Professional Development
Syracuse City School District - May 2021
The PL Team is committed to coordinating efforts to provide daily opportunities for training and support for our SCSD Staff that would help them to maintain continuity in communication and learning for our SCSD Students & Families during the Covid19 Pandemic & beyond. The following is a summary report of that work for the past calendar month.
May PD Session Topics
The following professional learning offerings were available to staff:
- Weekly Demo Lessons by Content/Grade Level (356)
- Self-Paced PL Playlist (4)
- SyraFuse Information Sessions (5)
- PL-LC 103: Flexible Learning Environments (1)
- The Person You Mean To Be Book Study (24)
- SyraFuse Showcase PD Sessions (20)
- SCSD PL Coach Office Hours
Overall Rating: 1 (Poor) to 5 (Excellent) Stars - 4.51+
April 4.42 - March 4.63 - February 4.57 - January 4.53
December 4.63 - November 4.65 - October 4.59 - September 4.53
- Great to see how another teacher was personalizing learning through a reading project virtually!!
- I am excited about these resources and using the inquiry model.
- Outstanding culturally-relevant lesson plan for students regarding environmentalism.
- LOVE THE CENTERS!!!
- Being allowed to choose my own PD gives me more ownership.
- Very grateful to have an opportunity to research a problem in my classroom.
- Positive change can happen when professionals across departments brainstorm solutions
- Great use of a sample Canvas course to try the feature!
- Assignments related to the classroom issues during and after Covid.
- Super awesome resources today for exactly what I am teaching!!
- I do like that these are now recorded for us to watch when we have time.
- I like reading the comments that other teachers are having successes and weaknesses with. Sometimes I feel like the only one having these challenges, but clearly I am not alone.
- I like how the videos are not very long. However, it's providing us the basic knowledge of what expectations are for planning purposes.
- Having flexible PD is much better and I like that I can go back if I miss something.
- Loved that they provided us with step by step directions on how to SAVE all of your Canvas courses that we have created this year!
- Can we continue next school year meeting periodically for each [content] course across the district to share thoughts and ideas? We had a chance to reflect on the school year in a positive way which was helpful.
- I love collaborating with [content] teachers across the district!! I hope this continues with or without virtual learning!
Constructive Feedback Quotes - May 2021
- Continually spending time to walk through question after question is not helpful.
- I wish these did not start right at 2:00 so I could be at the entire meeting rather than spending the first part finishing dismissal duty.
- The process is very confusing for me because I am not good at using technology.
- Everything discussed appears to be designed for in person students.
- Felt more like a check-in than a PD session.
- I am ahead in the unit so it was a lot of repeated information.
- TAs require more leadership.
- I am not sure why we are suddenly not getting live PD and instead getting recordings. Especially as we get closer to the end of the year.
- I'd rather be providing my students with instruction today.
- Consider office hours PD to help support curriculum changes.
- I just wish this session would've been more interactive!
Weekly Demonstration Lesson Sessions
Feedback Responses by Building/Program (4420)
Teacher Highlights
Colleen Mayberry, Huntington, K-2 Science Demo Teacher
I am so honored to have served as the K-2 Science Demo teacher for this school year. I have always loved teaching math & science, so this opportunity allowed me to dive deep into the FOSS Kits and share my love of science with students across the district. What has impacted me most is being recognized by teachers & students out in the community. I had one first grade student say that he never used to like science & now he loves science! This makes all the hard work worth it!
It has been a challenging year learning how to best juggle two roles – science demo teacher & teaching a virtual first grade classroom at Huntington. That said, this has been one of my favorite years as an educator! I feel that I have grown in so many ways & met so many wonderful people. This role has pushed me outside my comfort zone, with presenting PD to district staff & learning to record lessons at WCNY (with one take only!). I do have to admit that I am looking forward to heading back into the classroom in the fall & meeting our new normal, whatever that may be, head on!
Melissa Walls, PSLA, Earth Science Demo Teacher
Weekly Choice Sessions
Feedback Responses by Building/Program (246)
Breakdown by the Core 4 Elements of Personalized Learning
Self-Paced Action Research Playlist
SCSD Personalized Learning Office Hours
Annual PL Showcase Led by Fuse Fellows
Cohort 5: 2020-2021 School Year
During the months of March and May the Cohort 5 SyraFuse Fellows led professional development sessions to share best practices for personalizing in-person, hybrid, and/or virtual learning. Find recordings and resources for these sessions linked via the button below.
