After the Designated Professional Development at Althouse College

In hectic preparation for the above-referenced Professional Development Event, last weeks' blog never made it to "post" so in a nutshell, here is what took place:

Almost 700 members participated in a full-day PD on April 8th.  Throughout the day, registrants found their way to participate in over 25 sessions.  The day started at 9:00am with greetings from the Board and a brief Q & A session.  Our keynote speaker was Rob Nickel, a retired Ontario Provincial Police officer who spent over half of his career working undercover online in the Child Pornography section of the OPP.  He is a world respected expert in his field and speaks internationally to audiences about keeping kids safe on the Internet.  Full- day sessions included Ultimate Strategies for the New Teacher with Wendy Hawcutt,  Arts in an Integrated Curriculum with Polly Stringle, and Power to Change with Mohini Athia and Charline Rowan.  After the morning break, the second half of the day offered over 22 other sessions.  We're still siphoning through the evaluation forms but for the most part, our members felt this was a very beneficial event and those who participated were most appreciative for the opportunity.

As a side note, we are the only local in the province to offer paid PD on this scale to our members- thanks to the vision and efficiency of our Executive!

On a similar note of professional advancement and improvement, we are constantly looking to improve and add to our resumes with various professional development.  Here are a couple of websites available to you to visit that offer free courses for you to take in the privacy of your own home, or on your time-schedule, 24 hours a day.
They are: 

1. http://www.offfeo.on.ca/ - which focuses on PD for grades kindergarten to Grade 12, including subjects such as the arts, foreign languages, history, literature, math and science to name a few.
2.  http://www.gcflearnfree.org/ - which offers various basic computer courses, such as Microsoft office and facebook guidance.

As previously mentioned, this is your career.  With today's employment numbers for our profession, there are many teachers and few positions- you have to make the effort to be selected for the interview for that job!

 

A.Q.s will get you the interview -

P.D. will get you the job!