Within the purview of the broad descriptors of this site, I offer professional development activities tailored to the interests and desires of requesting individuals, schools, and jurisdictions. That is, I fit my expertise to your needs – not the other way around.
Sample topics
- Connecting mindset & attachment theory
- Promoting creative & critical thinking
- Designing learning tasks with the individual and collective natures of students’ minds in mind
- Mathematics education & anxious learners
- Learning & not learning: What’s body, mind, & heart got to do with it?
- Working with trust, capacity, & meaning for an inclusive classroom
- Enlisting the collective: classrooms attuned to the interpersonal and intrapsychic needs of students
- Working with giftedness
My professional development offerings are characteristically interactive. That said, I am also know as a dynamic, engaging presenter. Whatever approach or combination of approaches chosen, I strive to make them exemplars of the inclusive practices I advance.
In planning for any professional development activity, I begin with a conversation – typically with members of the leadership team. We explore the parameters of the professional development in the contexts of the school culture, its members, and the goals to be addressed.
Next, using the information from the initial consultation, I create written prompts designed to gather further information from prospective participants. This helps me appreciate where participants are coming from and what matters most to them. With their minds in mind, I can better create activities that meet them where they are and help them get to where they want to be.
With a plan in place, I invite final input from the leadership team.
Over the years, I have learned a great deal from participants’ answers to the following session-closing invitations to respond.
- When were you most engaged as a learner?
- When you were most distanced as a learner?
- What action, taken by anyone, did you find most affirming or helpful?
- What action, taken by anyone, did you find most puzzling or confusing?
- What surprised you most?
- What would help you now?
Here’s what participants have said
What helped most is on a personal level. Your humour, energy and enthusiasm is contagious!
It helped how everything we did connected in some way to our own classrooms. We could use more sessions like this.
There was never a time I wasn’t engaged. The day zoomed by.
I usually tune out when some theory comes up. But attachment theory surprised me. It helped me get why we all cope so differently.
… so inspiring and thought-provoking.
I was surprised how the model for sense-making explains student differences and without needing to put them in some kind of category.
A follow-up session using the model to differentiate tasks would help next.
Schooling matters 