Professional Development
Griffin Center training consultants recognize that classroom teachers are in critical need of ongoing support in adopting and effectively implementing the instructional innovations that will enable more children to experience academic success in the 21st century. The Center’s professional development services focus on integrating the arts across the curriculum, especially in facilitating language and literacy acquisition. A secondary focus is increasing children’s self-regulation skills by embedding higher levels of executive functioning demand within classroom activities.
To promote a lasting transformation of instructional practice, Center training consultants first provide teachers with the theoretical content and research behind new strategies and learning activities, then provide opportunities for the teachers to apply this new knowledge through demonstrations, practice, and peer observation with immediate feedback and reflection sessions. This model of professional development adheres to Best Practice guidelines set forth in research disseminated by the U.S. Department of Education, What Works Clearinghouse and the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
Griffin Center is currently engaged in providing professional development services for two powerful literacy interventions as well as providing more specific training programs for teachers and art specialists, primarily through county or district-level agreements. The two interventions are:
The Griffin Arts and Literacy Solutions (GALS)
The GALS Professional Development Programis designed to meet the needs of educators who are looking for innovative programs that improve student learning. A method of literacy intervention, GALS provides instruction in arts integration in a focused and intentional way designed to help students also expand vocabulary, increase reading comprehension and build reading fluency.
Additionally these methods:
- Address different learning styles
- Engage students through the artistic processes
- Hone students thinking skills
- Are student-centered
- Involve students in the full literacy spectrum of reading, writing, thinking, viewing, and speaking
- Address content standards in the arts and literacy
GALS provides an alternative to traditional intervention methods and can be used with all student populations, Pre-K through Grade 12, increasing equitable access to learning. The teachingstrategies are designed so they can be easily used at any point in the delivery of instruction. They do not add instructional time, but simply replace other instructional methods. GALS strategies can be used alone or in combination. Because students enjoy using these strategies, teachers quickly experience satisfying results. Thus, they are more likely to integrate the strategies into their daily practice.
Tools of the Mind
As stated on the Metropolitan State College of Denver website, Tools of the Mind is “a research-based early childhood program that builds strong foundations for school success in preschool and kindergarten children by promoting their intentional and self-regulated learning. In a series of rigorous experimental trials, Tools of the Mind has been shown to have a significant impact on self-regulation of preschool children. The study also found these gains in self-regulation to be related to scores in child achievement in early literacy and mathematics.”
As a professional development partner, Griffin Center staff Dr. Kim Atwill is working to translate pieces of the preschool curriculum, Tools of the Mind, into Spanish. Dr. Atwill and Tools developer Dr. Deborah Leong will then use these materials to train classroom staff in Florida in their use as part of the Tools of the Mind preschool program.
