Tuesday, September 4, 2012

On-Demand Professional Development for Every School

On-Demand PD Is Smarter


On-demand professional development is more than fun apps and the “internet-ization” of our world. On-demand PD is the only way—I say again, the only way—for educators to get the kind of personalized training that can be the difference between graduation and dropping out for a student. Here are the three ways that on-demand professional development can make educators more effective, no matter what their circumstances may be:

It’s Cheaper.

Either you can pay a speaker $5,000 to $10,000 (or more), or you could pay the same amount for 120 speakers and experts who are available every day of the year.

I’ll be the first to say that it’s not perfect—those experts and master practitioners have the right idea, but they can’t consult with your teachers on individual classrooms. But your speakers could never do that for an entire school, district, or state, anyway. On-demand professional development has a very low delivery cost, and it’s completely scalable. That being the case, you get all of the experts for all of your teachers in a school or in a state, and your teachers get the principles and training that applies to them. No other professional learning system can do that.

Customization. Personalization. Do-Their-Job-Better-ization.

All of those speakers and experts make for incredibly effective training on a host of topics. Did you know that PD 360 offers over 2,000 training segments that feature experts, master teachers, administrators, and classroom examples?

Look, you know all about differentiated instruction—you probably lectured to your entire faculty about it one afternoon. (And I’m sure you caught the irony in that statement.) On-demand professional development is the most effective way to provide differentiation in a format that teachers want, administrators can afford, and instructional coaches can implement.

Always-On Availability

Let’s take a step back for a moment: your students attend class every day (theoretically), and they have the opportunity to grow every day. With the always-on availability—including those cell phone apps and web-based platforms I mentioned earlier—teachers have time every day to learn something new and apply the knowledge. The traditional format of generalized training a few times a year is simply insignificant. And right now, PD 360 is the only on-demand platform that gives educators the freedom and flexibility they need.

I’m just one voice, however, and I clearly enjoy on-demand professional development. What is your perspective on online training and learning? Have you used PD 360? What did you find useful?

1 comment:

  1. Some teachers use wikis in classrooms. While there are many uses, some use a wiki as a tool to have students share their work and gather feedback from others.

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