I have a long history with education professional development in both my past employment as an Early Childhood Educator working in the Early year field as well as working as a CUPE member in the school district.

Attending PRO-D hosted by Early Years organizations was usually fulfilling and educational. The PRO-D I was offered as a CUPE member was often irreverent to my work, based on self care or something I had no interest in learning. I would often get permission to go present at Professional conferences or attend alternative professional development instead.

This week as my professional development I talked with Patti Mac Donald the executive Director of the Canadian Independent schools association.  Curious about her take on Knowledge building pedagogy as a way to guide children through an inquiry to develop ideas collaboratively until the understanding is at a high level was fascinating. I learned that instead of rushing children through a surface level of content material children instead should be building skills that then support them to develop ideas and meaning to a high level of excellence. That when we expect and support children through this process, they are more focused on their learning and growth.

Further to this I read Ron Bergers “An Ethic of Excellence”. His work with student portfolios really resonated with me. Using student work that they have created by improving it over and over to show what they can do and as evidence makes perfect sense to me. Students maintaining portfolios presenting their abilities and work in order to graduate isnt much different then how we are being assessed in this class.

Another piece is his take on genuine research. Research where the student and teachers are exploring new concepts together. Experiencing this myself in Nature Kindergarten I agree that the energy in learning is unparalleled. Children and teachers want to share their knew knowledge, questions and connections with each other. They want to know more and dig into the information deeper. They want to try out what they have learned and design experiments or learning situations to build on what they have learned.