The Fledgling Years: Lessons from the First Four Years of the NWP in Vermont

By Patricia McGonegal, Anne Watson

Summary:
Authors Patricia McGonegal and Anne Watson, founders of a new Writing Project site, chronicle their first five years, focusing on the development of school-based inservice. They document the first years of their site, describing the role the site filled in the state, the first summer institute, funding matters, collaborations, and the successes and pitfalls of early professional development. Originally published on November 1, 2002

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“Mention Vermont and most people immediately picture small villages with white church steeples tucked in the crooks and valleys of the rugged land. In truth, this image does exist, and although Vermont’s landscape is rapidly changing, it is still the most rural state in the nation.

Vermont has over 300 individual school districts. More than 200 schools have fewer than 150 students in grades K–6. Although each school has its own board of education clinging to local control, most schools belong to large, widespread supervisory unions containing several school districts. As a result of the distance between schools, however, each school retains its autonomy. When students leave grade six, most are thrust into a supervisory union high school with several hundred students. In spite of its rural nature, Vermont has placed itself on the national map with strong educational initiatives, notably the first-in-the-U.S. statewide Portfolio Assessment Program, which was implemented in 1991 and designed to encourage better teaching and give rich data on student performance.”

Topics/tags:

Professional Learning models of inservice

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The Professional Leadership Development Project: Building Writing Project and School-Site Teacher Leadership in Urban Schools

By Zsa Boykin, Jennifer Scrivner, and Sarah Robbins

Motivated by a desire to have opportunities for professional development for their teaching colleagues similar to those they had experienced as participants in the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project, teacher-consultants created a structure for building a school-based professional leadership development project. The authors of this NWP monograph describe a flexible model—grounded in participating teachers’ own collaborative inquiry into their work—for promoting teacher leadership within six urban schools. Teacher leaders interested in developing similar models of school-based learning communities will find inspiration in this resource along with a useful planning guide.

Teacher Study Group Movement: From Pilot to Districtwide Study Groups in Four Years

By Mary Weaver, Mary Calliari, Janet Rentsch

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The story of an inquiry-centered approach to professional development, designed and led by teachers, that could be a model for any school.

Monographs

Continuity in the Rhode Island Writing Project: Keeping Teachers at the Center

By Susan Ozbek, Keith Sanzen, Marjorie Roemer, Susan Vander Does

The Presenters’ Collective Network (PCN) began as a support for teacher-consultants in developing workshops for inservice, but the Rhode Island Writing Project quickly discovered unintended purposes that strengthened the site’s continuity program. Susan Ozbek, Marjorie Roemer, Keith Sanzen, and Susan Vander Does detail how PCN functions along with the tools that help to sustain it.

Supporting On-Site Teacher-Consultants: New York City Writing Project's Community of Learners

By Ed Osterman

Ed Osterman demonstrates how sustained and regular professional development for on-site teacher-consultants not only benefits the teachers in the schools they serve, but also nurtures intellectual and personal growth at the New York City Writing Project. The monograph provides approaches and tools that can be adapted by local sites to support ongoing professional development for teacher-consultants.