Few things can be as intimidating for an educator as teaching colleagues. "There's always the chance that someone may know even more about your topic than you do," said Claudia King, a member of the Wappingers Congress of Teachers, Dutchess County. "Plus, you want to make sure that the time you spend with colleagues is worthwhile and enjoyable."

King and a team of 24 other Wappingers secondary educators faced their peers and fears recently, participating in a unique workshop — developed by NYSUT's Education & Learning Trust — at the district's two high schools.

Improving content-specific literacy skills among secondary students was the focus. The trainers offered specific strategies for helping educators reinforce reading comprehension among students — techniques they learned a month earlier at an intensive train-the-trainer session led by ELT staffers.

The importance of literacy is a concern across all school districts, particularly at the secondary education level, King explained. "If kids don't understand what they're reading, they can't absorb the content."

The training was sparked by Wappingers Congress of Teachers President Pasquale Delli Carpini, who reached out to ELT after district administrators asked if the statewide union provided literacy workshops. Feedback in the months since has been overwhelmingly positive, Delli Carpini said.

"Our members were very grateful and enthusiastic about being trained by their colleagues and found the workshops to be very useful and informative," he said. "This was a true collaboration between the Wappingers Congress of Teachers, ELT and the Wappingers Central School District."

Teamwork in Schenectady

Empowering teachers to share best practices was also the goal of a series of ELT-led workshops at middle schools in Schenectady.

Juliet Benaquisto, president of the Schenectady Federation of Teachers, reached out to ELT for integrated co-teaching training after her building principal instituted a full inclusion teaching model for special education students.

The change meant special education and general education teachers would team-teach in nearly all subject areas.

"I didn't think of ELT for the training at first," said Benaquisto, a special education teacher at Mont Pleasant Middle School, who worked with administrators to arrange the workshop. "However, I was impressed with the flexibility of the program. They were willing to design something that really targeted our needs."

ELT staffers developed a customized workshop to teach participants to function as a team.

"We want to get both teachers to think in terms of 'our students' rather than 'yours and mine,'" said ELT trainer Kevin McIntyre. A retired member of the Washingtonville Teachers Association, McIntyre conducted the workshops with fellow ELT trainer Gayle Ratner, a Chazy TA retiree. "We also want both teachers to be perceived as lead teachers — both on the part of the students and the teachers themselves."

School administrators, with feedback from union leaders, identified a roster of special education and general education teachers who will be trained as turnkey instructors.

These individuals will provide ongoing support to co-teaching teams. Overall response to the training, which ran from late October through mid December, has been positive.

"The presenters from the ELT program were teachers who had experience doing what our teachers would be doing — they brought credibility to the process," Benaquisto said. "They understand the challenges our teachers will face and that's a lot different from having someone who is not in the classroom telling you how things should be done."

The Wappingers and Schenectady workshops are just a sample of the professional development programming that ELT offers teachers and School-Related Professionals.

Member districts have the flexibility of selecting programs from ELT's catalog of workshops, or working with ELT staffers to design programs to meet their specific needs. Half-day, full-day, 15-hour and custom program lengths are available. Graduate, undergraduate and in-service courses are also offered through the ELT program.

For details about coursework and workshops offered through ELT, or to organize training in your district, contact the program at 800-528-6208 or eltmail@nysutmail.org, or check out the ELT brochure at www.nysut.org/ELT/seminars.

— Kara Smith