Wright makes sure that teachers and soon-to-be teachers are state of the art instructors.
Wright School GOAL 2:
Educators increase their professional knowledge and skills through academic study; collegial inquiry and research; dialogue with university faculty; use of technology in ways that meet Illinois professional teaching standards; and work with university observers, interns and student teachers.
At Wright, all faculty meetings include professional development. NIU faculty helped teachers integrate arts and technology in their classroom.
Personnel from Yale University spent a week in DeKalb working with Wright teachers in summer 2004 to create lesson plans using an instructional model developed by Dr. Robert Sternberg that emphasizes analytical, practical and creative thinking as an approach to meeting the differing learning needs of students.
New principal Gina Greenwald, classroom teachers, and NIU faculty liaison in literacy, Susan L’Allier, traveled to Yale in summer 2005. There, faculty developed lesson plans that are now in use in classrooms along with other Sternberg-model lessons created in 2004.
An NIU master’s degree program in Elementary Education is offered on-site for Wright teachers and other district staff.
