The Beach Court staff collaborated today to begin professional development around “backward design”. The session was co-facilitated by the facilitator and a fifth grade teacher who had used the process to work through her poetry unit. We were provided with a template and given a clear and scaffolded account of how Melissa used the template to plan, monitor and adjust her instruction. At the end of the session I met with the two math/science teachers and we applied the template to their upcoming units. It was a useful process and I believe it will help them focus the upcoming unit. I will be meeting with them again on December 11th and we will continue to refine the plan. I believe this may be a good leverage point to target my upcoming work around the UBD book and its strategies.