My First Pg Cert Workshop Experience.
I completed my first workshop for my PgCert course today. It was an insightful session where my anxious predictions of returning to education was soon eliminated by the well planned, relaxed but informative session. It was a great opportunity to meet my peers on the course and to have discussions and dialogues about our fears and experiences in the world of education. This reflective and critical approach to my journey as an educator was empowering and supportive.
Reviewing a timeline of world events, policies, and educational trends/innovations was an interesting and interactive start to the course. This enabled me to place these areas of development into context and visually appreciate their place in history. I will be using this idea in my future workshops for students. This exercise is a good way of illustrating to students how they can reflect backwards to reflect forwards. This helped me to review my own journey along the timeline of events and to review Kolb’s experiential learning theory of a concrete experience where the learner can then partake in personal and group reflections. (Kolb and Kolb, 2018)
Fig. 1. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith, 2025).
Fig. 2. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith, 2025).
Fig. 3. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith 2025).
Fig. 4. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith 2025).
Fig. 5. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith, 2025).
Fig. 6. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. (Smith 2025).
Reading and discussing the designated writing material helped me to critically analyse a case study and to utilise the skills that I often encourage my students to exercise when tackling readings that are sometimes complicated. Some areas were challenging. This was interesting to partake in this exercise from a student perspective. I found this session very reflective, and this has allowed me to be optimistic about the course and to be excited about the new opportunities and experiences that I will encounter.
The idea of reflection and viewing experiences through a critical lens during this session has highlighted its relevance and almost the necessary inclusion of evaluation. Whether it is looking through history and the monumental turning points of time or reviewing seemingly complicated literature, pausing and having discussions with your peers about shared experiences has proved to not only be invaluable but brought about clarity and transparency.
As an educator I often advocate to students about the importance of thinking, reading and writing critically, however I often forget how this also applies to me and my profession. All the tools I equip my students with on a day-to-day basis will now be transferred into my own practical, tangible and personal experience along this new learning journey. The idea of looking at learning according to David and Alice Kolb within four cycles of reflection, concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation and applying what I have learnt to my own profession. (Kolb and Kolb, 2018).
References
Kolb, A. and Kolb, D. (2018). ‘Eight important things to know about the experiential learning cycle.’ Australian Education Leader, (online) 40(3), pp.8–14. Available at: https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.192540196827567 (Accessed 20th January 2025).
Smith.G.(2025) Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations. [Photograph]
Image References
Fig. 1 – 6. Timeline of world events, policies and educational trends/innovations.