Nearly a third of K-12 teachers are thinking about leaving their jobs. While pay is part of the equation, three-quarters say that they are dealing with unmanageable workloads. The number-one driver of retention? Meaningful work.
However, professional development is not always aligned with the expertise needed and is often seen as a check-the-box exercise rather than providing useful and actionable skill development. Teachers consistently report that most conference-style training falls short.
Competency-based learning provides hands-on training that focuses on outcomes. The right programs can teach skills that can be used in real-life classrooms. Teachers can learn at their own pace, meet continuing education requirements more easily, and gain skills for advancement. It’s simply a better training experience that keeps educators focused and motivated.
Teachers don’t universally embrace professional development. Too much of it is a “one size fits all” approach that fails to personalize lessons for teachers with specific needs or at different stages of their careers.
For teachers who are already stretched thin, traditional professional development classes also often fail to meet their needs, while forcing them to take time away from classrooms and students. This can be frustrating and devalue the learning experience.
Teachers report they’re more satisfied—and fulfilled—with competency-based learning that enables them to work at their own pace asynchronously with personalized learning paths.
Self-directed, competency-based learning also overcomes key challenges. For example, research shows that it’s 90% more engaging than face-to-face training. That’s no surprise because teachers get immediate takeaways that are customized to their roles and situations. This creates a culture of support and continuous improvement, boosting teacher and staff morale.
A modern professional learning hub for schools like MobileMind consolidates all professional development activities into a single learning hub. As a cloud-based solution, MobileMind is accessible from any connected device, whether teachers are in the classroom or working remotely.
You can easily create personalized learning paths, individual learner goals, and activity-based micro-courses. The comprehensive learning hub can also encourage participation through leaderboards, badges, and gamification.
Bringing everything together also helps instructional tech leaders, who often juggle new teacher onboarding, state-mandated training, and a long list of curriculum and vendors.
Rather than sit through half-day or day-long training sessions, educators can take micro-courses on their schedule for more memorable, focused outcomes. Districts can create their own training, or they can leverage MobileMind’s pre-built micro-courses, including on topics like:
For example, Microsoft Educators provides six personalized, self-paced learning paths for users to prepare to become a Microsoft Certified Educator. You can use these pre-built professional development topics and use them for your unique training needs. You can also save time by creating micro-courses for common training topics and using them across your district or choosing courses that other districts have created.
Many of the courses provide significant learning opportunities while taking just minutes to complete.
Your competency-based learning hub also becomes a central hub to manage internal and external credit hours, track and display badges, and account for professional development course completion. Not only does this provide a greater sense of accomplishment, but tracking development in one place also saves educators and admins a considerable amount of time and effort.
For professional development that takes place outside of the learning hub, it’s simple to submit PD credits in the intuitive browser, iOS, or Android app. Micro-credentials, certifications, and other professional development accomplishments can be showcased in a consolidated digital portfolio that can be shared internally and/or externally.
Professional development is most effective when tied to relevant skills that teachers can use in their classrooms. Competency-based learning enables teachers to do just that. By streamlining and simplifying the PD process, you can fulfill continuing education obligations while respecting your teacher’s time.
There are multiple use cases, including the following.
EdTech Training
Engage teachers in PD about the intentional use of an educational technology tool, and ask them to use what they’ve learned to create an authentic student activity. Then, ask them to submit evidence of that artifact in order to demonstrate competency.
STEM/STEAM Training
Personalize STEM and STEAM topics tailored to teacher interests and competency levels, including topics like project-based learning, social-emotional learning, backward design, and personalized learning. With MobileMind, you can also create simple screencasts for educators to watch together or independently.
New Teacher Onboarding and Remediation
Onboarding is simpler when you provide a centralized hub for what new teachers need to know and provide information that they can reference later if needed. Create customized learning paths to further develop a teacher’s skills with focused micro-courses.
MobileMind enables you to create customized micro-courses, consolidate training, track professional development activity, and boost educator morale. Most importantly, competency-based learning for teachers gives educators the skills and tools that they need to improve outcomes in the classroom.
Today, nearly every state in the country implements competency-based education to a certain degree for students in the classroom. It’s proven an effective technique to deliver instruction for students at their level of understanding and development. You can use the same teaching strategy to help educators take their skills to the next level.
MobileMind’s micro courses offer bite-sized learning opportunities that take minutes to complete without leaving the classroom and offer better time management. Schedule a call with MobileMind or request a demo to help ease teacher workflow and retain top talent with improved professional learning opportunities!
