Professional Development for Educators

Professional Development for Educators

It takes good teachers to make good students. Your development is as important as theirs.

Like in many other professions, the state has set requirements for professional development (PD) training or continuing education that educators must complete in order to maintain their licenses. This additional training allows teachers to enhance their subject-matter expertise and stay in the loop on the latest pedagogical trends, learning approaches, curricula and technological tools. Given today’s restricted school district budgets, the responsibility for this development generally falls to the individual.

The Teach Tomorrow website is a great resource for future and current educators, and provides key information about PD. The site tells us:

In addition to helping you transition from a good to great educator, Continuing Education Courses (CEC), also called Continuing Education Units (CEU), will enable you to:

• Satisfy subject endorsement requirements
• Qualify for license recertification and renewal
• Earn points for salary advancement
• Meet The U.S. Department of Education’s Highly-Qualified Teacher requirements

Earning CEUs
Specific requirements for license renewal vary greatly from state to state. The table provided within the Teach Tomorrow Continuing Education Guidebook will help you identify key criteria for your own state’s PD requirements, as well as its Common Core standards. This online guidebook is one of the best teacher’s resources that we’ve found on the subject. Your state’s Department of Education website is also likely to be a good resource for you.

Another resource, the Teacher CEU Toolbox, provides online, on-demand, continuing education courses. Their course creators have advanced degrees in education, are Nationally Board Certified, or have been recognized for exemplary teaching practices. The Teach Me Professional Development site also provides CEUs for educators.

Other information about educators’ PD requirements can be found at:

The U.S. Department of Education’s No Child Left Behind website
The Common Core State Standards Initiative

Conferences
Many of the best networking and professional development opportunities are obtained face-to-face, surrounded by other, real-life educational professionals. Below we provide links to some of the top educators’ conferences for 2016, many of which will help you earn CEUs:

The ASCD Annual Conference takes place April 2-4 in Atlanta, GA. Founded in 1943, ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has over 125,000 members in more than 138 countries, as well as 56 affiliate organizations. This association provides innovative solutions in PD, capacity building and leadership.

The NEA ESP National Conference takes place March 11-13, 2016 in Orlando, FL. This conference is designed to provide PD opportunities for Education Support Professionals.

The NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) also hosts events such as the 2016 STEM Forum, taking place in Denver, CO from June 27-29, 2016.

Additional conferences and events are listed in Education World
(“The Ten Best Education Conferences”) and in Learning and the Brain (“Teacher Professional Development Conferences”).

Last month, Envision’s Andrew Potter and Erin Koster from our Academic Affairs department presented at the annual conference for AMLE, the Association for Middle Level Education. Their presentation on Preparing Students for 21st Century Careers is now available free for educators to download.

Andrew also presented at the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) annual conference in New Orleans, November 13-15, 2015.

Personalized Professional Development for the Digital Era
Although your state or school district is likely to dictate some of your PD direction, you should also adopt a personalized approach, using the many online tools at your disposal. Check back next month, when we provide a second article on this topic, focused on the video and social media resources that are keeping educators connected and informed.

What professional development activity made the most impact on your educational experience? We’d love to hear from you, in our Comments section below. We’ve also made it easy to share content of all types. Let’s keep the conversation and information flowing.