About Me

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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.

Monday, July 15, 2019

Haiti Educator and Leadership Institute 2019: A model that is working

We are anticipating the fourth Educator and Leadership Institute (ELI) Haiti to take place in early August. A team of 30 Canadian and 30 Haitian educators will be providing leadership and instruction for approximately 500 Haitian teachers and principals from Aug. 5-9.
Our plan for sustainability is built on Haitian leadership. In May, we worked with 25 Haitian educators as we strengthened their leadership capacity in anticipation of the summer institute. This group will be co-instructing with Canadian educators in all subject areas. As well, administrative support for ELI will be increasingly provided by Haitian participants including tracking class attendance, ensuring graduation requirements, and printing completion certificates.

The vision statement for ELI Haiti:
A quality education for sustainable and positive change
Next year (2020) will be the final year of the five year commitment we made to providing educational professional learning in northern Haiti. We are optimistic that the structures we have put in place, accompanied with on-going support and coaching, will lead to long-term teacher professional development in this area of Haiti. Haiti's future depends on enhancing the educational system. ELI has contributed to this by ensuring that teachers are trained and supported in effective teaching methods including active, differentiated, and experiential learning.

As this model is rolled out in other contexts (Nepal, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, etc.), we anticipate that each context will teach us something new about education and sustainability. What we have learned already is that teachers and principals around the world are largely committed to being change agents. Often, all they need to increase their effectiveness is some professional support. We are already seeing the influence of this support on the learning outcomes of students and are looking forward to scaling this as we expand to other contexts.

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