TAKE ONE!
“The best professional conversations I’ve ever had!” “I can’t believe what the video revealed about my teaching style and the children’s focus!”  Such are the comments from some of the 26 Teachers participating in TAKE ONE! 

Take One! is a unique offering from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which helps teachers reflect on their own classroom instructional practices within the context of national teaching standards.

These 26 teachers from Cleveland City and Bradley County Schools have chosen to challenge themselves, evaluate themselves and submit themselves to peer evaluation as well.  All with the objective to become a better teacher, a more effective professional.  Making the critical link between teaching practice and student learning gains is the goal of Take One! and National Board Certification. 

NBPTS was established 25 years ago by teachers for teachers with this in mind:  helping teachers improve and helping students learn.  Sounds simple?  Not so much!
Each teacher participating in Take One! chooses one of the National Board’s 25 certificate areas specific to his or her teaching expertise and students’ subject area and developmental age.  The National Board materials specific to the certificate area enable the teacher to critically evaluate his/her practice primarily through a video-recorded lesson and a written commentary describing and critically analyzing it.

Submitting this package of analysis to NBPTS begins the peer review.  Teachers who specialize in the same certificate area evaluate and grade the submission.  If the grade is high enough, it can be “banked” toward full National Board Certification, billed as the ultimate professional development experience.

Congratulations to the 2010 Take One! Participants!