Joint Agreement to improve professional development for teachers

Teachers will have improved opportunities for professional development thanks to a new agreement signed between the faculty of education and local area school boards.

“The two school boards have been wonderful to work with on this”  said Pat Rogers, Dean of Education, after signing a memorandum of understanding that calls for increased collaboration with the Greater Essex County District School Board and the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board.

The agreement will see a greater diversity of courses and certification programs for teachers in areas such as literacy, reading, and special education, while providing the boards with more input into course offerings, instructors and locations.

The Faculty of Education has also worked closely with school boards in Lambton-Kent as well as the French boards in the southwest region.  The goal is to reach out to teachers near and far, provincially, nationally and internationally in order to facilitate success in obtaining additional qualifications.

“We want to make sure we get it right and provide the boards with what they need,” said UWindsor President Alan Wildeman, who was on hand for the official agreement signing ceremony at the Leonard & Dorothy Neal Education Building.

Wildeman said when people sometimes ask him how he started preparing to become a university president he tells them it began in Grade 1, noting that most of his academic success can be attributed to learning from teachers who continued to be engaged in professional development.

“So this agreement may help to ensure that someone out there in Grade 1 can become a president of a university one day,” he said.