Educators: Stay Informed, Seek Professional Advancement

In the past year I have been working with a number of educational leaders from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE). Each time I meet with these leaders I am inspired and impressed by their research, preparation, and respect for educators. Their leadership empowers our collective work in many ways, ways that teachers may access and participate in on a regular basis as one way to uplift, inform, and advance their efforts to teach well.

This is a list of some of the Massachusetts' Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) opportunities that will support your efforts to stay informed and participate:

• Teachers’ Top 3 from ESE: A bi-weekly e-newsletter just for teachers that’s brief and to the point.  http://DESE.Top3fromESE.sgizmo.com/s3/  Note that "Teachers' Top 3 from ESE" is looking for teachers to share their good work and writing so if anyone is interested in doing that, you may contact that newsletter staff. 
• Instructional Support Newsletter: This is a bi-monthly newsletter from the Center for Instructional Support. Please sign up here: 
• http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3096473/Center-for-Instructional-Support-e-Newsletter-Sign-Up
• Commissioner’s Weekly: A weekly email that's posted on ESE's main page and sent out on Friday afternoons from the Commissioner. While Superintendents are the intended audience, many others enjoy the content. To sign up, send an email to imailsrv@list1.doe.mass.edu with the following information in the body of the email: subscribe ESEUpdate Your Name. (Example: subscribe ESEUpdate John Smith) To unsubscribe, send an email to the same address with the following information in the body: unsubscribe ESEUpdate Your Name. (Example: unsubscribe ESEUpdate John Smith)
• Induction and Mentoring Report
  DESE recently released this report to support induction and mentoring efforts. To support these efforts, they also produce a Teacher Preparation Newsletter.

In the days ahead, I'll share a few more resources that were highlighted when I attended the state's West-Central Teacher Advisory Cabinet (TAC) meeting yesterday. One role of the teacher advisory cabinet is to share information with state colleagues. 

I appreciate the care with which these meetings are organized and carried out as it's an engaging, empowering, and educational way to uplift my practice and support my colleagues too.

I also serve on the MTA's professional learning committee. I continue to find our state union a wonderful source of inspiration and professional development and I will report out on those efforts as well.

It's in every educator's best interests to continually develop his/her craft in ways that matter. Though at times it can seem like too much on top of the daily work, this learning is truly what makes our teaching and learning meaningful and powerful for the students we teach and colleagues we collaborate with.