TeacherDrivenChange

 

 

CTA IFT Educator and Chapter Mini Grants

The CTA IFT is excited about CTA IFT Mini Grant Program and the possibilities and opportunities it has for CTA members and chapters.  To find out more about the CTA IFT Mini Grant Program, click here for a welcome and information video message from Dick Gale, CTA IFT Department Manager.

Apply for a CTA Institute for Teaching Mini Grant to support srength-based, teacher-driven reform for students and public schools.  Educator grants will be awarded to individuals and small teams of teachers in amounts up to $5,000. Chapter grants will be awarded to associations for amounts up to $20,000. Continue reading.

CTA IFT Teacher Learning & Resource Centers Are you an algebra, chemistry, or language arts teacher?  Do you teach preschool, sixth grade, or high school civics?  Perhaps, you are a school counselor, special educator, or a community college faculty member.  Whatever your grade, subject, or discipline the IFT has a book and resource for you.  The IFT is pleased to introduce a new feature on teacherdrivenchange.org which will help you develop lesson plans, strategic goals for your classroom, and align your curriculum to state standards. Each Learning & Resource Center  -  Professional Development, Elementary Education, and Secondary Education  -  provides one-stop, just-in-time support for all of your teaching needs.

Is Imagination Dead?

In the Movie Six Degrees of Separation, Will Smith explains how imagination is an integral part of our individuality.  The film discusses the importance of imagination and how we have lost our sense of purpose and direction.  Many teachers believe that imagination and creativity have been eliminated in our schools and replaced with state mandates.  Watch the film, discuss it with your colleagues, and comment below.

Applying Appreciative Inquiry to Testing and State Standards

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a strength-based approach that is very popular. AI's fundamental approach is to discover, honor, and amplify what works in a system or organization. AI can be used with individual students, one-on-one student-teacher relationships, classrooms, schools, school districts and school communities. AI has also been found to be a positive force for creating success for students that have known only failure. By focusing on student strengths over deficits, teachers have been able to help students gain the necessary confidence and commitment to be successful. Click here to find how one teacher changed the lives of students. Other resources include:

Leading Strength-Based School Change

A Conversation on the Future of Education

Student Discipline: A Strength-Based approach

If your school is experiencing high suspension and expulsion rates, you and your colleagues may want to consider practices and procedures based on student assets and strengths?   Click here to learn how a school task force made up of adult and student stakeholders devised a series of interventions that included student-led efforts to improve discipline policies and procedures. These interventions increased personal accountability, leadership, resiliency, self-management, and social competence in students as opposed to merely reducing student deficits in the form of undesirable behaviors.