About Me

My photo
I have been an elementary and secondary school teacher and administrator. Currently, I am a faculty member in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My M.Ed. and Ph.D. had a focus on the educational and linguistic experiences of children who moved from other countries to Canada.

Friday, May 9, 2014

First day of Professional Development Sessions in Pignon, Haiti

Our first day of sessions in Pignon went really yesterday. Our Laurier students worked with three groups of College de la Grace students (gr. 11 and 12) in the morning while the rest of us led workshops for about 60 principals and teachers.

We had an amazing lunch and then the Laurier students spent some time debriefing the morning and planning for today's sessions. They did a great job adapting their morning session for the different English abilities of the students and seemed excited to see them again today.

The rest of us spent the afternoon continuing the workshops from the morning. They seemed to be well received with good feedback at the end of the day. There is a real hunger here to improve the educational experience of students and the workshops will play a role in this. We are doing some research on long-term impact of these types of PD sessions.

The place we are staying is about 10 minutes outside of Pignon in a camp. It is dormitory style accommodation (rustic by Canadian standards) but has an amazing view of Mount Pignon. We had a friendly game of soccer with about 15 kids from the community last night and then met with Caleb and Debbie Lucien, the founder of the school and the camp.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're doing great work, and right up Betty Ann's alley too! Happy Mother's Day Mom - very proud of your efforts to fuel others' passion for teaching with your own passion, knowledge, and sense of adventure.
Love, Heath