Pat's Schoolhouse Teacher Professional Development

This is the second time I teach a course for teachers from Pat's Schoolhouse centres. About 100 teachers attended the course.

At the end of the course, teachers who did the reflection mentioned among other things:

1. To always keep in mind that we are teaching kids rather than content. It is important to provide variations.

2. The magic tricks included in the course are interesting and can be used with the kids.

3. Another mentioned that she is reminded by the videos how important the way teachers speak to kids is.

4. The importance on being able to 'look at children' so that we are able to assess more accurately. The sticks activity, the card game and the Japanese video all demonstrated that a lot of thinking is involved on that part of the students.

5. A lot of Why? What do you think? It is important for kids to talk and share their views.

6. Teachers should model reading and good thinking.

7. CPA Approach. The focus on process than on computations. The games and websites are interesting.

8. Different materials are used for probelm solving. Letting kids figure out what is wrong and right.

9. A teacher mentioned that she is glad they have been doing the right thing!

10. The use of pictorial representation as well as real world context.

11. A precious lesson for another teacher is the use of variations. And thinking about how to challenge children.