During my first year of study in Teachers College at the University of Windsor to obtain my bachelor of education degree, I have participated in several optional and mandatory ongoing professional development opportunities in the form of online workshops. The last year has been my first time getting to experience a professional learning environment in this way. In my opinion, a benefit to the online professional learning workshops was the fact that teacher candidates were often able to choose the sessions they wished to attend during the day. As a teacher candidate myself, I greatly appreciated the opportunities we were provided with regarding these sessions. So much so, I often struggled to narrow down my choices because I felt like so many of the sessions would be valuable to me. In light of this, each workshop I attended successfully allowed me to develop knowledge within contexts that are immensely valuable when considering the journey i am currently on in crafting my identity as an educator. One of the most notable workshops I attended included the following session: “Helping Families Understand Their School-Age Children And Social Emotional Learning,” during the Marginalization and Vulnerability Social Justice Conference in January of 2022. 

Rachel Stewart a Professor from St. Clair College, presented the workshop "Helping Families Understand Their School-age Children and Social-Emotional Learning." She began by addressing her experience in the education field which is ultimately why she is interested in sharing her knowledge on social and emotional development, as well as the importance of families in the school community. She then went on to describe inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as the connections and relationships they have with natural consequences. She then discussed Social Emotional Learning, which is an important component of education and human development (SEL). She explained that SEL is a process in which individuals acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes in order to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve goals individually or collectively, show empathy for others, establish and maintain relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. During the second half of the session, she discussed how to get families engaged in your classroom, what our responsibility as educators is with our student's families, and ways of increasing family involvement in the classroom.

This was one of the most memorable PLS sessions for me because of how she explained everything and utilized real-life examples to demonstrate how vital the knowledge she was providing to us was. Something that really stood out to me was how she taught us about inductive and deductive reasoning. Prior to this session, I had learned about inductive and deductive reasoning in my psychology studies, but I did not have a thorough understanding of it as I have now after listening to Rachel. That being said, the most important thing I learnt, and it was through that explanation, was the significance of including real-world scenarios and having discussions with not only your students but their families as well.