Thank You for Arguing to improve my teaching of writing and to try novel approaches.
August 2016 - Present
Hours: 12
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This 2016-2017 school year, my current high school adopted Randy Sprick's Safe and Civil Schools initiative to promote positive behavior both inside and outside of the classroom in a comprehensive effort to diminish punitive discipline by implementing proactive and preventative behavior measures; thus, improving the school culture, educator perception, and student accountability. Safe and Civil Schools incorporates Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) through whole-building and individual classroom structures and outlines effective means of establishing positive classroom management procedures. We have spent time learning about PBIS, its role, and how to employ it in our own practices. Every professional development day has offered additional opportunities to gain more in-depth understanding of the program. My biggest takeaway from the Safe and Civil Schools sessions I have attended is its complimentary information to the courses I completed as part of the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University. As a result, my understanding and desire to improve my behavior management skills is heightened. Safe and Civil Schools methods that I presently use are a matrix for what appropriate behavior looks like in the classroom, bathroom, cafeteria, and hallway. I also utilize a voice level scale from one to five that identifies when students should engage a particular voice level. Third, I 'ACHIEVE' different classroom activities prior to learning that specifically outlines the needed Conversation level, how to receive Help, what Integrity looks like, the Effort needed to accomplish the task, the Value in completing the mission, and how to remain Efficient. I have posted all of these tools in my classroom which has now offered opportunities to consistently revisit the expectations and to provide a visual reference on a daily basis. The positive methods have encouraged conversations about expectations rather than rules, have given students a voice in understanding what they need to do, and have clearly defined and taught what appropriate behavior actually looks like.