In-Service/Professional Development

During my time at Boonsboro, I truly became a member of the school. I was attending sporting events where students that I had in class were playing, I ate lunch with the CTE Department (outside of the faculty lounge), and participated in in-service days.

While at Boonsboro, I was only able to experience one in-service day. However, that day gave me a new insight into what the wonderful world of teaching would be about. Not only was there grading to be done, there was also professional development to be engaged in, as well as prominant issues to be discussed.

During the in-service day, we began the day with a breakfast that was provided by the gentleman that worked at the school. The men made and served the breakfast to all of the alumni, retired teachers, and current teachers. After breakfast, it was time to travel to the media center to participate in some professional development.

The principal had an urgent matter to discuss and needed everyone present to hear the news so the meeting was pushed back by a half an hour. At the beginning of the meeting, there was an issue addressed amongst students who had been snapchatting from the school wifi and sending some disturbing comments to a fellow student. The principal informed us of the issue and how to handle the issue should another arise or we be contacted via the media.

After this conversation was had, and faculty discussed their frustrations and solutions to the problem, it was time to get down to business. We discussed what teachers can promise to their students, and in turn what we ask students to promise to us. Following this discussion in small groups, we made a large group document to share amongst all of the faculty and staff at BHS. The day was then handed over to technology.

The I-Team, which Ms. Cashell-Martin was a part of, presented a demonstration to describe to teachers how to air play from their ipads to an apple TV. After this demonstration, we were released to our departments where we would dive deeper into the world of Apple classroom in addition to google classroom which we were already learning and utilizing.

The rest of the day was ours to complete grading as this professional development day also signified the end of the marking period.

I enjoyed this in-service/professional development day and have grown to appreciate it as an ag educator when things just seem to get busy, schools offer you an additional 1/2 day essentially to finish grading and put grades into the grade book.