SyraFuse Fellowship Cohort 5 Virtual Graduation
Congratulations to SyraFuse Cohort 5! #VirtuallyUnstoppable
Who is Cohort 5? Cohort 5 graduates include 42 teachers with 2 to 27 years of experience from 22 from K-5 classrooms in 11 buildings, 10 from 6-8 classrooms in 4 buildings, 10 from 9-12 teachers in 4 buildings including Special Education, Music, Phys Ed, CTE, ELL, Elementary Education, Science, Math, Social Studies, and ELA adding up to at least one teacher at every grade level from 18 SCSD Schools. This group had a total of nearly 400 collective years of teaching experience; including 12 teachers with 15 or more years of experience and 6 who have over 20 years in education!!
SyraFuse Fellowship Highlights
Fuse Syracuse (SyraFuse) strives to implement and scale personalized and blended learning across the Syracuse City School District by creating and training teacher leaders as change agents. The Fuse Syracuse initiative recruits a group of educators called Fuse Fellows for a 1-year fellowship. Fellows will be trained on personalized learning models and best practices, blended learning tools and strategies, coached on classroom implementation, and supported to establish their own “Lighthouse Classroom” to serve as a model of personalized and blended instruction in their building and district.
Fuse Fellows are passionate, curious innovators in their schools who model a growth mindset, and are open to trying new things and taking their practice to the next level. They are natural change agents for their schools, and welcome the opportunity to advance the field through their own leadership and instructional innovation. We are now working with cohort 5 of the fellowship!
Maria VanRiper, Webster
ENL Teacher & SyraFuse Cohort 5 Fellow
I applied to Fuse because I wanted to find out how I could use data to help my ENL students become better learners. I wanted them to take a vested interest in their learning. I often talked to them about what I had hoped for them to accomplish, but just talking to them was not accomplishing what I had hoped. I knew I needed to show them the cold, hard facts. I started with the end in mind. If I could stand behind the data to show them where they could be if they followed the guidelines, then I wanted to give it a try with coaches helping to guide me in the direction I needed to go as I made sure I was addressing my students’ needs as I applied strategies learned through Fuse.
I knew this would be difficult since technology would be the main resource used with the pandemic upending teaching as we knew it. Less face-to-face teaching, putting a lot of trust in students taking the lead to follow what I asked them to do, and not knowing what would work were obstacles I had to face. If I helped one student see that s/he is ‘in charge’ of her/his learning and advancement, then it was worth it.
As I met with students and families to show their learning progress, give feedback, and set weekly goals, I realized the strong relationships being built in engaging them with their data. Showing them how their usage was directly related to their outcome of time put in, proved to be the key to hooking them into seeing the fruits of their labor and getting them to continue to progress towards higher reading levels. They would ask me to see their data each week! I can say that this is the highlight of my practice this year! Who knew students would be so interested in data? At first, I thought they wouldn’t care or be able to understand, but the time I put into explaining it to them and showing them the charts and graphs where they stood, really paid off! Goal setting was also an essential factor in this process. They would set weekly goals to increase usage for time on IL but showing students I was keeping track of it proved more important. This really helped to guide them and hold them accountable for their promise to achieve their goal.
Imagine Learning has been my favorite tool for personalized instruction and engaging my students during our hybrid/virtual learning year.
Having participated in SyraFuse and seeing the impact it has made on my students has been an uplifting result. I am so proud that my students took charge of their learning and very thankful to have had this opportunity to have had coaches to help guide me in the usage of tools and practices to make this work!
My goals as a Fuse Fellow are that I will continue to use the strategies I learned and build on them as my students learn to be in charge of their educational success and push their growing edge!!
Mara O'Neill, Henninger
Special Education Mathematics Teacher & SyraFuse Cohort 5 Fellow
Hi! My name is Mara O'Neill and I am a Special Education Math teacher at Henninger High School.
