Solving the 6 Professional Development Challenges

Buy-In

In the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation study Teachers Know Best, teachers report wanting professional development that is relevant, sustainable, interactive, and teacher-driven. They want to be respected as professionals. Understandably, teachers wish for their knowledge and experience to be valued, as well as considered during the PD design process. 

When teachers are required to sit through one-size-fits-all professional development, it is easy for them to become frustrated or even resentful. Unintentional PD design undoubtedly contributes to educators’ dissatisfaction with mandated teacher training, repeatedly leaving teachers with a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to any type of continued learning. 

Adult learning theories such as Knowles’ Theory of Andragogy proposed concepts that most certainly initiated a revolution in the world of adult education. We know that educators (and all adults, for that matter) prefer professional development relevant to their needs and has practical use. Abundant research on adult learning has revealed the importance of offering learning opportunities that are problem-centered, self-directed, and lead to the immediate utility of newly acquired skills. 

At MobileMind, we wholeheartedly believe that educators deserve high-quality, meaningful professional development that is grounded in such research. Providing PD grounded in said research is absolutely essential if any professional development initiative is to succeed. Our self-paced, personalized micro-courses allow teachers to guide their own learning. 

Each teacher can engage in training relevant to his or her unique challenges, needs, and goals. We want teachers to know that their time is valued and for everyone to find success, whether they are seeking Google certifications or if they are brand new Google users wanting to build foundational skills. We ensure they reach success by offering micro-courses geared towards learners at any level. Finally, our hands-on challenges not only model the practicality of skills acquired but also allow educators to begin creating materials they can use immediately in their classrooms and schools. 

Personalization

We often discuss personalizing the learning experience for students, but traditional professional development typically fails to personalize PD for our educators. Honestly, if you aren’t differentiating technology PD at scale for all your teachers, it’s a problem.

Teachers have told us countless times that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to technology training doesn’t work, and research has revealed this issue repeatedly when it comes to traditional PD offerings. If we train all teachers, leaders, and staff on the same content and in the same manner, we are marginalizing the majority of our adult learners and losing their interest from the very start, leading to failed technology adoption. 

If we want teacher buy-in, as discussed above, we must provide differentiated learning experiences for teachers, just as we strive to do for our students. So how do you effectively offer targeted technology PD based on varying proficiency levels?

First, every single MobileMind micro-course is differentiated between beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Most of the time educators will fall into one of these three groups. So, it is very easy for a teacher to start learning based on their relative knowledge of a Google tool. Educators can rate their skill levels across Google tools, and their micro-course library will be tailored to meet their needs. 

Additionally, we have certification pathways that are also segmented based on proficiency. For example, a brand new user to Google may need to complete some early foundational elements before they even think about things like Google Certification levels. They could start with our Google Basics learning path. You may also have a veteran Google user wishing to earn Google Educator certification - or even Google Trainer certification. We can help with that as well! We empower educators to choose their own learning pathways based on their knowledge and skills, as well as their professional goals. 

Finally, we even offer micro-courses specific to leaders and staff. It’s great for an instructional leader to know what to look for in the classroom, for instance, but how can leaders leverage Google tools to improve school culture and productivity? We’ve got you covered there, too!

Sustainability 

The pace of change in educational technology can make it seem nearly impossible for teachers and edtech leaders to stay current on updates and new features. Consider the constant evolution of Google tools, for example. With frequent updates to key Google tools, such as Google Drive and Classroom, there are simply not enough traditional training days to keep educators abreast of this dynamic suite of tools.

Many districts provided Google Classroom training during preplanning, for instance, only to watch Classroom undergo some pretty significant updates a month or so later. We’ve also seen schools receive Chromebooks or launch Google Workspace for Education in August or September, hoping that they can start using the tools before their first dedicated PD day a month or two later. When districts rely only on face-to-face training, educators are at the mercy of the district's schedule, and it might be weeks or even months before teachers can receive initial training or refresh training on tools they’re expected to be used in the classroom.

This helps explain the major shift to the concept of “always-on”, continuous learning. Educators need to have access to PD that they can hop into at any time and from anywhere. In addition, they need to up-to-date training on the tools they’re expected to be using regularly. This means offering job-embedded, on-demand PD to our extremely busy educators that is regularly updated.

When developing the MobileMind professional learning hub, we kept in mind the need to be able to update our content quickly based on the fact that technology is constantly evolving. So, it is our job is to stay current with all Google applications and share updates with educators so you don’t have to. Because we embrace a micro-learning methodology, we can shift very quickly when Google enhances their tools, meaning we can update a course quickly for our teachers. 

