Three receive inaugural Wood Faculty Professional Development Endowment awards

Darlington faculty members Julia Dodd, Jody Deaton and Rebekah Kinney have been selected from a pool of seven applicants to receive the inaugural Carla and Leonard Wood Faculty Professional Development Endowment awards, funded through the Second Century Campaign.

“All of the proposals showed ambition and creativity,” said Academic Dean David Powell. “The winners did a particularly good job of planning the projects, and included a measurable plan for bringing what they learned back to the rest of the faculty at Darlington.”

Dodd’s proposal focuses on exploring the flipped-classroom model, an instructional method that directly correlates to 21^st Century teaching and learning. The flipped classroom uses videos of short lectures or demonstrations as homework assignments, while class time is used for group and individual activities and labs.

“This model allows the teacher time in class to interact with students individually to address misconceptions and to ascertain mastery of concepts,” said Dodd, an Upper School chemistry teacher. “In addition to allowing class time to practice new procedures with the teacher present as guide, it would also be useful for students who miss class for illness or extracurricular activities, for substitutes’ lesson plans and for students who seek extra support outside of class.”

Dodd adds that videos could be made by both faculty and students and available online. “As teachers in each department become proficient in making and using the videos, they could in turn teach the method to their colleagues,” she said.

Deaton and Kinney, who teach second and fourth grade, respectively, submitted a proposal that focuses on building an even more robust reading and writing program at the Lower School. They will attend The Reading and Writing Project’s February Mini-Institute at Columbia University in New York.

“This workshop arms educators with a repertoire of skills for teaching young readers and writers to think analytically about nonfiction texts,” Deaton said. “We want to use our insights to help build more effective reading and writing education at the Lower School.”

Kinney said action plans will be explored to revise curricula in social studies, science and language arts. “In addition to finding new opportunities for students to work on interpretation and synthesis skills, we hope to develop a Reading and Writing Workshop mentoring program,” she added.

In response to the Second Century Campaign’s effort to increase endowment for faculty support, Trustee Leonard Wood challenged the Darlington Community to get on board by offering to provide a 1:1 match of every gift to this area of the campaign up to $500,000. His call was answered as 37 donors funded half of The Carla and Leonard Wood Faculty Professional Development Endowment, allowing Darlington to claim the remainder of the matching gift from the Wood family.

This year’s Wood Professional Development Endowment awards provide for $10,000 in grants. From this point forward, grants will be awarded in two categories: faculty development and summer travel. Four faculty development grants of up to $10,000 will be awarded each year, with another $10,000 to be used for summer travel grants.

“The Carla and Leonard Wood Faculty Professional Development Endowment is allowing us to build a culture of continual professional development among our faculty,” Powell said. “Teachers tend to be learners, but the intense routine of the teaching year makes it difficult for us to plan for our own growth. Therefore, we sometimes lean on what we already know from year to year. Time set aside for travel and study, and money set aside for tuition, materials and other resources, will allow teachers to explore the newest research in their fields and adopt the best practices of innovative programs.”

To find out how you can make a difference in the life of a student or faculty member and for more information about the Second Century Campaign, contact the campaign staff at campaign@darlingtonschool.org.