The Rhinebeck Central School District served as one of five regional sites in Dutchess County on Superintendent’s Conference Day Nov. 4.
Katie Egan Cunningham and Maegan Giroux were both invited by Dutchess BOCES to lead keynote sessions.
Giroux, a teacher from Saskatchewan, Canada, is the author of the 2024-released book, “Mathematics Tasks for the Thinking Classroom, Grades K-5.” She led the session called “Introduction to Building Thinking Classrooms.”
“We’re just going to be having a good time doing some math and talking about maybe why this math feels this different than other math,” said Giroux. “It’s just a different structure of how to teach mathematics and a different way that can help kids think more.
“I just hope they get some practical tips and some understanding as to why I’m doing certain things. I would love for them to have a good understanding of why I am doing things,[IG1] but also know how to implement it themselves.”
Cunningham, a professor and program director for teacher education at Sacred Heart University, led four sessions including the keynote one to start the day titled “Shifting Literacy Practices with Science and Joy at the Center.”
“We’re all here for professional learning related to how we make school more optimal for all kids,” she said. “I hope I translate reading science, which can be somewhat complicated and a little bit overwhelming for teachers.
“I hope I translated that reading science in ways that are both memorable and accessible for teachers, really so that they can make shifts to their practices to make it easier rather than harder for all kids to become successful skilled readers.”
The sessions led by Egan Cunningham and Giroux were just some of the workshops offered to teachers at Rhinebeck, which was a site with Arlington, Beacon, Dutchess BOCES and Wappingers.
Katie Torres, kindergarten teacher at Chancellor Livingston Elementary School, attended Egan Cunningham’s first workshop.
“It’s been wonderful,” said Torres. “I was really excited for Dr. Cunningham to come because I’m taking letters training about the science of reading at the same time, and even though I’m doing two separate ones, it’s nice to tie it together and to pull out new nuggets of information that you can apply.
“I love to walk away from days like this where it’s like ‘I can’t wait to get to tomorrow and try this out.’ ”
[IG1]This essentially duplicates last part of previous sentence. I’d cut it and combine quotes.