Christina Morris (left), Senior Education Officer, awarding Jennifer Waithe with her certificate of completion.
Christina Morris (left), Senior Education Officer, giving Kamesha Harris her certificate of completion.
Teachers must continue to learn
Senior Education Officer from the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Christina Morris, expressed that she believed all teachers should be engaged in professional development during the Easter and summer vacations.
Her comment came during the closing ceremony of the Creation of Wood and Manipulatives workshop, which was held at the St. Leonard’s Boys’ Secondary School yesterday evening.
“If I had my way, all of our teachers would be engaged in professional development during the Easter holiday as well as during the summer,” she said.
Morris explained that she believed that professional development was critical to ensuring that all teachers: one, remain on the cutting edge; two, refresh; and three, keep up to date with what is current internationally, so that they could in turn return to the classroom and use that knowledge for the benefit of their students.
“So for me, professional development is critical,” she noted.
She reminded teachers of the cognitive benefits of engaging children in the use of manipulatives. She expressed that children learn at different stages in their development and encouraged the teachers to continue to ensure that they expose their charges to the use of materials like the ones they built during the workshop to help them understand the concepts that would be taught.
“Sometimes I think that we rush them into abstract thinking too soon and therefore I want to encourage you to be aware of that and ensure that regardless of whether it is a concept in Mathematics or Language Arts, that you make sure that they are actively engaged and that you’re utilising all of their skills and abilities to help them understand the concepts,” she stated.
Morris went on to commend all the participants for responding to their advertisement and giving up part of their holiday to come and participate. She encouraged them to share what they learnt during the five days with their colleagues upon return to their respective schools and urged them to put their pieces on display.