"It's Been A Long Time....I Shouldn't Have Left You...."

Wow!  It has indeed been a long time since I've posted!  I have been extremely busy with my own school (pursuing my Ed.D.) and work...along with the normal mom and wife duties.  This summer, I have been charged with putting courses together for teachers in my county.  I started off a little slow but with the help of a couple of my coworkers, I have ventured out and will be teaching all eight...yes EIGHT classes online!!!!!  Am I crazy?  I think not...I am simply challenging myself to offer the best professional development for the teachers that enroll in my courses.  I am excited to be facilitating 2 book studies this summer online based on three of my favorite books.  More to come on those books in a later blog.

This summer I will be teaching:

• "The Six Secrets of Change" (book study)
• "Who Moved My Cheese" & "The Fred Factor" (book study)
• Engaging Activities to Promote Student Learning
• "I have them in groups...now what?" (cooperative learning)
• Introduction to Interactive Notebooks (twice)
• What highly effective teachers do differently.
• The more ways we teach, the more students we reach.

Online professional development courses offer a ton of benefits for both the facilitator and those that enroll in the course.  For both parties it offers the benefit of working in the comfort of your own home whenever you want.  It could be at 12 in the afternoon or 2 in the morning.  You could be working at home, or on the beach.  The facilitator and those enrolled have 24/7 access and learning can take place at the pace that is most conducive to your schedule.  Online professional learning courses during the summer also keep the teachers in a learning mentality!  Summer time is indeed a time to rest but for effective teachers that always want more for themselves and their students, it is a time to continue to grow themselves professionally and personally.  Educators always want that next "tool" to be able to pull out of their educational toolbox that will increase student achievement in their courses.  I am honored to be able to be in a position that allows me to provide this for the teachers in my county and to do so while being able to utilize my creativity.  I am really excited to get started.  I have been working hard building classes and transforming classes that I taught face to face into an online format. 

 

I have learned over the past 9 months that professional learning is a perfect fit for me.  I have been able to merge my retail management background with my knowledge of content and become kind of like a "content manager!" :)  I am able to share all of this with the teachers and even administrators that I encounter on a daily basis.  I love not only growing myself but you could say I'm a little obsessed with ensuring that I pass along the information that I glean so that it impacts a bigger body of people.

Online professional learning during the summer....it's a good thing!