What does it look like when teachers become students again?
This summer, GFA became a space for a different kind of learning as faculty gathered to examine a question central to their work: How can we continually refine what happens in the classroom so that students learn more deeply?
That work began with members of GFA’s Math and Science Departments, who came together for an intensive summer retreat led by Erica Woolway of the Teach Like a Champion team. Over the course of the retreat, faculty explored lesson design, checking for understanding, cognitive science, and strategies for helping students develop the knowledge and fluency necessary for increasingly complex problem-solving.
The conversations invited teachers to look closely at the everyday decisions that shape learning: How do we know what students understand? When is a class ready to move forward? How can teachers design opportunities for students to retrieve and use what they have learned? And how can small changes in classroom practice lead to deeper thinking and greater independence?
The work continued when educator and author Doug Lemov returned to GFA to meet with the school’s Faculty Inquiry Group leaders. Best known as the author of Teach Like a Champion, Lemov has spent years studying the concrete practices that help students learn—from how teachers ask questions and check for understanding to how they build attention, knowledge, and fluency.
His visit continued a relationship with GFA that began several years ago, when Lemov first worked with faculty during a schoolwide professional development day. This time, the focus was not simply on a single day of professional learning, but on how that learning can continue once students and teachers return to classrooms.
GFA’s Faculty Inquiry Group leaders will carry this work into the coming school year, helping colleagues examine specific aspects of their practice, test new approaches in their classrooms, and reflect and refine alongside one another.
Supported in part by GFA’s Centennial Fund for Faculty Excellence, this ongoing investment in faculty learning is designed to have its greatest impact where it matters most: in the classroom.