In her English class at the American Sign Language and English Secondary School in Gramercy, teacher Mindy Gorlin has had her students practice mindfulness — a mental exercise designed to improve focus and concentration — for years.

“There’s so much benefit to it,” she says. “It’s astounding to watch how it can eliminate behavioral issues.”

Other colleagues expressed an interest in trying it with their own students. So when teachers were asked to choose areas of interest to focus on for professional development, Gorlin found herself on a mindfulness committee, which meets to discuss how to expand the school’s practice in a meaningful way.

“We’re brainstorming ideas for a resource library, thinking about how to create more structure for practice in school and how to do more research to show that it works,” Gorlin says.

At a recent meeting, teachers discussed how to adapt aspects of the practice to fit the needs of their school, at which all students take classes in Deaf Culture and American Sign Language.

The mindfulness committee is just one of the ways in which educators at the ASL and English Secondary School have been able to use the dedicated PD time in the new UFT-DOE contract to customize their individual professional learning experiences.

Because the school exercised a school-based option to dismiss students early on Wednesday afternoons, their PD time lasts almost three hours — long enough to shift gears from grade meetings to department teams to interest-based committees.

In addition to the mindfulness committee, a Google Apps committee has taken on the task of getting the whole school set up to work collaboratively using Google Apps for Education. A grant-writing committee works together to learn the process of applying for grants.

Probationary teachers preparing for tenure meet regularly as a group, and teachers have also formed “expert teams” around the Danielson Framework for Teaching, selecting components to focus on based on their personal goals.

In grade and department teams, teachers participate in lesson studies modeled after the intensive Japanese lesson study, in which teachers work collaboratively over a number of weeks to plan, deliver and reflect on a single lesson.

“Each group has a facilitator, and the expectation is that there are norms set and protocols used for sharing,” says Anne Yerger, the school’s UFT Teacher Center coach. “A big reason we push it is because we want teachers to see what these sharing protocols look and feel like so they can use it in their own classrooms.”

Teachers check in frequently through online survey reflections to give feedback on what their needs and interests are.

“We’re building toward a place where teachers can be more autonomous in their professional learning,” Yerger says.