Teachers gathered at the middle school campus for a Professional Development Day on Nov. 4. They chose two of six workshops, each of which were tailored to fit with one of the school’s six learning goals.

The six goals are the provision of social and emotional support, respect of the diversity in the classroom, clear articulation of learning goals, a variety of instructional modalities, encouragement of student metacognition and timely feedback, according to Director of Teaching and Learning Daniel Gutierrez.

Gutierrez said the event’s structure was intended to help teachers hold themselves accountable to their teaching goals.

“The same [sessions] of [the] same six topics with the same six facilitators [will] repeat in March, so that the faculty [can] continue their exploration of their two chosen topics throughout the entirety of the year,” Gutierrez said. “If I chose, for example, a session on metacognition and on feedback, I would then continue working on that all year, and then in March, come back and work with the same facilitator.”

Gutierrez said each workshop was a combination of lecture and discussion.

“We were very clear that we were hiring facilitators, not presenters, because even though they’re all going to share information with faculty, it’s really meant to be less [of] a lecture and more [of] a collaborative workshop, in which the teacher is under the guidance of a subject area expert, exploring ideas related to instruction,” Gutierrez said.

English Teacher Jill Turner, who attended the Feedback workshop, said she found it to be especially useful for essay grading.

“I found the focus on separating feedback from grades helpful, as well as the reminders on prioritizing what and how much feedback we give,” Turner said. “In my 19 years of teaching, I have never met an English teacher who wasn’t obsessed with this topic because we spend so much of our time commenting on and grading essays, and it’s important for us to always be learning about how to make sure that time translates to our students’ learning.”

History Teacher Celia Goedde, who attended the Metacognition workshop, said she learned about how to help students reflect on their learning.

“In the Metacognition workshop we discussed some of the theories around metacognition and ways to train students to assess their own patterns of thinking in order to become better learners,” Goedde said. “One example was to have students reflect on how well they were prepared for an assessment and to plan adjustments for future work.”

Turner said the facilitators’ educational expertise made the professional development day especially productive.

“I loved hearing from the presenters,” Turner said. “I loved that they were classroom teachers themselves, and I also, honestly, loved the spaces these experts built into the sessions so that I could professionally connect with some of my favorite educational experts: fellow Harvard-Westlake teachers.”