All across the country this summer, a record number of teachers are engaging in hands-on, interactive professional development through PLTW Core Training. Vince traveled to Atlanta this week to recognize the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) educators participating in PLTW Launch training, hosted jointly by PLTW and affiliate Georgia Southern University.
“Empowering teachers to transform the learning experience for students is essential to inspiring future generations,” said President and CEO of Project Lead The Way Vince Bertram. “It was a pleasure to meet several outstanding Atlanta Public Schools educators who are deeply committed to students.”
Approximately 25 teachers from 11 APS elementary schools – along with the APS PLTW district implementation team – completed the training this week, and will be implementing PLTW Launch in their schools in the 2015-2016 school year. The new programs are made possible by a $1 million grant from The Goizueta Foundation.
M. Agnes Jones Elementary School Principal Retha Woolfolk attended the training with seven teachers from her school, and said in her 26 years in education, she has never seen anything like the high-quality professional development they experienced.
“We were so engaged, we lost track of time,” she said. “And when the teachers can engage students like this, not just the academics are affected, but the behavior. When kids are bored, they act out, and I can see our kids being very excited about this.”
Gineen Smith, a teacher at M. Agnes Jones Elementary, said she could feel the problem-solving process taking place.
“I could appreciate the transformation of just giving students information and having them articulate their thoughts through the writing process versus having them analyze, create, and design an answer to a real-life problem,” she said. “It was amazing to witness how my teaching and their learning will be enhanced by teaching with the PLTW modules.”
PLTW and affiliate partners will host about 640 Core Training events this summer, which will put 2015 on track to have the largest number of trained teachers yet.
Vince will be heading to more of the hundreds of Core Training sessions happening this summer around the country.
Stay current on Vince’s travels – and the latest in education and workforce development news – by following him on Twitter at @VinceBertram.