Innovative Learning Spheres

When a new push to reframe educator professional development occurs, teachers often ask:

How does the PD help with specific curriculum requirements and standards?
How does it trigger additional professional learning opportunities?
How does it help the students in our classrooms and community?
How does it contribute to connections with other educators?
A collaborative platform that facilitates resource discovery and best practices gives teachers ownership of their own professional development. As personal learning networks expand, teachers achieve more recognition in their school communities and beyond.

Teachers organically organize collaborative environments, often finding one another through one or a number of the hundreds of Twitter chats that occur in any given week, or in locally organized EdCamps that are taking place throughout the globe. Blogs, webinars and conferences are also fruitful environments where educators can share ideas with one another.

Educators are also already taking advantage of the flexibility of online and interactive professional development to interact with peers and design programs based on their own interests. So why not build upon inquiry already taking place through blogs, Twitter chats, digital badges, Slack channels and interactive platforms?

Ultimately, it’s about empowerment and self-discovery through the expansion of personal learning networks, and the ability to blend in voices, concepts and tools from all over the world.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/professional-development-why-educators-and-teachers-cant-catch-up-that-quickly-and-how-to-change-it/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/learning-to-learn-for-my-professional-development-i-did-it-my-way/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/education-collaboration-and-coaching-the-future/

Faculty members must establish a rapport with each and every student from the beginning. The ongoing personal connection will not only encourage students to continue to learn, but will make them want to return to do the coursework because of the personal relationship. Students who feel as if they are alone in the online environment are far more likely to be disengaged, drop out of the course and/or leave work incomplete. 

Computers are merely the tool. Human interaction is imperative no matter what the environment.

The sense of community in an online course is critical to student retention.

dropout rate greater online v on campus. Social strategies may help those online.