Regional Professional Development Workshops

The first round of Professional Development Workshops for new, beginning and experienced E4E teachers were successfully held in Hokitika and Westport on the 26th and 27th of May.

The groups were given a choice between attending the experienced E4E session, which was facilitated by Mary Anne Mills from CORE Education Ltd, and attending the new/beginning teacher session facilitated by local experienced E4E teachers.

Although attendee numbers were slightly lower than intended, these lower numbers proved beneficial to the quality of the sessions. This enabled the sessions to be intensely focused, reflective, and responsive to individual teacher questions and needs.

The experienced teacher session was well supported and the opportunity to challenge, clarify and extend E4E pedagogy and philosophy proved beneficial. This session also provided the time needed for critical networking.

Workshop evaluations were positive and teachers were able to find ways to improve E4E activity within their classrooms and help guide the content of the next sessions. Below are examples of comments from the workshop evaluations:

Q As a result of this workshop I plan to:

• Take a closer look at how I include enterprising attributes into my planning.
• Think more outside my comfort zone and take more risks.
• Take risks and present risks (controlled) to the students.
• Give students a higher degree of control over E4E projects.
• Re-engage with my community partner. Attempt to focus on teaching the key concepts through engaging with the wider community.
• Share learning outcomes with students.
• Communicate better/more openly with community partner.

Q What would you recommend for the next workshop?

• Develop a booklet of successes to share in E4E.
• Linking to the curriculum was great. I’d like more of this.
• See examples of monitoring/assessment.
• More of the same on the relationship between the new curriculum.
• Sample unit plans and more korero re others experience.
• More practical activities for us to do - now we have the theory sorted.
• Furthering/building on what we did today - next level.

Q Highlight of the workshop?

• Listening to what others are doing in E4E.
• Thought provoking.
• The great presentation.
• The development of assessment ideas.
• Challenges to think about - teaching practice.
• Discussion. Looking at where I am as a teacher including E4E in my planning.
• Meeting up with everyone and being challenged.
• To hear of practical projects completed by other teachers.

The dates for the next evening sessions have been set for Westport, 1st September and Hokitika, 2nd September.