Professional development for 200 principals and teachers from 30 schools in Haiti: If you're going to dream, dream big.

In one week, our team of 40 educational leaders from Ontario, Quebec, Oklahoma, and Washington will be in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. The first Laurier-sponsored Educator and Leadership Institute will be launched!

At this point, we have more than 200 principals and teachers registered from 30 schools from across northern and central Haiti. We don't have a firm number of how many students are represented in those 30 schools but we anticipate that it is approximately 15,000. What this means is that the summer institute has the potential to impact the educational experiences of a massive number of students.

If we can help Haitian teachers and principals provide more effective math and science teaching strategies, equip teachers to support students with special education needs, nourish the abilities of teachers of early learners, enable teachers to engage students in critical literacy, and encourage leaders in effective leadership practices, then we will have changed the learning trajectory of 1,000s of Haitian students.

We have committed to a sustainable model over five years which will gradually engage our Haitian partners in increased leadership within the summer institute to further build their own leadership structures and systems. We have also built a research agenda into the framework of the summer institute so that we can identify effective strategies that we might be able to leverage in other similar contexts. Finally, the investigation of how online tools and resources can be used in fragile states such as Haiti will provide an incredible opportunity to consider contexts such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and how online learning can supplement traditional educational models.

I am nervous about the scale of what we are doing but as one prominent Haitian leader once said to me, "If you're going to dream, dream big."