Consulting
The Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School offers consulting services to schools and educational organizations.
The Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School offers consulting services to schools and educational organizations that are looking to connect with practitioners who have deep experience in the following areas:
- Integrating the arts across the curriculum;
- Building a culture of thinking in a classroom or across a school;
- Educating for global competence and bringing global issues into the classroom setting;
- Maker-centered learning;
- Creating and sustaining a network of educators across a region who are passionate about teaching and learning;
- Fostering civic agency in young people;
- Curriculum mapping with understanding at the center;
- Inquiry-based learning;
- Playful learning;
- Adapting Reggio-inspired pedagogical practices for early childhood and beyond.
Over the last nine years, educators in FCPS have engaged in deep and impactful professional learning through the DCPZ network of educators led by Jim Reese. I, along with many, have come to understand first-hand a core principle of the Cultures of Thinking Project: For classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students, schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.
The PDC consultants have engaged and motivated faculty to examine their practices and engage in new ideas to deepen the learning of students. Before the events, consultants spent time learning about our needs and desired outcomes and then developed a day of learning that catered to our school's needs.
Through questions in his workshops, [Jim Reese] pushed teachers to reflect on creating a culture of thinking and understanding in the classroom and throughout the school, harnessing the eight cultural forces in the classroom to create powerful learning experiences, and then understanding what is meant by global competence and how we might foster it in ourselves and in our students.
