Community begins with a shared vision. At Duke School our faculty members belong to a professional learning community; together they share the vision of always becoming better at their practice. Our highly skilled teachers work daily in a supportive and collaborative manner to deepen their understanding of curriculum, to implement new teaching practices, to learn better ways to enhance their students’ growth, and to develop a professional community where teachers learn from other teachers.
Our teachers engage in reflective practice through divisional, team and individual goal setting, study groups, committee work, ongoing team planning, peer coaching, and mentoring. The teachers actively seek out opportunities for professional growth through weekly time set aside for sharing ideas about fine-tuning their current practice and setting goals to implement new instructional methods for their students. Through this time of working together, our teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from each other. Our math, literacy, and project committee work allows teachers from each grade level to set curriculum goals for improvement. In addition, our curriculum committees set growth goals each year that we develop, implement, and evaluate at the end of each school year.
Our teachers are life-long learners. They inspire in their students the virtues of a learning community: curiosity, honesty, fairness, respect, the ability to reason and consider multiple perspectives, creativity and risk-taking, and the ability to be a problem solver. They engage in life-long learning and they recognize their obligation to work together on school wide staff development goals. When you ask teachers what they love about working at Duke School, they will state, “I love the opportunities to learn and grow with my colleagues, and the variety of staff development opportunities provided by the school.” Our teachers’ willingness to work in continuous collaboration to develop their practice and seek solutions together is a major factor in the success of our learning community and our shared vision.
-Sandy Gillespie
Lower School Director
