November 25, 2024
By Michelle Welk, Marketing & Communications
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast episode to hear Olena Poteriaiko, an English teacher in Ukraine, share her experience at the Teaching with Improvisation Fellowship Institute this summer and how she is integrating what she’s learned into her classroom and school community.
Early in the school year, I had the opportunity to reconnect with Olena Poteriaiko, an English teacher at Novopecherska School in Kyiv and a 2024-2025 Teaching with Improvisation Fellow. In addition to joining us for the three-day Institute in Washington, DC this summer, Ms. Poteriaiko attended Inspired Teaching’s virtual training program with thousands of her fellow Ukrainian teachers in August 2023. We facilitated that three-day program in partnership with Osvitoria, a leading Ukrainian education NGO.
Apply to be a 2025-2026 Teaching with Improvisation Fellow today!
Classroom visits are an ongoing part of the Teaching with Improvisation Fellowship; my colleague, Director of Teaching and Learning Jenna Fournel, has been making regular trips to the classrooms of Fellows local to Washington, DC in recent weeks. Given the logistical challenges of visiting Ms. Poteriaiko’s classroom in Kyiv, we checked in via Zoom. And I was thrilled to hear what she shared about her takeaways from the summer Institute, the Inspired Teaching-fueled professional development she brought to her colleagues, and the community she is building among her students.
I encourage you to listen to our full conversation on this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast at the button below. While the circumstances Ms. Poteriaiko is teaching under may be vastly different from our own, her insights have relevance for teachers everywhere.
There is always something new to learn about one another.
One of the Inspired Teaching activities Olena brought back to her students was the Museum of Me, which she initially planned to take a lesson or two but which, per student enthusiasm, ended up as a week-long project. In addition to being a wonderful tool for helping to create classroom connections, Olena shared that even students who have known one another for years discovered new things about their friends through this activity.
Stepping outside of your comfort zone is exhausting – and rewarding.
Most teachers who participate in Inspired Teaching professional development have never encountered professional learning like ours. It requires that participants be fully present and engaged – often physically to varying degrees but always mentally and emotionally – in the experience. Olena noted how tired she was after the Teaching with Improvisation Institute wrapped in late June, and inspired.
“But when you have some time to sit down and to reconsider … I have a lot of memories about conversations, about activities, about general atmosphere, emotions and feelings and some deeply personal insights that I had during that time. So that was amazing.”
Share what you learn.
Inspired Teaching’s approach to professional development is designed to equip educators with the mindset, strategies, and activities we want to see reflected in their approach to teaching: authentically engaging, curiosity driven, joyful. But bringing Inspired Teaching into their classroom is just one part of the equation; sharing what they’ve learned with their colleagues acts as an important multiplier. Ms. Poteriaiko’s experience is a wonderful example of this – she led a three-hour professional development session for her fellow English teachers at the start of the school year. Together, her department reaches nearly 300 students.
Not every teacher will be able to lead a three-hour PD session, but every teacher can pass along an issue of Hooray For Monday, a digital guidebook, or a flier for an upcoming Institute.
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!