I applied to be a part of the SyraFuse Cohort 5 Fellowship in hopes of being accepted and having the opportunity to learn and reflect on myself as an educator. I was ecstatic and a bit shocked when I got accepted! Being part of the SyraFuse Cohort 5 Fellowship this year has truly been a wonderful blessing. The widely knowledgeable and supportive coaches and educators I have had a chance to collaborate with, have been a saving grace during an ever-changing school year.
My focus has been on expanding my tool kit to include more engaging strategies for both my hybrid and virtual students. I have had success in increasing student ownership and reflection using student choice. When one thinks of student choice, they think choice boards or playlists. These strategies help to increase motivation and work submission, but have you asked a student to reflect on why they chose specifics tasks over others? Adding reflection into student choice activities have helped to give my students a chance to learn about themselves as learners and voice those needs in class.
My goal for next year is to continue to promote incorporating student and teacher reflection into our classroom to foster classroom dialogue.
Student & Family Support provided by SCSD School Librarians
Prekindergarten – Grade 12 Library Media Specialists in the SCSD provide helpdesk support to students and families in the SCSD. They are available between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM Monday – Friday each week. Families are able to sign up for virtual help directly on the Syracuse City Schools Website.
Elementary Support Calendar & Stats
Elementary LMS Highlight
Jennifer Kailer, Van Duyn
If you went back in time and met me as a child, chances are you would not be surprised that I grew up to be a librarian. Having spent most of my life with my nose stuck in a book or combing the library shelves for my next read, I absolutely love that I get to spend my days helping students do just that. I can honestly say that the most rewarding thing about my job is the students I get to work with. As this is going on my eighth year now, I can look at the 5th grade class and remember them as Pre-Schoolers. I can develop great relationships with these students as I see them year after year. Van Duyn is an amazing school, full of amazing students and staff who I absolutely love interacting with every day.
This year was the year of challenges. For me, the hardest one being that I no longer had any classes. My job shifted to supporting the technology in our building for both our staff and our students. Although, I missed my classes dearly, it also opened up a bunch of new opportunities for me. I was able to connect more with the families of my students, since I spent a lot of time calling and helping with technology issues. I also started several new programs to connect with my student more often virtually. I had a weekly storytime so that students could tune in and listen to some of my favorite picture books. I also had a “Books I Love” chat for the older students where I would read the first chapter of a book which they might be interested in. The books were usually on SORA or MyOn, our e-book platforms, so that all my students, regardless of if they came to school physically or not, could have a chance to read them. I also started recording Book Recommendations and Book Tags (where I challenged the kids to find books that fit a prompt). I would post these on Clever so our students could see them and greatly enjoyed some of the responses I got. I also loved that I got to spend a lot of time with my staff this year working to include culturally responsive and anti-racist books in our library and our classrooms.
In April, I began teaching library classes again and it was wonderful seeing all my students’ faces, either in person or online. I am truly blessed to have this job and to work with the students and staff at Van Duyn. I love being a librarian and am so excited to see what the future holds.
Secondary Support Calendar & Stats
Secondary LMS Highlight
Andrea Nicolette, PSLA
The 2020-21 school year at PSLA was my first professional experience as a Library Media Specialist. Prior to this position, I taught many years at Henninger High School.
As we are all aware, the pandemic made for an interesting year, but switching schools added to the challenge. Since returning to the building last fall, I find the library to be unusually quiet. During the day I am primarily assisting students, families, and staff with technology support, but I am also choosing new library books for students, collaborating with teachers and providing professional development to staff. I’ve always worked in a collaborative role, so I enjoy working with the PSLA staff to ensure the success of all students.
It has been rewarding to join a network of skilled and supportive high school librarians. The five of us work very closely and it has been great to collaborate with them. I truly appreciate the additional support they have provided me in my new role. We started a SCSD High School virtual book club which has provided the opportunity to meet with students and discuss books.
I'm thrilled with this new career path and looking forward to working with students and teachers in the library next fall.
PD Newsletter Archive 2020-2021
Manami Tezuka
Syracuse City School District
Email: mtezuka@scsd.us
Website: http://www.syracusecityschools.com/districtpage.cfm?pageid=585
Location: 1005 West Fayette Street, Syracuse, New York 13204, USA
Phone: (315) 435-6358
Twitter: @SCSDPL