THE WORK OF TEACHING
TLS CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
At TLS, we believe that to inspire and guide our children requires the tireless commitment of all staff to work together. Continual professional development (CPD) days not only allow teachers ongoing improvement in their professional skills and knowledge, but also the opportunity for teachers and staff to communicate and improve their ‘teamwork’.
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We encourage all our teachers and staff members to further develop professional skills that benefit our students. Each teacher is expected to develop a plan and work with the Principal and the management for mutually beneficial and relevant professional development activities.
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Our mission is to strengthen the quality of education by planning and developing collaborative programs and activities for our teachers and the community. We believe that this contributes to high quality interaction between teachers and students, fosters children’s academic and social-emotional readiness skills. A series of professional development sessions are planned for the kindergarten teachers through out the calendar year.
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Professional development sessions provided to our teachers and staff incorporate several different strategies for teaching about concept mapping. According to Novak and Gowin (1984), "learning should be considered an active process that involves acquiring, creating, and using knowledge". Therefore, each session for the kindergarten teachers incorporates a variety of professional development strategies to assist the teachers in acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to create and use concept maps in their own classrooms. The information gathered during this study is collected and used when planning training for next year.