PD Reflection
Section #7 states that: Educators engage in professional learning. I think this is a good practice because as educators enabling our students to learn, we should also be constantly learning as well. I think one area I can focus on developing more is my understanding of the FPPL. I find it difficult to include all the lessons of it in my teachings. I can hit most of them easy enough but need to work on including the whole entire piece. In the coming years I would like to focus on this more and engaging in any extra curricular learnings on the subject. If there are workshops, seminars, or lectures on FPPL, then I hope I can attend them to gain more knowledge of the subject. I would also be interested in any expansion to my teachable subjects in shop class. I attended the BCTEA conference in Chilliwack last year and it was great to see and interact with all the shop teachers around the province. I learned some new lessons from it as well that I hope to include in my teachings coming up.
Past PD and Future PD
At Brock Secondary, I took part in a land based learning online workshop with my two Teacher Mentors. It was about four hours long and we learned about FPPL in the classroom and how to incorporate outside learning into our teachings. As shop teachers we couldn’t relate much to the activities and learnings that were talked about. We are sort of stuck in our shops to be able to teach our subjects(metal, robotics, drafting, and technology) but I was able to do one activity outside. I took my senior metal class outside to play flag football, volleyball, and soccer. I spun it as a “team building” exercise as all the students were interacting with each other and friendships were formed. I did not see much interaction with different groups of students in the class till that day. Afterwards all the students were more open with each other and I saw them interact more as a class than before. I think the workshop sparked this idea in me to try it out and I would honestly try it again in the future.
Standard #8
As a shop teacher, I’ve already seen how much we rely on each other to share ideas, tools, and resources. I want to give back to the profession by creating a website where I can share my own materials, something many tech ed teachers already do to support one another. Once I’m more established, I’d like to mentor new teachers, host workshops, and take in teacher candidates so they feel supported as they start out, too.
I also see value in staying active through my LSA group, volunteering with Skills Canada, and continuing to share new technology and teaching methods with colleagues. Whether it’s through collaboration, mentorship, or simply being available to others, I believe contributing to the profession starts early—and I’m committed to being part of that culture of support and growth.