CCNMTL Educational Technologist Paul Joseph Stengel traveled to Rio De Janeiro in Brazil with a group of educators lead by Teachers College professor Brian Perkins. The team was charged with the task of providing approximately 100 local teachers with professional development workshops on the following topics: backward design, applications of neuroscience and cognition in teaching and learning, learning strategies, and opportunities and best practices for educational technology. The project was funded by Brazil’s Social Services of Commerce (SESC), a private organization established to spend public tax dollars on public initiatives.

Paul spent four days teaching workshops to approximately 25 teachers each day. Topics included Educational Technology in the Classroom: Opportunities and Best Practices, Teaching and Learning with New Media, and Assessing Teaching and Learning with Technology. Using Google Apps for Education, teachers worked in pairs on a lesson they planned to teach during the school year, exploring purposeful technology implementation by following the CCNMTL Design Research cycle and integrating methods for evaluating their teaching.

Paul’s presentations were influenced by many of the faculty development workshops provided by CCNMTL over the years and are freely available to view on a Google Sites archive.