Inspired in Dallas

I just returned from a week-long professional development trip in Dallas, TX. I attended the AVID Summer Institute held at the Hilton Anatole and returned....totally inspired, rejuvenated, and ready to teach another year. It's hard to believe this fall marks the start of my 6th year teaching. It feels like it's really flown by, however, after this past year I left for summer vacation feeling totally worn out. My students, god love them, really drained me this year. I was exhausted after finals. My teaching schedule will be changing this year and I had to get some training in the AVID program.

AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. It's basically a program for kids who have the potential to take honors and AP classes and want to go to college, but who don't have the support at home and are most likely the first in their family to go to college. It's a program that provides a support system within the school and pushes these students to excel instead of fall through the cracks. Once identified, the students are asked to apply and interview for admission into AVID. If they are accepted, they take an AVID elective course in their schedule each year. This one period a day offers them tutoring, study skills, and guest speakers. Teachers trained in AVID are basically taught a whole new way to teach their classes. We studied right brain and left brain functions and learned a variety of methods for inputing information and hundreds of different ways to have our students process the information (output) to ensure a greater understanding. We also are then ACE's within our school (Academic Counselors Extraordinaire) which means I will have six or seven students this year that I will personally keep track of. Our mornings at Summer Institute consisted of a four hour class in subject specific areas. Mine was obviously science. It was completely worthwhile and I learned so much. In the afternoons we met with our site teams for 2 and half hours to plan things out within our school. We had evenings off.

Not only did the group I went with from North Canyon consist of some really cool people, I met even more great teachers within our morning sessions. Staying at the Hilton didn't hurt either. I braved the Dallas humidity for a 6-7 mile run each morning on the paved outdoor jogging path. My site team and I enjoyed dining out each night and we even got some shopping done. We hit up North Park one evening and the serious shoppers among us bargain hunted at Sam Moon.

The highlight of my week was most definitely the AVID luncheon held on Thursday. We heard three student speakers who were just amazing. I am sure there was not a dry eye in the place. Although it was hard to leave Keeper & Chloe for another week after just traveling for a month, it was well worth it. I am totally geared up for another school year!