Ask any teacher what they do in their free time and they will look you in the eyes and start laughing. Why? Because once you get them to stop laughing they will tell you that they don’t have any free time. The truth of the matter is that many of them don’t. Now with the new Common Core State Standards being implemented they, the teachers, are most likely preoccupied with switching up their pedagogical practices. They definitely don’t have any free time to pursue professional development (PD), but is what they need the most. This is where asynchronous online PD shines.
Asynchronous online PD allows teachers to access learning activities and materials at anytime and anywhere they have an Internet connection. So how does this work in my district, well, it doesn’t yet. This is my summer project. I am going to sit down and design 12 modules/classes that teachers can work on at their own pace whenever they want.
These courses will be designed to help my teachers integrate technology into their teaching practices. The courses will range from simple stuff like, “How the heck do I use Google Docs” to more intellectual pursuits such as, “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Evaluating One’s Self Using the TPACK model.”
I will be using our district’s online learning management system to host the courses so that I can track the time spent by my teachers on each course. I want to do it this way so that I can work out a deal with human resources to get my teachers paid for their PD efforts. Here is a link to one of my public pages that teachers can use to get “Just-In-Time” PD and other information.
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