The Essentials of Great Professional Development: How Educators Are Reimagining Professional Learning

From grading homework to district initiatives to technology integration, to respond to interventions, to social-emotional learning — the list goes on and on, teachers are busy. Time is their most precious resource. So when they hear about the time they will spend at a typical PD, teachers let out a collective sigh. Currently, most PD sessions are led by experts “reading” from slides and distributing handouts created in 1991 (True story! This actually just happened, somewhere in Southern California in Feb. 2019). There is not a teacher alive who has the time to sit through that. Teachers LOVE learning, but they hate PD — and who wouldn’t, with this outdated model?

Teachers are lifelong learners. Passionate about knowledge, they facilitate it for their students, but they also seek out improvement and enrichment for themselves. To see this in action, head over to Twitter and watch how educators have annexed this medium to connect, collaborate, share and LEARN! Teachers post inspiring stories and videos all over social media like Instagram. They form prolific and vibrant groups on Facebook and Pinterest. Many teachers form great social networks to share best practices and make their classrooms better places. They willingly do this on their own time, but — and here is the rub — these same educators dread PD. Where is the disconnect?

Read the full article @ The Technology Infused Classroom

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