Exciting developments for teacher and principal professional learning in Haiti

We are less than two weeks away from this year's Educator and Leadership Institute in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. In today's blog, I will share four exciting developments.

1. Registrations: Preliminary registrations indicate that this year's ELI will be double the size of last year's professional learning (from 200 to 400). We are also seeing an increase in the variety of schools being represented and the geographic spread of these schools. ELI is indeed impacting educators from across the country.

2. Program: We are doubling the number of courses offered at this year's ELI (from 6 to 12). We are also adding specialized workshops in technology. The summer camp that accompanies the ELI is also expanding (from 100 to 200 children). Our ESL program for university students will also be expanding.

3. Research: Last year, we started a research project that examined how ELI supported the Haitian participants' sense of teaching efficacy (confidence in their teaching to lead to improved student outcomes). This year, we have a research team that is accompanying ELI and will be examining how teaching practices have changed for participants, opportunities for fostering women's empowerment, and how we can use basic access to technology to support teachers and school leaders.

4. Partnerships: We are seeing a significant increase in collaborative work in ELI. The Ontario College of Teachers has donated supplies, Wilfrid Laurier University has supported a "technology fund" to help teachers in Haiti, corporations and individual elementary schools have raised funds to support ELI, and Desire2Learn is sending a team of three top leaders to support ELI. In Haiti, new partnerships of schools are facilitating the growth in the number of registrants.

We are excited about what will happen at ELI. We are more excited about the 20 year effect that ELI will have on students in Haiti.

Our goal is to support the professional capacity of 1,000 teachers + 100 principals to impact 100,000 students.

We are well on the way to meeting this goal.