Teachers Give Back at This Year's Professional Development Institute

On Monday, June 13, teachers chose one of five possible service opportunities to complete during the afternoon with their coworkers: 

• Prepping and packaging food at Project Open Hand
• Gardening at the Richmond District Neighborhood Center
• Restoring Mountain Lake in the Presidio
• Delivering disaster prep kits for Meals on Wheels
• Sorting clothing at St. Anthony Foundation

Then, on Tuesday, teachers took a look at how to incorporate similar opportunities and service learning as a whole into their curricula through an Idea Lab. With the help and guidance of Star Moore, Director of Community Engaged Learning at USF, and John Traynor, Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Gonzaga University, Burke's faculty members worked in small groups or on their own to tackle the question of: What can service learning at Burke's look like?

The Idea Lab model extended through the end of the week, with time on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday dedicated to the Understanding by Design model — which is guiding much of the curriculum development now taking place at Burke's — with tutorials provided by Denise Wilbur of Authentic Education as well as other Burke's educators and administrators. The Idea Lab was also intended to give teachers the time and space to work on cross-grade and -discipline curricula using this model.

As in previous years, the 2016 Professional Development Institute is the direct result of funds raised at Dinner Auction.