Here you will find a variety of professional development opportunities I have completed. These experiences have provided me with tools and strategies that will help me grow in my journey to become a more effective, adaptable, and understanding educator who can meet the diverse needs of all my future students.
I attended the Western Canadian Association for Student Teaching conference held at SFU in February 2025. This conference is an annual education conference that focuses on topics relating to teacher education and student teaching that are relevant to today’s world of teaching. Over the course of the conference, I had the opportunity to attend workshops and presentations that provided me with practical strategies and tools, activities, research, and perspectives that can be directly applied in my future classroom. I gained valuable knowledge, skills, and a broader understanding of the educational landscape, such as what others are doing in their classrooms to be holistically well-rounded teachers. I am committed to continually learning and engaging with the wider educational community so that I can become the best educator I can be, and I hope to attend more conference like this in the future.
Here is a photo of myself and the other teacher candidates that attended the WestCAST conference at SFU, February 2025.
I attended the THRIVE Conference held at TRU in March 2025, and walked away with valuable learning experiences on how to better engage diverse communities. The conference brought together people from diverse backgrounds and provided me with the opportunity to learn about barriers to student engagement and gain practical strategies that will help me be a more inclusive teacher. I attended sessions that provided me with practical ways to enact the First Peoples Principles of Learning, as well as ones that promoted equity and inclusion. I want to ensure that as a teacher I am creating an environment where students feel valued and respected, and this conference provided me with knowledge and resources that I believe will allow me to do this in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in an Aboriginal Dance Play workshop led by Roxanne Letterlough, and this provided me with the resources required to share this holistic activity with my future students. Aboriginal Dance Play is deeply connected to storytelling, cultural values, history, spirituality, and the land, and engaging students in this activity allows for an experiential way to interact with Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Incorporating Dance Play will allow me to create an inclusive and welcoming space for Indigenous students, where their experiences and cultural identities are validated. It also exposes non-Indigenous students to different cultural perspectives and ways of learning, broadening their understanding of the world. Students will develop their physical literacy skills, but they will also be learning from Indigenous knowledge holders, as the choreography was a collaborative effort with local Elders, community members, and students, in an authentic and respectful way. I embrace the opportunity to teach Aboriginal Dance Play to my future students, and I strive to work on being an educator who meaningfully contributes to reconciliation.
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