Summer Professional Development?

[bthorp]

I'm a high school theater tech teacher looking for bring my teaching techniques up-to-date. I'd actually like to take basic level classes, to refresh/reinforce my own skills as well as see what type of equipment and techniques a well equipped program uses.

I'm looking for a professional development workshop for this summer (2013) that will cover theater tech curriculum, construction techniques, theater inventory/management, or any other worthwhile area.

I'm not looking for a lengthy program, but anything up to two weeks long would be great. Also, I live in Yuma, AZ (Arizona, California, Mexico border) and can't really afford to travel to the east coast.

Any recommendations?

 

[gafftaper]

Central Washington University (In Ellensburg, about 90 minutes East of Seattle) has a great summer program. It's designed for you to go pick up a masters over a couple of summers but you can also take individual classes. I've taken several classes there to keep my certification up to date. Here's the link to the main program info page. They offer cheap on campus housing. It looks like this summer if you took the session from June 27-July 7 you could pick up "Design Methodology" in the morning and "Lighting Design" in the afternoon. I love the person who teaches the lighting class. It'll be a beginning level class but she's really good and you'll learn a lot. They haven't said who's teaching the Design Methodology class yet, however the staff there is excellent and I'm sure you'll learn a lot no matter who teaches it. I took it several years ago and it was excellent. It really rocked my world giving me a whole new way to think about the design process.