Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Michael Alpert is a Crystal Apple Award Winning educator, and has worked in both small, rural districts and large, suburban districts in the Portland metro area, even serving overseas as a teacher and Central Administrator in Prague, Czech Republic.
Mike is also a founding board member of Ex Novo Brewing Co, a benefit corporation donating all net proceeds to charitable organizations. Mike founded Peer Driven PD in 2019 with the goal of bringing streamlined, private sector solutions to public education. Mike’s corporate experience as a project analyst for an international renewable energy firm (Iberdrola Renewables) and as a financial services specialist (employee credit union of Intel and Microsoft) led him to realize the importance of education across all fields.
Mike earned his MBA at Portland State University, with focused coursework in finance and innovation management, and took his expertise to the classroom and school office, where he worked over the next decade as a middle school humanities teacher before becoming a building administrator and later founding Peer Driven PD. On his “off days” (a little educator joke) you can find him training for his next half-marathon or at home with his wife and their growing family.
In this episode, Will and Mike discuss the following:
- Recognize that each of us is a specialist in our craft.
- Learn to embrace the change instead of push against it.
- Mike has learned the importance that you compensation (tangibly but also in other ways) should be relative to your ability to help others solve problems.
- Teachers are looking for themselves to be represented in the PD we provide for them.
- We must present high quality professional development from teachers TO teachers.
- Teachers are world-class specialists! How are we utilizing their expertise?
- Strong classroom management requires both structure and relationships.
- Admins must learn to listen more to teachers.
- If you have a struggling teacher, to to them and ask them to help you find solutions. Then take their advice and let them know you value how they help you solve problems.
- Tap into the incredible ideas of those on your staff.
Peer Driven PD resources can be found at peerdrivenpd.com/resources.
Reach Mike Alpert at mike@peerdrivenpd.com
Listen-in to the entire conversation for even more takeaways!
