Dive Brief:
- Connecticut's State Department of Education on Wednesday announced its selection of 97 teachers from 86 elementary, middle, and high schools across the state to participate in TeachFest Connecticut.
- TeachFest is an intensive professional development event facilitated by LearnZillion and focused on the Common Core State Standards, and the selected teachers, dubbed the "Connecticut Dream Team," will be tasked with producing high-quality resources to share with their peers.
- Once they return to their schools, the teachers will work with peers and content coaches in online professional learning communities to make their resources available on CTCoreStandards.org before serving as teacher leaders at the state's "Common Core Fest" on July 29.
Dive Insight:
The resources produced by the Connecticut Dream Team won't just be available in Connecticut — teachers nationwide will be able to access them in a free online database. According to the press release, the group of teachers were chosen based on "their content knowledge, grit, and understanding of the
Common Core State Standards," and the state also has training sessions in the works for 600 new teachers, student teachers, and mentors.
The Dream Team concept, however, is an interesting one that seems like something other states using the Common Core could easily adopt as a method of sharing best practices for the new national standards.
