Supporting Professional Growth Through Student Feedback

5/25/2016

Kate Raven, Communications Manager

For several years now, students have completed course surveys as a way to help teachers grow professionally. This week we began a pilot project with Panorama Education, which was developed by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We have a small group of teachers who have volunteered for the pilot, with a random sample of students from each teacher’s courses participating in the survey. The benchmarked results from the survey will enable teachers to personalize their professional development and track their professional growth. The plan is to expand this pilot program throughout the next two years.

Teacher collaboration is an important part of our professional culture. During our Wednesday morning meetings, teachers have time to share ideas and work together. For example, throughout the past several months, teachers have been learning from one another about teaching in larger spaces. This learning will help with the transition to the new building. Collaborative time is also dedicated to meeting in subject teams and in grade level groups.

With the summer break a month away, many of our teachers have signed up for professional development programs outside of Greenwood. Several teachers are completing graduate degree programs in curriculum, psychology and counselling; two teachers are taking part in Advanced Placement training programs in California and New York; one teacher is taking part in a book study of Untangled, which examines the education of adolescent girls. And others will spend the month of July completing Additional Qualification courses offered by various Faculties of Education throughout Ontario. We are fortunate to have teachers who are willing to dedicate some of their holiday time towards their growth as teachers and to keeping Greenwood on the leading edge of teaching and learning.

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Greenwood College School

443 Mount Pleasant Road
Toronto, ON M4S 2L8
Tel: 416 482 9811

We acknowledge with gratitude the Ancestral lands upon which our main campus is situated. These lands are the Ancestral territories of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Anishinabek and the Wendake. The shared responsibility of this land is honoured in the Dish with One Spoon Treaty and as settlers, we strive to care for the land, the waters, and all creatures in the spirit of peace. We are responsible for respecting and supporting the enduring presence of all First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. When away from this campus we vow to be respectful to the land by protecting and honouring it. We will create relationships with the people and the land we may visit by understanding the territories we enter and the nations who inhabit them.