My content and curriculum expertise serves as the third philosophy facet. Although I possess advanced degrees, I am a life-long learner, avid reader and researcher, and conscientious about maintaining cutting-edge child development and education knowledge.
This requires participating in professional associations and conferences and learning from colleagues. I thoroughly enjoy returning from training and incorporating new ideas into my courses, writing, and speaking.
The Value of Research
I absolutely love research. My most recent research topics include restorative practice in schools, peer mediation for elementary and junior high students, and faculty peer evaluations. What can I say? I’m a research geek.
During a CAEYC Play Conference, I documented my colleague and me learning through photographs. Then I created a PowerPoint presentation titled “Visual Documentation” for my Observation and Assessment college course. The students actually enjoyed seeing their professors “play” while they learned how to document their child observations using photographs.
Knowledge generates renewed energy
New knowledge generates renewed energy. Students and speaking audiences are immediate beneficiaries. They experience firsthand the value of continuing education. education as I share what I learned and integrate new material into the course content.
Another favorite aspect of teaching is developing new curriculum and courses. The first phase is gathering research on the course topics. Then I categorize the massive amounts of information, choose the best materials, create interactive learning activities, and integrate it into existing content. As a curriculum specialist, I’ve applied my content knowledge by developing over twenty-five courses.
As an author, speaker, and educator, my old web site (from diapers to diamonds) features over 45 topics. Speaking categories include: Restorative Practices in Schools; Parenting Young Children; Patenting School Age Children; Parenting Adolescents; Topics for K-12 Educators; and Topics for College Professors. If you know a school, parent group, community group, or church looking for a speaker please consider one of my topics.
Source
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