Gretchen Courtney & Associates, Ltd.

"Our purpose is to construct a strong sustainable structure for literacy development in every school environment."

Gretchen Courtney & Associates, Ltd. is a unique group of highly trained consultants specializing in professional development for literacy instruction.

For more than twenty years, Gretchen Courtney & Associates has led presentations, workshops, and staff development projects. Our consultants have years of classroom experience and consulting expertise. We deliver professional development packed with research-based information, classroom artifacts and anecdotes, and correlations to state standards and frameworks.

Gretchen Courtney & Associates, Ltd. also leads schools and school districts through a comprehensive curriculum organization and review process. Each aspect of lesson planning and curriculum mapping, from text selection to summative assessment, is designed with the specialized needs of each school population. Our six-step process for literacy engineering addresses all aspects of instruction, assessment, and learning.

We design your staff development program and carefully select your consultants to match the specific needs of your school community.

Teaching Adult Learners

What makes professional development successful?

Diane Sweeney notes how effective professional development “facilitates teacher thinking.” The goal, she says, is to have teachers “reflect upon their practice and to resist merely giving them a lesson idea for the next day.”

Professional development is most effective when it balances ideas with applications and helps contribute to a collaborative spirit and sense of community. When teachers are part of an active learning community, it is reflected in their classrooms’ atmospheres and students’ attitudes towards education.

– Sweeney, Diane (2003). Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.

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