During the month of August, over 400 PK-12 educators from across Maine attended two-day professional development institutes offered in Presque Isle, Brewer, Lewiston and Saco. The Pathways to Proficiency institute was designed to help teams of educators strengthen their understanding of Maine’s English language arts standards while also bolstering their knowledge of highly effective instructional strategies that support students in achieving proficiency.
Educators expanded their understanding of learning transfer, cognitive rigor and text complexity as they learned instructional strategies for close reading, writing from sources and vocabulary development. Participants also learned how to construct integrated units of study with text sets that focused on ELA and content-area standards.
By attending in school/district teams, educators were able to work collaboratively and plan for how to share their learning with colleagues back in their schools.
In their feedback about the institute experience, participants noted that they left with new resources to support ongoing instruction as well as intentional strategies to help students achieve proficiency. Additionally, they appreciated the time to design text sets and units of study they can implement in their classrooms in the coming year.
All of the materials utilized in the Pathways to Proficiency institutes can be accessed on the Department’s ELA webpage. Additionally, the Maine DOE will be offering more professional development opportunities for PK-12 educators connected to topics included in the institutes through this year’s Cross Discipline Literacy Network. For more information, contact Maine DOE’s Literacy Specialist Lee Anne Larsen at leeann.larsen@maine.gov or 624-6628.