The Kenan Fellows Program is truly an experience unlike any other and I wish that it was the norm for all teachers. We got a chance to work with other like minded educators and be treated as the professionals that we are. The three Professional Advancement Institutes had a range of topics and priorities. We were given choices and the chance to learn from other educators. It truly was special and incredibly valuable.
The institute that I found the most valuable was the first one at NCCAT because it set the tone for the rest of the fellowship and allowed us to forge new friendships and networks. It started out with the silly spirit dog activity which, honestly, I thought was dumb when I was doing it at home, but it ended up connecting me with three young ladies (Beth, Brooke, and Taylar) who are amazing people and educators. Beth and Brooke both teach high school science like I do, and Taylar has ended up being one of my closest teacher friends! This is where I got picked up by Team Dirt and got to learn about Courtney’s middle school science and math experiences. Beyond just the friendships, I felt like the content and information provided to us was the most helpful and relevant for me. It was even presented in fun, interactive ways most of the time! I personally felt like I could have attended that week’s professional development every week that summer without question!
PD has never been something I have truly looked forward to. It isn’t that my experience has been negative, but I’ve always wanted to have more say in what I’m learning and to play a bigger role/part in the process. I felt like, at least the first PD institute, we did get choice and we did get to put our two cents in during the week. The other two institutes were much more policy driven, so while I valued the information presented and learned a lot, it was very much different from any other PD I’ve been to in terms of content. Those two institutes were much more presentation based and less interactive than the first one. They were set up more like PD I’ve experienced in the past, minus the content like I said previously.
Overall, I will continue to rank all three Professional Advancement Institutes at the top of my PD experiences!