Professional Development

With the success of the Calgary Academy program, external professional development courses were offered to teachers from across western Canada from 1999 to 2002. With seed funding from the Max Bell Foundation, these high-in-demand courses were offered throughout the year and focused on active reading and learning strategies. Other workshops included, “How to thrive not just survive in your first 90 days as a teacher,” which was attended by over 250 first-year teachers from University of Calgary. The active reading strategies courses were run three times before and three times after Christmas, with approximately 50 students per session. First summer teachers’ institutes focused on best practices in classroom management and maximizing instructional impact, including lesson planning and establishing recognition systems. These two-week courses were attended by 50 students each.