How do you get your professional development in Philadelphia?

I’m not talking about the stuff that your school provides — maybe that is excellent, but in many cases it’s a bore. Hopefully you attend EduCon, and participate in your discipline’s #edchat, and follow the news. But are you registered for an Inquiry to Action Group?

In case you need a reminder from Paolo Freire via the Cooperative Catalyst, teachers must be activists. And educators do this best in networked groups, exploring issues on their own, and making plans for positive change, no matter how big or small.

Anybody can participate, and the programs are free. Last year, I participated in an ItAG called “Context for Change,” which connected me with a dozen motivated educators I had never met before, and it helped me figure out what I was doing with this blog.

The topics this year are Democratic Teacher Evaluation, Linguistic Bias Against Students of Color, Online Activism for Education, Social Justice Math, and Social Justice Unionism.

Oh yeah — and Project Based Learning, which I will be facilitating with help from everybody at SLA.

The kick off is Thursday, February 7th. Sign up here.