This is the second of a multi-part series of Summer feature stories, designed to highlight important aspects of education both here in North Colonie and New York State. To learn more about this series, click here.

Posted July 28, 2011

Shaker High School chemistry teachers gather together to review curriculum and re-write new sections for the upcoming 2011-12 school year.

While North Colonie students enter the second month of summer vacation, their teachers are hard at work, demonstrating that there is little rest for the weary as they are already preparing for the 2011-12 school year.

Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Ms. Kathleen Skeals has put together a summer curriculum development program that contains nearly 40 workshops which will not only look to meet and exceed current standards, but also develop new programs that will improve an already robust curriculum.

“We have about 150 teachers taking part in nearly 40 workshops this summer,” Skeals said. “There are new standards that we as a district have to meet and the summer provides us the opportunity to discuss the best instructional practices in order to help our students achieve those higher standards.”

The Common Core State Standards are the culmination of an extended, broad-based effort to fulfill the charge issued by New York State to create the next generation of K–12 standards in order to help ensure that all students are college and career ready no later than the end of high school.

Skeals highlights the K-6 Math workshop and the Secondary English workshop as two specific sessions that will go a long way in meeting the Common Core Learning Standards set by New York State. Both workshops will analyze curricula, assessment and instructional methodology to determine alignment to the Common Core Learning Standards.

“The goal of these workshops is to offer our teachers the best professional development opportunities available,” Skeals said. “The workshops are job-embedded, relevant and the perfect combination of philosophy and practice.”

Among the workshops being held this summer is a Digital Electronics/Robotics session. This innovative course allows students to design circuits and program microcontrollers utilizing BASIC or Java programming languages. Utilizing this base of knowledge, students are able to design, build, and program robots to perform various tasks.

“There was a great emphasis in this workshop on building web-based resources for our students,” Director of Occupational Education Dave Arnone said. “The development of these resources will only help to enhance the course.”

All of the hard work put in by the teachers over the summer will benefit North Colonie students when school begins in September. The collaboration among teachers inevitably leads to the sharing of best practices, something that is difficult to do during the hustle and bustle of a school year.

“This time gives us the chance to bring down the walls in between our classrooms and allows our educators to see what everyone is doing,” Skeals said. “This is not a time to sit back and say ‘We’ve done enough’. We need to continue to do what we’ve always done which is to work for our students to put them in a position to be as successful as possible. It starts each year with this staff development time over the summer.”