Looking for a stimulating and perceptive speaker for staff professional development? Consider the internationally recognised and applauded, Gary Stager. No one will fall asleep in his sessions and the school will be the winner from this visit
David Loader, OAM – Former Principal of Methodist Ladies’ College, Kew & Wesley College, Melbourne
Unrivaled experience, expertise, energy, and imagination are what set Gary Stager apart from other education “experts” and speakers. Gary knows that successful professional development and school change is dependent on agility, awareness, skill, and an ability to situate modernity in the noblest of progressive traditions. He is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and demonstrate what’s possible in real schools, with real teachers and their students. That is the work that he loves and does best.
The following is a collection of ways in which Dr. Gary Stager may be of service to your educational community. Whether collaborating on a one-day workshop or an ongoing program of mentoring and consensus building, Gary will work closely with stakeholders to craft the right mix of interventions to meet your needs.
Hard fun workshops for educators
Generations of educators across the globe have benefited from participating in Dr. Stager’s hands-on workshops. These learning adventures are known for their imaginative use of technology, deep thinking, problem solving, skill development, and inspiration to continue learning and growing back in the classroom.
Major themes include: project-based learning, physical computing, engineering, robotics, computation, curriculum integration, the Reggio Emilia approach, and progressive education.
Here are some even more recent recollections about Gary’s professional activities.
In-classroom mentoring
Gary Stager is a master educator with experience teaching students from preschool through doctoral studies. Schools benefit from having him lead model lessons for teachers in their own classrooms. This expands their sense of their students’ capabilities, models best learner-centered practices – including “less us, more them,” improves prompt setting, and inspires practicing educators.
Gary’s superpower is as a classroom anthropologist quickly seeing what others may have missed, even after daily interactions in the same learning environment. His insights are beneficial to teachers interesting in their own personal growth and amplifying the potential of their students. Dr. Stager has worked with the same schools, districts, or states over an entire school year, multiple years, and even spent months at a time in residence at particular schools.
Speaking
Dr. Stager is a popular keynote speaker who has presented at the world’s leading conferences. He is just at home speaking to a group of parents, university students, community members, policymakers, or business leaders. His presentations are provocative, thoughtful, witty, and filled with examples of what the powerful ideas look like in practice. Gary’s talks are at the intersection of childhood, democracy, creativity, and modernity.
“Some people think outside the box. Gary is unaware of the box’s existence”
Futurist, Dr. David Thornburg
Family workshops
When parents and caregivers can see through the eyes, hands, and screens of their children what’s possible. They crave a different educational diet for the kids they love. Family workshops have been an incredibly powerful tool for schools interested in building consensus for change or supercharging other progressive efforts.
It’s now even possible to send each family home with cool hardware to keep inventive learning going long after the event. Family workshops may be on weekends or in the evening following other PD activities.
- Explore thoughts and video from a family workshop.
- Here are some even more recent recollections about Gary’s professional activities.
Consulting, planning, evaluation
Dr. Stager has extensive experience helping schools set goals, achieve results, and sell the dream of a world in which kids wake up in the middle of the night with a burning desire to return to school to work on a project they care about and where teachers arise each morning with a desire to make today the best seven hours of a child’s life.
Let Gary help your learning community realize its potential.
Professional development retreats
Since the 1980s, Gary has led multi-day residential professional development retreats for schools across Australia and in the United States. His annual institute, Constructing Modern Knowledge, is a model of the powerful learning experiences made possible when learning becomes less rushed, more informal, uninterrupted, social, collaborative, and authentic.
Client schools can attest to how much more cost-effective, efficient, and beneficial these immersive experiences are when compared to an endless series of traditional after school PD sessions.
Student workshops
Want to kickstart computer use, engineering, computation, or curiosity driven project-based learning in your school, Gary can help. Stuck in a rut? Let Dr. Stager expand the imaginations and fluency of your students.
Gary helps schools introduce new skills, activities, and domains of knowledge to learners of all ages. He can launch projects and provide ongoing real or virtual support as well.
Courses for educators and students
Gary designed one of the world’s first online masters degree programs for educators more than 25 years ago and has extensive experience harnessing the power of asynchronous and synchronous technologies to create rich learning environments in which busy professionals learn by feeling part of something larger than themselves. His clients have included states, educator associations, and individual schools.
A variety of imaginative, practical, inspirational courses may be designed to meet your school’s specific needs. Multiple course sequences and hybrid face-to-face PD with online support are also available.
In addition to offering online courses for educators and school leaders, Dr. Stager invites schools to consider enrolling classes of students in his one-of-a-kind Clever Computing for Children course.
A Clever Computing for Teachers course is also now available.
