THE FWSU STORY: Reflecting on Educator Institutes in Year 2

“Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we perceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life.” – Peter Senge

FWSU educators collaborating in Educator Institutes — FWSU Educators collaborating through Educator Institutes.

Today is the first of two days of teacher training days (fondly known as teacher inservice) at FWSU. Over last five years, we have focused the two days in November on highlighting the teaching expertise we have within our own system. We started in this direction with FWSU Ed Camp and we have now morphed into our second year of Educators Institute. This is inservice for teachers, by teachers. Educator Institutes are two-day opportunities for our teachers to learn from one another in a focused environment.

Educators engage in learning about BFA Fairfax’s Farm to School program during the November FWSU Educator Institutes.

“One size doesn’t fit all — it doesn’t even fit most” as the saying goes. Teachers in FWSU are working very hard to differentiate and personalize student learning to inspire greater engagement, ownership, and deeper understanding. Last year we asked how we could do the same for our adult learners in our schools. And then we took it a bit further. We wondered if teachers led differentiated, choice-based learning for their colleagues, would the content become more valuable? Our response is to take a leap and answer an enthusiastic “yes” to both of these questions!

Art teachers discussed current trends in art education during the November FWSU Educator Institutes.

Any teacher or administrator may volunteer to plan and facilitate an Institute and this year we had thirteen offerings. From Proficiency-Based Learning Systems to Implementing Writers Workshop to Getting Comfortable with Rapid Prototyping, FWSU educators had a wide variety of choices to forward their learning during our inservice. The complete list of offerings can be found here

FWSU Educators learn together in Educator Institutes, many of which were led by their colleagues.

The next two days will be filled with new learning and new ideas. Many of those ideas will find there way into classrooms throughout the district when our students return next week.