*The following is Part 2 of a two-part reflection on a PD session I attended by Dr. Kathie Nunley. Part 1 of this reflection on, A Student’s Brain, can be found by following the highlighted link. Layered Curriculum, developed by Dr. Kathie Nunley, is an instructional method based specifically on her work with neuroscience and how the adolescent brain functions. It is developed as a means to effectively meet the needs of the adolescent learner by taking into account how the brain processes information and reacts to various stimuli. One very important factor in this method… Read More
Dr. Kathie Nunley Part 1: A Student's Brain
Today all the teachers and support staff in “T-Division” had the opportunity to attend a PD session with Dr. Kathie Nunley, an educator and brain-image researcher from the eastern US. I was immediately excited because I have always been really interested in how to engage different parts of our student’s brains and differentiate instruction to best meet their individual learning styles/needs. I can definitely say that I was not disappointed by this PD session! Dr. Nunley is not only just extremely knowledgeable about her subject area but is also a very humorous and engaging speaker (I spent a great deal of the… Read More
ManACE TIN & BYTE
On our way to Neepawa! I shared on Thursday that I would be presenting four presentations within 20 hours and I am happy to report that everything went smoothly! On Thursday evening I attended a Technology Information Night (TIN) hosted by the Manitoba Association for Computing Educators (ManACE) and presented a short 20 minute presentation with Tyler, a fellow education student, on our experiences with blogging. On Friday I attended the 2013 BYTE Conference and, with Tyler, presented two regularly-slotted sessions as well as a short 20 minute live-stream presentation as part of the Bits of BYTE… Read More
Four Presentations in Twenty Hours
Today is the start of a busy two days for myself and Tyler L, a fellow student teacher. In November I shared that we would be presenting our professional development session, Connecting, Reflecting & Creating: Why We Blog, at the 2013 BYTE Professional Development Conference in Neepawa. A short three months later and the day is finally here! One thing has changed, however, our one presentation has turned into four! Tonight Tyler and I will be presenting at the ManACE Technology Information Night (TIN) on Celebrating our Blogiversary. We will be presenting a twenty minute presentation… Read More
EduCon 2.5 Prep
At the start of January I posted about this years upcoming EduCon professional development conference, held in Philadelphia. Well now the countdown is on and with only a few days until it begins, I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for attending EduCon virtually! First off, if you want to learn more about EduCon you can:– Visit their website– Follow them on Twitter– Read some of my previous posts! – EduCon 2.5 – EduCon 2.4 – My Thoughts on EduCon 2.4 Now I have only participated in EduCon once, so I am… Read More
Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
On Wednesday I had an opportunity to attend a presentation by Darren Kuropatwa and Andy McKiel on Digital Storytelling. Both of these guys are doing some amazing things in regards to ed tech and I was happy to finally meet both of them after following their work online. The entire session focused on digital storytelling as a way for our students to document and reflect on their learning. Not only were we introduced to some great ideas but we also were able to try them out for ourselves. This was the very first PD session I… Read More
EduCon 2.5
If your New Year’s Resolution and/or Professional Growth Plan involved anything to do with education (and I bet it did) then you should definitely check out the 2013 EduCon Conference, EduCon 2.5, in Philadelphia. I was first introduced to this conference last year via my amazing PLN on Twitter and participated in two sessions, known as “conversations”. (You can read my review here) Here is a description of the event from their website: “Educon is both a conversation and a conference. It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person… Read More
Connecting, Reflecting & Creating: Why We Blog
I have exciting news I want to share! A fellow student teacher, Tyler L, and myself will be presenting our very own Professional Development sessions!! Tyler and myself are both avid bloggers and we have actually spent some time this year sharing our experience with first year Faculty of Education students in their “ICT in Education” class. After some consultation with a professor we began working on our own Professional Development session on how blogging can benefit educators. What resulted was, Connecting, Reflecting & Creating: Why We Blog. “From being used as a reflective… Read More
What Makes A Good Portfolio?
A major component of almost ALL of our Faculty of Education classes is our professional portfolio. This is what we will use to “sell ourselves” and let potential employers know what we have to offer their schools. It can be electronic:– Website– Blog– Slide-share– PowerPoint– etcOr it can be done in a hard-copy form:– Scrapbook– Binder– File System– etc I had started a portfolio last year when I first entered the Faculty of Education but now, looking back at it, I realize that it is not the best reflection of who I am. In that short… Read More
Where in the World is… Whole Brain Teaching?
I know that there will be some of you out there that have been wondering where my Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday posts have gone. Is it because I have been busy with my student teaching practicum? Partially. The main reason, however, is because I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on who I am as a educator and what my personal teaching philosophy is. In my first semester of my education degree I was asked to create a document that described my personal teaching philosophy. What did I believe the purpose of education was? What… Read More