PD Sessions for August finally updated (mostly focusing on the second half of the month)
Still playing "catch-up" with a lot of early August content - mostly a lot of back to school events from the usual providers.
Second, the National Constitution Center is starting with something I don't think they have done before - a virtual event specifically targeted at homeschool parents and coordinators. NCC has a whole series of events for public school educators starting around Constitution Day (Sep 17th) but this is the first event I've seen advertised otherwise. For more information on the homeschool event on August 26th, go to https://constitutioncenter.org/calendar/homeschool-resource-showcase
Third, I chose specific sessions to "feature" from 3 of our regular providers:
EconEdLink is getting started back up with 1-hour sessions after their 3-day Summer Institute in July. This month I'm featuring their Aug 19th session "Big Dreams, Little Steps: Helping Students Explore Future Careers" with Susanna McConnell from Texas describing how transferable skills prepare students for future careers (https://econedlink.org/webinar/big-dreams-little-steps-helping-kids-explore-future-careers/ for more information).
Federal Reserve Education has several sessions scheduled on specific tools, but I'm featuring their Aug 13th session on "Top Ten Lessons in Economics" on active-learning lessons for the start of the school year (https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/events/2026/August/top-10-lessons-in-economics for more details).
Finally in this category, Econiful is also getting started with several lesson-based webinars for teachers - I'm going to feature Aug 20th's "Paychecks and Priorities: Income and Budgeting Lesson Plans" looking at classroom activities from their economics curriculum (https://econiful.glueup.com/event/paychecks-and-priorities-income-and-budgeting-lesson-plans-186215/).
To wrap up for this month, Sphere Education is launching a new website with two sessions in late August. While you could certainly attend the more general introduction on Aug 20th, I'm going to feature the one I plan to attend on Aug 25th - "Advance Your Pedagogical Expertise with Sphere’s New Human Progress Curriculum". I've seen a couple of specific stories/lessons from this curriculum (and I have both books the series is based on), but I'm looking forward to seeing how they are integrating world history and civics in this new set of readings and lessons. For more information, go to https://www.sphere-ed.org/event/advance-your-pedagogical-expertise-with-sphere-s-new-human-progress-curriculum.
First, let me mention a couple of general website updates (particularly if you haven't been following the website challenges recently). You "might" notice the formatting is a little different right now - I am trying some suggestions from Hostinger (my website host) to see if posts can size a little more consistently across updates. Probably won't notice it much here (since there aren't any images) but a little more "cut-rewrite-paste" type of format.
Second, I am continuing to travel a lot this month - staying busy with in-person PD presentations as districts get back to school and ask providers to send out trainers while there is opportunity in the schedule. Just finished a week in Florida and Nevada - now home for a few days, then back on the road for sessions in Virginia and North Carolina. And still doing virtual sessions as well in the midst of the travel (since you can connect from almost any hotel room).
What does that mean for this website? Mostly it means the updates will be "feast or famine" right now - a lot of work can be done certain days, and relatively little other days. I've particularly been surprised with airline trips - I can get a lot done waiting at gates or concourses, but almost nothing on the plane itself (the seats have gotten WAY too narrow to pull out my laptop comfortably - and in a couple of cases the window where the seatbelt sign was off was very short - so I have tended to use those times to catch up on my reading or e-mails on my tablet instead).
Like I did last month, I will mention a little more detail about each of the new PD opportunities I am adding (but probably not as much detail as I did with the summer virtual conferences). The first one might be the final "back to school" conference of the year, hosted by NGPF on Saturday, August 22nd. I'm not going to go through all of their sessions that day, but I will note they have two keynote speakers this year - seems to be an effort to offer different things for East Coast and West Coast teachers (or you can stay all day and get both!). So early in the morning NGPF has Jeremy Schneider, the founder and CEO of Personal Finance Club, while their lunchtime speaker will be best-selling author and financial commentator Beth Kobliner, talking about her new book "Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties". I will be travelling most of that day, but hope to hear as many sessions via Zoom and Bluetooth (in my rental car) as I can. Here is a link for more details about the full conference - https://www.ngpf.org/events/?registerId=2001500
Below I'm going to continue documenting the PD items I put on the home page - keep in mind I will then start replacing the earliest ones with offerings for early September in a couple of weeks. I will not duplicate registration links (though several of them are offered above) but at least can record what was offered for "posterity". Here are the new listings (in chronological order) as of today:
Federal Reserve Education, "Top Ten Lessons in Economics", 8/13, 3:30-4:30pm CT
Council for Economic Education, "Big Dreams, Little Steps: Helping Students Explore Future Careers", 8/19, 4-5pm CT
Econiful, "Paychecks and Priorities: Income and Budgeting Lesson Plans", 8/20, 6-7pm CT
NextGen Personal Finance (NGPF), "Back to School Virtual Conference 2026", 8/22, with sessions from 9am-5:30pm CT
Sphere Education, "Advance Your Pedagogical Expertise with Sphere’s New Human Progress Curriculum", 8/25, 6-7pm CT
National Constitution Center, "Homeschool Resource Showcase", 8/26, 11am-12pm CT
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