COSL PD Day Conference
Event is FULL - Currently not accepting registrations
"Pandemic Possibilities: Lifelines for Leaders"
09:00 – 10:15 am - Teaching Outside, Why it Makes More Sense Than Ever - Rex Ferguson-Baird
10:30 – 11:45 am - Communicating in Challenging Times - Jennifer Abrams
11:45 – 01:00 pm - Lunch (on your own)
01:00 – 02:15 pm - Understanding the Social-Emotional and Traumatic Impact of the Worldwide Pandemic on Students, Staff and Parents (Caregivers) - Kevin Cameron
02:30 – 03:45 pm - They Liked and Re-tweeted that? Now What Do We Do? - Tom Skinner
All sessions will take place virtually and all registrants will be provided with a Zoom link and accompanying handouts prior to October 23rd.
•40$ for COSL members
•50$ for non-members
(5% GST is included in the prices.)
Payment must be made online using a credit card, debit card or PayPal account.
09:00 – 10:15 am - Teaching Outside, Why it Makes More Sense Than Ever - Rex Ferguson-Baird
Teaching outdoors is becoming increasingly popular and the trend has been boosted by our recent return to school during COVID. There is a fundamental difference between Outdoor Education and Education Outdoors. How can you, a principal or a teacher, make a transition in your practice to take your teaching outside?
In this presentation Rex will introduce some inspirational ideas for you and your team that will help you get started on this learning adventure. Whether you are working with seasoned outdoor adventurers or urban indoor instructors, kindergarten teachers or high school science teachers, Rex will review several simple strategies and tools that facilitate teaching outdoors. In addition, he will showcase and engage you with research-based evidence that supports teaching outdoors as well as real life examples from various grades and disciplines.
You will leave with a list of resources including websites, agencies and pd opportunities that you can share with your team to facilitate a shift to teaching outdoors.
Rex Ferguson-Baird - Bio
Rex has been a school principal & vice principal for 20 years. He taught science before that and throughout the whole time he has been working with outdoor education programs. He has been a trainer for Project Wild and has developed a robust education outdoors program at Brooklands School, part of the St. James-Assiniboia SD in Winnipeg.
10:30 – 11:45 am - Communicating in Challenging Times - Jennifer Abrams
No matter what role we play in a school (principal, department chair, team lead), we all strive to make our communications successful. And in this time of uncertainty and with distance learning becoming a norm, we often are moving fast and don’t get the opportunity to think about the language we use and our communications to others. Ultimately, we end up not being as successful as we can in getting our messages across.
We need to build up a skill set of messaging capabilities, ‘resistance management’ strategies and for the sake of our health, our ‘stress tolerance.’ This 90-minute webinar is based on Jennifer’s book Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives will provide support, and a laugh, to help you communicate more effectively in these unprecedented and uncertain times.
Participants will learn how to:
• Learn more about getting more successful in our communication of initiatives, the complexity of it all and where we ‘trip up’ in our messaging
• Review research on how others respond and resist change
• Develop a linguistic tool kit for managing the resistance of others
Jennifer Abrams - Bio
Jennifer Abrams is an international educational and communications consultant. Jennifer trains and coaches teachers and administrators and provides new employee support. She is generationally savvy, and is an expert in adult development, having hard conversations and collaboration skills.
01:00 – 02:15 pm - Understanding the Social-Emotional and Traumatic Impact of the Worldwide Pandemic on Students, Staff and Parents (Caregivers) - Kevin Cameron
This presentation will address the interplay between pre-COVID-19 dynamics in students' lives overlaid with the current pandemic. It will also explain the influence of mainstream media's and social media's representation of the virus and how its impacting school functioning including some staff. A special focus will be placed on the dynamics of quarantine and symptom development from some students and staff that is being played out in our schools referred to as a "parallel process" where some of what we are seeing is "family-generated" pathology being acted out at school. Key interventions will be discussed throughout to lay the foundation for greater learning.
http://nactatr.com/files/2020NACTATR-RisingChallenge.pdf
Kevin Cameron – Bio
Kevin Cameron is a board-certified expert in traumatic stress. He is Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment & Trauma Response and a Diplomat of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.
In concert with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Behavioural Sciences Unit, he developed Canada's first comprehensive, multidisciplinary Violence Threat Risk Assessment training program and developed the Traumatic Event Systems (TES) Model.
