The spring semester has officially begun, and, after being sick for most of my break (sad face), I’m more than ready to get back into the swing of things here at Penn and IEDP. Here’s my schedule for the spring: Proseminar Indigenous Education and Language Revitalization Advanced Principles in Monitoring and Evaluation Qualitative Modes of Inquiry Social Enterprise Models and Social Impact Locally and Globally … Continue reading Back to school, back to school…

Part of my responsibilities as a GA (which I alluded to in a previous post), is acting as the videographer for the program. My main duty as videographer is filming the IEDP Lecture Series, which brings in outside experts and/or persons of interest to speak to IEDP students about relevant topics in development. While more sporadic in the fall, in the spring we have a … Continue reading IEDP through videos

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… The end of the semester! Let’s not comment on how quickly the semester has gone (but really); rather, let’s celebrate it with a look at how we brought the fall semester to a close. Technical Proposals For Proseminar, our major project of the semester was a technical proposal. As I have mentioned before, this was a group project … Continue reading Fall semester wrap-up

Today’s post comes Evan Jansen, another member of IEDP and a fellow GA. He discusses some of the challenges our cohort has faced this semester as well as his position as his position as the GA Events Coordinator. He’s also got an amazing blog that you should check out.   Around this time a three years ago I was living in rural Thailand undertaking my initial efforts … Continue reading Creating spaces

Well, this month has certainly turned out to be… challenging. With the election results occupying everyone’s minds, rightfully causing us to question our safety, worry about family and friends’ safety, and even making us wonder what the future of our work will look like. I don’t think there is anyone in the program who is satisfied with the outcome, and it has all but magnified … Continue reading IEDP Friendsgiving

Pretty much. My reticence on this blog has been the main factor in why you’re not getting a post every single day, but this isn’t revolutionary information. Graduate students are busy, and IEDP isn’t a cake walk. That all being said, let me share with you some fun things that are occupying my time: Meeting Harry Potter at his eponymous festival at Chestnut Hill. (Seriously, this … Continue reading All I do is work, work, work

Communitanitos of penals Comtittities Technical proposals are fun, especially when you work on them later at night. For Proseminar, our major assignment is a technical proposal, which essentially is a large-scale document that lists and defines the requirements of a project, and explains the approach and plan formulated to address them. Earlier in October, Dr. GK made everyone choose a region they wanted (yours truly went … Continue reading The words you come up with in technical proposals

Today’s post comes from fellow IEDPer Gabby, who gives us a look at one of the many questions/ideas we confront in educational development. Her post originally ran on The Reign XY, a guide to being Generation Y, X Chromosomes, that she co-founded. In case you missed it, recently the U.S. State Department and Peace Corps announced the launch of “English For All”, a new program that … Continue reading English for All?

“[Y]ou become a servant of the local passion, the servant of local people who have a dream to become a better person. So what you do — you shut up. You never arrive in a community with any ideas, and you sit with the local people … And what we do, we become friends, and we find out what that person wants to do.” A member of our cohort, Kristina, shared this very … Continue reading The importance of listening