Last week was reading week – you already know that I went to visit Kerstin & John and my nephews for the long weekend. Once I returned to Vancouver I attended  participated in an THE Instructional Skills Workshop. Every day we presented mini lessons to the group and then gave each other feedback. By day 3 even my dreams were structured. The people in the workshop were very diverse, some had no teaching experience while others had been teaching for over 10 years. I loved that everyone came from a different department, which meant I got to think about politics, history, geography, ecology… it was fantastic. I would like to think that my background in ECCE gave me a head-start, because I already think about children and students as participants in their learning. Others struggled with this idea and wanted to “teach” or “lecture”.

Being back at work this morning and trying out some of my new skills was a big success. My curriculum development class was beautiful with lots of participation. It just flew by. After class I bumped into a few colleagues on my way to my office and talked for a while. I signed up for a conference. Being an instructor was a little bit easier today.