A variety of professional development was provided to about 250 teachers new to Ector County ISD Tuesday at New Teacher University held at Crossroads Fellowship. The three-day event wraps up July 31.
Most of the speakers were from ECISD, but one keynote was Jonathan Alsheimer, author of Next-Level Teaching: Empowering Students and Transforming School Culture.
Director of Talent Development Debbie Bynum said they had breakout sessions focusing on effective teachers and the teacher appraisal system for teachers.
On Tuesday, they were working with curriculum and instruction on content specific things, learning about bilingual services, advanced academic services, special ed services and some of the technology tools and digital learning tools ECISD uses.
On Wednesday, they will focus on classroom management through a variety of perspectives, Bynum said.
New Teacher University aims to provide new teachers with the nuts and bolts for getting started.
“It’s the essential what do they need to be effective on the very first day of school,” Bynum said.
She added that participants are asked for feedback at the end of every day for the sessions they attended.
“Typically what we see is 95% of the sessions that they attend they feel are beneficial. Then we take that feedback and use it to influence what we do the next year. … Sometimes we can’t change the content, but we can change the way we approach the content to make it more beneficial to them. And then sometimes we change the content if they don’t feel like what we provided them was beneficial,” Bynum said.
She added that they have always hosted training like New Teacher University for teachers who are new to the district, but they have not offered three days for several years.
Stephanie Dominguez, who has been in education for 15 years, said New Teacher University has been great.
She will be teaching at Lamar Early Education Center.
“It’s good information, and it gave me a better understanding of our curriculum,” Dominguez said.
Sabra Pittman, who has been in education for 10 years, will be teaching prekindergarten at Hays STEAM Academy.
“I have enjoyed coming to New Teacher University (and) meeting other new teachers in the district,” Pittman said.