Lastly, because we have made MobileMind easily accessible and available anytime, we are accomplishing our goal of facilitating meaningful job-embedded learning that is accommodating to teachers. MobileMind data shows that on average our learners access at the highest volume during work hours. This means that our Google PD is valuable and time conscious enough that teachers are choosing the right time and place to learn for them, individually. This can often also mean that they don’t have to learn after school hours following a long day of teaching. (We have facilitated quite a bit of after-school PD, and we all know that it is less than ideal!)

We know that educators have so much on their plates, so to have anytime, anywhere access to sustainable training at the click of a button is a win!

Time

There are a few challenging elements when it comes to the issue of time and facilitating effective PD. 

First, we struggle to find time to offer effective teacher training during the school day, week, and even the school year. Not only does it consume quite a bit of time for the preparation itself, but you often have to remove teachers from classroom instruction and get subs - or have them dig into their own time for off-contract or after-hours PD.

Second, we must consider new information we now have regarding the impact of time in relation to actual learning. What do we mean by that? Studies have shown that our attention span has declined significantly and steadily since the year 2000, or since the internet and digital tools started to become mainstream. Several resources report these days that our attention span is less than that of a goldfish. As educators ourselves, we’ve sat through hour-long and sometimes even day-long PD sessions that failed to meet our needs. It is truly easy to become very resentful when you feel that your time is not valued; we have felt this and have found through a great deal of research that we are not alone! It is imperative that we acknowledge how much teachers already have on their plates and then act accordingly when designing educator training.

So, how has our team at MobileMind addressed the challenge of time?

At MobileMind, we embrace micro-learning and personalization. We have created what we call “micro-courses”, which are comprised of very brief learning videos (never longer than 5 minutes!) supported by short, hands-on learning challenges. In addition, the ability for a teacher to personalize his or her learning experience makes the learning process more efficient than one-size-fits-all training that might not make the best use of educators’ valuable time.

Teachers can begin learning at the click of a (Chrome extension) button. They can filter their personal micro-course library by their own learning goals. They can stop and then continue learning at any time to fit their busy schedules. Finally, they receive human feedback for each challenge submission, which further demonstrates how much we value each learner’s time and energy. Within seconds, a teacher can click to begin learning something new… no subs needed, no more dreaded after-school training, no more time wasted.

Limited Resources

We have heard from countless instructional leaders that the task of training teachers spread out over many school buildings can be daunting. The combination of multiple physical locations and the distance between them increases the difficulty of facilitating sustainable training.

On top of this, in many schools and districts, there is typically a small number of dedicated resources for training. This varies by district, but we see that the number of instructional resources relative to the number of teachers is rarely a ratio that enables easy facilitation of PD for technology like Google. Finally, there is very little visibility that instructional leaders can tap into regarding how well teachers are doing after traditional PD is offered. Do they need more help? Are they superstars who need a greater challenge? Either way, teachers (like students) need different levels and training and varied content that meets their skills level and learning goals, and instructional leaders need accurate visibility into teacher progress. 

MobileMind is cloud-based, accessible by a browser extension. Anytime, Anywhere access to professional learning removes the physical barriers of training. And, while the value of face-to-face learning has undisputed merits, one-off training is problematic when trying to provide teachers with up-to-date PD on rapidly changing technology like Google, LMSs, and any other popular edtech tools used. 

At MobileMind we offer virtual, personalized PD, so we can establish multiple schools or groups who can learn anytime and anywhere… during planning when they find 10 minutes or in their PJs at home... whenever works best for each individual teacher! 

What’s more, is that district or school leaders have a bird's eye view of teacher progress in MobileMind and how many teachers at each school are engaging in PD. They can even drill down into any group to see how active each teacher is at a particular school has been in MobileMind.

Not only does this provide visibility for accountability, but leaders also can gain insights into training needs, teacher interest, struggling teachers, or previously unidentified teacher leaders. We can build up those teacher rockstars and begin to accelerate adoption and build internal capacity much more rapidly.

MobileMind’s cloud-based, location management gives us the ability to facilitate sustainable and effective PD at scale, regardless of logistical challenges, while expanding the reach of instructional resources and providing actionable insights to assist teacher progress.

Consolidation

There has never been an edtech solution that has truly integrated both synchronous and asynchronous professional learning efforts. This can make tracking continuing education hours and offering a cohesive professional learning experience impossible for districts that value continuous learning. 

MobileMind Events provides the only synchronized PD solution to K-12 school districts. From workshops to conferences, MobileMind Sync allows leaders to easily create and schedule synchronous training events, invite participants, track attendance, and more.

Districts can even assign prerequisite courses to learners before a synchronous event, share related courses to complement live training, or offer replacement courses if learners cannot attend.

Sync join codes make it possible for facilitators to automate tasks like taking attendance, awarding credit hours, releasing digital badges after an event, and much more.

Synchronizing PD efforts brings teachers' professional learning full circle, and allows for a smooth transition from in-person PD events and asynchronous events or training.