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Business Insider
K-12 Dive
Effective online teacher training grows, but in-person supports still needed
Kara Arundel
Jan. 13, 2021
Dive Brief:
Educator professional development is becoming more accessible, flexible
and personalized as a result of the pandemic-related need for online
training but experts say face-to-face interactions will still be
essential to building effective teacher workforces.
On-demand instructional learning, quicker access to best practices and
the growing ability to connect with colleagues and experts across the
state and country are some of the benefits of online training is
enhancing during remote teaching. Those elements, which have the
potential to reach greater numbers of educators, should have staying
power post pandemic, say teacher workforce development experts.
Having a comprehensive plan for online and in-person teacher training
and supports can better boost teacher effectiveness and retention
rates, particularly in high-poverty school communities, according to
experts. “One thing that is important to remember, though, is that
[professional development] still needs to be more than attending a
webinar, a one and done situation,” said Meg Kamman, co-director of the
CEEDAR Center at the University of Florida, in an email.
Dive Insight:
Teacher professional development was on the brink of wide-spread reform
before the pandemic. All-day in-service learning logistics, irrelevant
content and the expense of travel were just a few of complaints of the
traditional PD practices. Teachers also said there was limited access
to effective PD opportunities, according to research published in 2019
by the Economic Policy Institute that was included in a series about
the teacher labor market.
When the pandemic hit last March and student learning suddenly moved
online, there was immediate demand for online teacher supports. The
field responded with numerous webinars and resources that overwhelmed
some educators. The next step education leaders should take is to
highlight the best virtual PD resources and add individualized coaching
and proven in-person continuous career supports when it is safe to do
so, say experts focused on teacher training initiatives.
“There is innovation that can continue to happen,” said Lynn Holdheide,
who is senior advisor at the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders as
well as co-director of the CEEDAR Center, a technical assistance center
supported by the U.S. Education Department.
For example, some PD sessions could occur asynchronously and then be
followed by a time to practice those skills and for follow-up coaching.
In other words, the online teacher training would be the jumping off
point for educators to use the skills they learned and to get
deeper-level feedback on their performances, Kamman said in her email.
Practice-based opportunities can even be held through video
conferencing where a coach can observe a teacher in action and provide
real-time feedback, Holdheide said.
Professional Learning Communities is another strategy schools use to
connect networks of teachers who exchange practice ideas, experiment
with approaches and offer feedback to each other. While PLCs aren’t a
new approach, Holdheide said efforts in the past year have been more
intentional and oriented to real-time problem solving.
Giving teachers the ability to access resources for specific issues
they face in the moment will likely be an emerging PD trend. Technical
assistance centers, such as GLT and CEEDAR, as well as other
institutions and organizations, are archiving webinars, documents and
other supports so teachers and administrators can retrieve resources as
they need them, Holdheide said.
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