Tidbits, Resources, and Discussion for ELI Faculty

Friday, September 12, 2008

Feedback on the Professional Development Day

Thanks to all of you who came to our first annual ELI Faculty Professional Development Day today. Now that you've experienced it, I'd love for you to share with us your thoughts, suggestions, etc. for the future. What worked well? What would you like to see added or improved? What did you learn that was really useful and that you want to share with those who weren't there?

2 comments:

Meena said...

I think Friday’s event aptly reflected a true learning/teaching community. In a few short hours we taught, we learnt, we connected, we reflected. The sessions were well organized and quite helpful in terms of both pedagogy and use of technology. (I wish I could have attended the other tech sessions, too.) Jennifer, your key note speech was superb. I appreciated the fact that it addressed teaching methodologies rather than policies. And the Town Hall meeting was a brilliant idea. What a wonderful way to bring it all together. Bob and other members of ELI, who helped put the event together, should be applauded.

Just one tiny quarrel: I felt that the sessions were too short. An hour & fifteen minutes is hardly enough time to manage Introductions, panel presentations and discussions or Q & A. In both—the session I facilitated and the session I attended (Tips and tricks of BB), just as we got to the heart of the discussion, it was time to conclude it. Perhaps, in the future we can either have longer sessions or fewer panelists. However, I must say that despite this limitation, Joan and Nikkia’s session was really helpful. Already I am using two of the tricks I learnt from that session.

Meena

P.S. I can’t believe that I won the Grand Prize. Of course, tickets to Paris would have been amazing, but I love this prize too:-). Just what I needed for my desk top at home. Thank you, ELI.

Anonymous said...

Meena said it all. Double that for the key note address and the "town hall" at the end (makes up for the sessions we did not get to attend ourselves). For me, I would have loved perhaps one more session. The length was OK but just two sessions did not seem sufficient for me. We could have started a bit earlier in the AM to get a third session in. I told Lori that ELI should do something similar for our students - especially for first time ELI students: how to be successful in ELI courses with sessions on time management, avoiding procrastination, using the technology, etc.