Professional Development
These are some of the key professional development events I've attended in chronological order, the most recent at the top.
- English Language Arts Assessment Consortium (Pamela Hunniset, Calgary Regional Consortium): Four times during the 2017-18 year, I joined other language arts teachers (grades 7-12) to discuss strategies and resources to better assess students' reading comprehension, thinking, and writing. Among other changes I made, I implemented a Socratic Seminar in my grade 10 English class; students reported deeply enjoying the experience, and I was very impressed by the quality of thinking and discussion that resulted from the activity.
- How to Make Money From Your Writing eCourse: This was an online course I took through GALE Education during summer 2016 to understand the processes involved in going from a blank page to paid publication. This enhanced my ability to work with students interested in pursuing careers in writing.
- Getting Started With Game Development eCourse: This was an online course I took through GALE Education during summer 2016 to understand the basics of video game development for personal and academic application. I plan to continue developing the skills and knowledge needed to both create and teach others to create video games.
- Cartooning (Alberta College of Art & Design with Brian Batista): This course allowed me to brush up on my cartooning skills, to see how to scaffold the learning experience, and to become more aware of enrichment opportunities for youth in the city. I applied this to my own teaching of cartooning at the junior high level.
- GAFE Summit: This conference exposed me to a number of Google apps and add-ons that I now use in my teaching regularly, especially Google Classroom. I was also introduced to EdPuzzle and Screencastify, which have assisted me with engaging and assessing my students via video-based technology.
- Calgary ORC Information Evening: Resources to Support the Grade 7-12 Curriculum: This session was extremely helpful in identifying authoritative, current, curriculum-aligned, user-friendly resources for teachers and students alike. The ORC will be my preferred starting point (rather than Google) for conducting and teaching research.
- How to Deal with Difficult Parents Workshop (Dawn L. McBride & Alyson Worrall): This workshop was an incredible experience. It included hands-on, role-based training via a variety of real-life scenarios that addressed fears and weaknesses head on. I felt much more competent and capable of being able to negotiate tense situations and navigate conflict to achieve a win-win.
- SWATCA: I found the session on 'anti-bullying' from the Alberta Civil Liberties Association insightful and realistic. The session on the teenage brain was a game-changer for me, and I've made various changes to my teaching approach as a result.
- Strategies for Differentiating Instruction Workshop (Lenee Fyfe): This gave me some excellent hands-on experiences and activities I could try in the classroom to differentiate based on process. It got me more interested in Carol Ann Tomlinson's work.
- LethCamp: This 'un-conference' completely blew me out of the water. It was fantastic to be able to choose from so many great session topics and connect with teachers, administrators, and others working in the field to glean from their experiences and resources. I chose sessions on English Language Learners, FNMI integration, parent engagement, and support for new teachers.
- Apple Education Early Learning Tour: It was neat to try some of the (costly) apps and to see how a person could create a really interactive e-textbook, but it was way too heavy on the sales pitch. It also drove home that I need more experience using Apple products (I am a PC and Windows lover).
- Teacher as a Bully (Carmen Mombourquette): Carmen gave a clear definition of bullying (what it is, what it’s not): we need to be clearer about this. In that vein, he didn’t discuss why it’s important to distinguish between bullying and one-off misbehavior – i.e., how would we deal with the two differently? I liked he emphasized that bullying as teacher starts with our beliefs about kids (do we believe ALL can learn, or only some?).
- Digital Citizenship (George Couros): I loved the approach of preventing bullying by having kids speak positively of one another in a public arena, and of getting kids to use social media to share what they’re learning and inspire adults online. George spoke about how his goal is to ensure that kids are able to make a living and do what they love, which I liked. But I also feel that it's important that public education is not merely a private, individual good: we need an ethical and engaged citizenry.
- Dealing with and Prevention of Bullying & Cyberbullying (Rhoda Trehearne): I liked idea of having a list of phrases you can use to diffuse situations with kids and parents, and of teaching kids skills to make and keep friends.
- Teaching Boys (Carmen Mombourquette): I appreciated the large body of studies and evidence referenced, and was encouraged to find out that some schools promote safe wrestling. I want to look into this more.
- FNMI Workshop (Cathy Campbell, Jamie Medicine Crane): This workshop gave me additional resources, and I especially enjoyed the activities and personal stories to increase my understanding of Aboriginal perspectives and of the impact integration of FNMI content can have for my students.
- Twitter: Why Start Now? (Kurtis Hewson): I loved Kurtis' clear explanation of Twitter jargon, and appreciated knowing about using a Twitter client for the best experience. I would like to see how someone uses a client and effectively participates in a chat, because it just seems frustrating and futile to me.
- Developing Your PLN (Kurtis Hewson): It was good to know that PLN can easily include people from all over the globe via Twitter. I appreciated learning about various collaboration tools.
- The Evolution of Digital Footprints (Kurtis Hewson): I liked Kurtis' focus on getting rid of the negative while flooding the web with your positive and inspirational online presence; however, it was very high-level with not much application.
- Flipping Out: Creating Video for the Flipped Classroom and more (Harold Jansen): It was great to learn about the do's, don't's, when's, why's, and how's of flipping a classroom through creating instructional videos. I immediately downloaded a trial version of Camtasia and created two videos shortly after: one for my tech class, and one for my presentation to my practicum class.
- Talking About Teaching – Disrupting Your Regular Teaching Program (various presenters): I was drawn to the idea of restructuring a high school English classroom and the lesson itself after the structure of the text the class is analysing and experiencing. I think it would be fun and engaging for everyone.
- Teacher as Performer (John Poulsen): This workshop was a fantastic introduction to the world of teaching. It increased my awareness of body language and tone, and built my confidence.