My Professional Learning has been an important part of my growth as an educator throughout my career. It has included those formal events such as workshops, conventions, curriculum in-services and other organized events that are part of being a teacher. It has also included a large number of events where I have chosen to learn on my own because, as an educator, being a life-long learner is important to continuing to grow as a person and a professional. Listed below are a number of the certificates I have received from learning events outside those offered through school divisions. They also include presentations that I have done.
One of my first professional development opportunities was to be a cooperating teacher. I was lucky enough to be able to take part twice as a mentor and, then as an administrator, facilitate the opportunities for teachers to be cooperating teachers.
This was training I took in order to meet the needs of students and staff when dealing with the tragedy of suicide.
This was a course offered to assist administrators to help them become better able to dialogue with others.
These courses from Harvard University Graduate School of Education were offered in a partnership between HUGSE and Saskatchewan Learning.
An article that I wrote that discusses the use of various technologies in building communication with parents.
This course was focused on implementing PBIS at the school level and was taken to assist me in helping staff, students and parents as the division implemented PBIS across the division.
This short course was 5 days where I was able to work and talk with other new administrators. It was a great event. Eventually I was asked to present a session on technology use at one of the courses.
One of the presentations I did at the TLt Summit. I was able to present at the summit twice about learning and technology. This presentation focused on the work of Daniel Pink, Thomas Friedman and James Kunstler, the work I was doing with the Flat Classroom Project and tools such as twitter and blogging.
Working with other staff to develop a handbook was a great learning opportunity and a chance to work with other professionals from within the school division and gain a different perspective on learning and school.
This opportunity to work with other administrators to develop and reshape the administrator courses was one of the early highlights of my work as an administrator.
One of the roles I enjoyed was as a member of the Assessment Leadership Team that worked toward incorporating Ken O’Connors work within the school division.
As a mentor for other administrators, I worked with a team as part of the program to help new administrators.