The International Schools Review Forum

My new school is pretty generous with PD. Apparently a lot of teachers don't take advantage of it, but I want to! You can apply to go to various PD in the US. However, I don't even know where to look! Where would one find good weekend-long courses, workshops or conferences? Which would you recommend? Google is not being all that helpful.

I use Portland State University. It's just what I know about, but they publish a catalog of online PD.

I thought people would have responded by now with all sorts of options. My only thought is that if you are a member of a professional organization (usually by subject matter), you can find state, regional, and national conferences through them.

Look at organizations like EARCOS, NESA, and AISA...they host PD and I think you can go even if your school is not a member, but you'll pay more. Some bigger (tier 1-type) schools have well-resourced PD offices--if you know someone that works at a school like that, ask them what's being promoted through their school.

If you know the specific presenter, you can google their schedule--I did that with Carol Tomlinson for differentiation and ended up at a great 2 day workshop in Chiang Mai.

Another way is to look for PD in specific cities like Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai...cities that host a lot of PD and tend to be centers in those areas. Look at specific topics like "writer's workshop PD in Hong Kong" and see what happens. At some point in my career I stopped just going to PD and started looking for specific people and courses that targeted needs in my professional development or needs that I was facing in the position I was in at that time.

Good luck!

I would either do weekend courses that earn you university credit or do IB (or AP) workshops, they are what will add the most value to your resume.

I get IB training sometime over the course of my 2-year contract.

I was thinking more about finding some useful conference that also happen to be in, say, California in January or NYC in June. :)

What age/subjects do you teach?

MS humanities

Readers Writers Workshop is popular. If your PD isnt going to result in a recognized training certificate for a school leaving course, it doesnt really matter, go where you have to spend the least amount of time in a classroom, and where youd like to spend some time exploring the local offerings.

This year the ECIS conference is in Barcelona.
https://www.ecis.org/events/conferences

ECIS tends to be in more desirable locations, great if it werent for having to attend the actual conference.