What if Professional Development Could Be…Fun!?

As has been oft-discussed on this blog, as well as among communities of teachers since time immemorial, professional development (PD) activities are quite frequently dull, irrelevant, time-consuming, and centered around a single expert delivering one-size-fits-all content to a group of workshop attendees.  This is not an effective approach to adult learning (or any learning, really), …

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Meaningful Feedback in Online Professional Development

Just as online teaching and learning became a necessity for K-12 and postsecondary students during the COVID-19 pandemic, so too did online professional learning activities for educators at all levels.  Not only have professional development (PD) activities primarily been held in virtual spaces over the last two years (both synchronously and asynchronously), but often the …

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Did It Work!? A Brief Look at Professional Development Evaluation in Higher Education & Beyond

As I continue to dive deeper into the research related to professional development (PD) and adult learning initiatives within higher education, one aspect of PD I’ve yet to explore is the evaluation of PD.  In other words, how do we determine if a PD enterprise was successful?  Is the learning having an ongoing, meaningful impact …

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EDTC 6104 Community Engagement Project – Professional Development Workshop for Resilient Pedagogy

For this quarter’s Community Engagement Project I have been tasked with creating a professional learning presentation or workshop on a topic of my choice which would be used to engage and provide professional growth for a selected audience. This project is meant to demonstrate my understanding of the performance indicators for ISTE Coaching Standard 3. …

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“Put me in, Coach:” A Brief Look at Best Practices for Instructional Coaching in Higher Education

In 2020, Apple TV’s comedy series Ted Lasso starring Jason Sudeikis became an unlikely hit after its debut season, earning rave reviews, excellent ratings, and a platform as a quirky source of inspiration for coaches–and really just ordinary people–everywhere.  The premise of the show has fictional American football coach, the mustachioed Ted Lasso, recruited to …

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Using Canvas Analytics to Support Student Success

Though online teaching/learning are hardly new concepts in education, the pandemic has necessitated a massive shift to online learning such that educators worldwide–at all levels–have had to engage with online learning in new, immersive ways.  Online learning can take many forms (synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, hyflex, etc.), but regardless of the form, educators with access to …

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Resilient pedagogy: The professional development opportunity educators need now more than ever

Resilient pedagogy is an emerging instructional philosophy with extremely timely implications for this current moment in education and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Though facets of resilient pedagogy have long been practiced by educators in the form of classroom differentiation, and though other frameworks like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Transparency in …

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Exemplars of Computational Thinking in Higher Education Classrooms

Though the concepts and theory behind computational thinking (CT) have been around for decades in the realms of computer science and engineering, it is widely acknowledged that Jeanette Wing’s 2006 publication on computational thinking laid the groundwork for CT’s popularity and integration in 21st century education theory.  Wing (2006) suggested that CT might be considered …

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A Few Best Practices for Online Learning & Adoption in Higher Education

Though the digital age may not actually be changing a student’s capacity to learn, it’s certainly changing how students access content and participate in learning environments. Digital technology thoroughly transforms the way in which we create, manage, transfer, and apply knowledge (Duderstadt, Atkins, & Van Houweling, 2002). Unsurprisingly, it’s also changing how educators teach, particularly …

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