02:30 – 03:45 pm - They Liked and Re-tweeted that? Now What Do We Do? - Tom Skinner
School District Response to Teachers and Personal Use of Social Media
Self-expression and self-promotion are very much a part of our lives today. With the evolution of social media, teacher’s lives have become extensively more public as they express themselves on many social platforms. Social media has given teachers forums to express opinions and views on varying topics as well as openly share their private lives. School districts have traditionally had to balance the values of the community and teachers rights to expression. Utilizing current Canadian case law as a framework, this presentation will examine the relationship between community values and teacher’s personal lives. When teachers have been disciplined, suspended, or had their contracts terminated, school districts, and in turn the courts, have sited “community disruption” and “a loss of public confidence” as reasons for their actions and decisions. Defining a “disruption” or measuring “public confidence” is a delicate task. Teachers should expect to be free from actions of discrimination and have a reasonable right to freedom of thought, opinion and expression. This presentation will focus on how school districts have responded as well as recent court decisions that will provide for a glimpse at this evolving issue.
Dr. Thomas H. Skinner – Bio
Dr. Skinner has been involved in education for the last forty years. He has experience as a teacher from kindergarten to grade 12 including multi-grade and special education classrooms. As well, his professional experience includes twelve years as a school principal in four Manitoba school divisions, including rural, urban, and northern divisions. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University where he lectures in both the undergrad program and the graduate program. He has served on a number of provincial and national committees focused on policy and legislative development in education and has presented papers at the provincial and national levels, focusing on education law, leadership, and team building. He graduated with a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Toronto in 2002, specializing in Theory and Policy Studies in EducationAdministration. The doctorate was preceded by a Masters’ degree in Education Administration from the University of Manitoba.
If you have any questions, please contact Rob Fisher, Chairperson, Council of School leaders at cosl@mbteach.org.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FULL - Teaching Outside, Why it Makes More Sense Than Ever
Teaching outdoors is becoming increasingly popular and the trend has been boosted by our recent return to school during COVID. There is a fundamental difference between Outdoor Education and Education Outdoors. How can you, a principal or a teacher, make a transition in your practice to take your teaching outside?
In this presentation Rex will introduce some inspirational ideas for you and your team that will help you get started on this learning adventure. Whether you are working with seasoned outdoor adventurers or urban indoor instructors, kindergarten teachers or high school science teachers, Rex will review several simple strategies and tools that facilitate teaching outdoors. In addition, he will showcase and engage you with research-based evidence that supports teaching outdoors as well as real life examples from various grades and disciplines.
You will leave with a list of resources including websites, agencies and pd opportunities that you can share with your team to facilitate a shift to teaching outdoors.
FULL - Communicating in Challenging Times
No matter what role we play in a school (principal, department chair, team lead), we all strive to make our communications successful. And in this time of uncertainty and with distance learning becoming a norm, we often are moving fast and don’t get the opportunity to think about the language we use and our communications to others. Ultimately, we end up not being as successful as we can in getting our messages across.
We need to build up a skill set of messaging capabilities, ‘resistance management’ strategies and for the sake of our health, our ‘stress tolerance.’ This 90-minute webinar is based on Jennifer’s book Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives will provide support, and a laugh, to help you communicate more effectively in these unprecedented and uncertain times.
Participants will learn how to:
• Learn more about getting more successful in our communication of initiatives, the complexity of it all and where we ‘trip up’ in our messaging
• Review research on how others respond and resist change
• Develop a linguistic tool kit for managing the resistance of others
FULL - Understanding the Social-Emotional and Traumatic Impact of the Worldwide Pandemic on Students, Staff and Parents (Caregivers)
This presentation will address the interplay between pre-COVID-19 dynamics in students' lives overlaid with the current pandemic. It will also explain the influence of mainstream media's and social media's representation of the virus and how its impacting school functioning including some staff. A special focus will be placed on the dynamics of quarantine and symptom development from some students and staff that is being played out in our schools referred to as a "parallel process" where some of what we are seeing is "family-generated" pathology being acted out at school. Key interventions will be discussed throughout to lay the foundation for greater learning.
http://nactatr.com/files/2020NACTATR-RisingChallenge.pdf
FULL - They Liked and Re-tweeted that? Now What Do We Do?
School District Response to Teachers and Personal Use of Social Media
Self-expression and self-promotion are very much a part of our lives today. With the evolution of social media, teacher’s lives have become extensively more public as they express themselves on many social platforms. Social media has given teachers forums to express opinions and views on varying topics as well as openly share their private lives. School districts have traditionally had to balance the values of the community and teachers rights to expression. Utilizing current Canadian case law as a framework, this presentation will examine the relationship between community values and teacher’s personal lives. When teachers have been disciplined, suspended, or had their contracts terminated, school districts, and in turn the courts, have sited “community disruption” and “a loss of public confidence” as reasons for their actions and decisions. Defining a “disruption” or measuring “public confidence” is a delicate task. Teachers should expect to be free from actions of discrimination and have a reasonable right to freedom of thought, opinion and expression. This presentation will focus on how school districts have responded as well as recent court decisions that will provide for a glimpse at this evolving issue.