Taking Control Of Your Professional Development

I love professional development. But I don’t like professional development that is imposed on me that really has no relevance to what I’m doing or it’s something that I already know. When I first started teaching, professional development was face to face, and usually not something I chose to do. Fortunately, I worked at a pretty progressive school and much of the professional development was helping us raise the bar and narrow the gap.

I know that many in teaching have had less than exemplary professional development experiences, which has meant that many educators have been doing it on their own. Using their personal time to up skill themselves, connect with others so they can make a difference.

When the corona-virus pandemic hit in 2020, many teachers were forced to teach online. Many experienced teachers felt like new teachers again, some really felt out of their depth. Once the dust had settled, and teachers adjusted, we conducted a survey, asking educators what their priorities for professional development was. Over 3 weeks, nearly 100 responded from Europe, Oceania, North America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and the findings were interesting.

62% were getting their professional development from either their professional learning networks or free online courses!

There’s clearly an appetite there for personalised professional development, but what type of professional development did the teacher say they wanted the most? They want professional development:

• About pedagogy
• By educators showing colleagues the purpose of tech or a tool for teaching in the classroom
• About how to teach effectively online.

The Rise of Communities of Practice and Professional Learning Communities

Both communities of practice and professional learning communities can really take a practitioner's teaching to a new level. But how do they differ and how can you leverage each best? Dr Julie Keane, Chief Learning Officer at Participate Learning, explains the difference in the video that follows.

But where do you start? It may seem like a daunting task, because let’s be honest there are so many out there. How can you sift the wheat from the chaff? Julie Aroy gives some really practical tips for choosing a community of practice to help you amplify your practice.

Video Supercharged Learning Community

We’ve been working with educators and institutions to create classroom and teacher professional development content for a long time. As part of that process we have spoken to hundreds of educators about our content, but also what it’s like to be a teacher in the classroom today.

We know you’re all using video. We also know that most of you have never really been shown the most effective way to use it. It’s highly likely that you’ve been using it effectively enough, but there are ways in which you can use it better. And that’s where we can help. As an educational media company we are uniquely positioned to help you here. Not only do we have video production professionals, we also have educators on staff who are not only passionate about using video in the classroom, but actually know the best ways to use it to motivate, engage and enhance the learning experience of those you teach.

Interested to find out more?

Why not sign into our Community and take a look around. Beyond the sign up, there are no fees, no spamming, just a Community where you can get:

• Access to short professional development courses
• Opportunities for paid user testing
• Access to video production specialists and other like minded educators

What’s not to like about that?

You can join the Video Supercharged Learning Community here.

Read more about the Community here.