I recently attended two Region 4 conferences. One was the Digital Learning conference (where I presented a session with a SS IC and a Math IC one easy tech tips to organize and streamline your life) and the other was the Social Studies conference (where I presented a session with a SS IC on total participation activities for students). Both conferences had some great presentations that sparked new ideas. I enjoyed sessions on using maps to teach broach concepts in social studies, visiting exhibit halls to see the latest in smart board technology, and video hosting platforms for coaching like Torsch, I enjoyed makerspace sessions and I caught a review of a session on warm-ups that I saw in Corpus at TCSS as well, and then a nice perspective on using student backgrounds to maximize their potentials and empathy for others.
What Professional Learning have you attended lately? Was it worth it? Any new ideas?? Sometimes I feel like conferences are good and you get new ideas and other times I feel like I’m inspired by more things by reading and visiting teachers every day in class. Where do you learn your new ideas? What does your professional learning look like? Do you learn from books, the teacher next door, your admin team, an instructional coach, summertime PD?
Hopefully it’s all of the above and more! Twitter? Blogs? I wonder if too many educators rely only on campus provided (mandatory)/summer PD? How many amazing ideas, research, concepts, ideas are they missing? How can we inspire all educators to want to continue to learn and grow every day in different avenues instead of it being just isolated to a single session or day of PD here and there?
The Empowered Learner 