Teacher Learning in the Digital Age: Online Professional Development in STEM Education
What are efficient and effective ways to leverage technology to support teacher learning in STEM education? Find out in this timely volume examining exemplary models of online and blended teacher professional learning.
From video-based courses to curriculum support platforms and MOOCs (massive open online courses) for educators, this volume illustrates the broad range of innovative initiatives that have emerged to support pre-service and in-service STEM teachers in formal and informal settings. For each initiative, read about the structure and design, intended audience, and existing research and evaluation data.
Take iRAISE (Internet-based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education), for example.
In Supporting Deep Change with an Immersive Online Course (Chapter 4), Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, Willard Brown, and Heather Howlett of the Strategic Literacy Initiative at WestEd describe iRAISE, an online course they designed to support high school science teachers in increasing student comprehension of science texts.
The chapter outlines the design and goals of the year-long inquiry-based online course, and the benefits of synchronous online learning for developing a strong community of learning with the power to transform classroom practice.
The chapter also describes the learning design principles used in iRAISE and the critical decisions made in the process of “translating” a proven face-to-face professional learning experience into an online learning experience.
In Exploring Models of Online Professional Development (Chapter 12), Steve Schneider, Kathleen Lepori, Cathy Carroll, Alma Ramirez, Angela Knotts, Matt Silberglitt, Mardi Gale, Katie Salguero, Kim Luttgen, and Cathy Ringstaff of the Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) program at WestEd discuss five cases of online professional development approaches designed at WestEd.
The chapter recounts how these approaches to online professional development evolved, lessons learned in their implementation, the role of facilitators, and why online or blended formats were considered most advantageous.
Net Choices, Net Gains: Supplementing the High School Curriculum with Online Courses
Online learning programs can help schools enrich their curriculum. But a school’s decision to participate in such a program and its choice of program should be based on a solid understanding of what program characteristics contribute to successful online learning for students.
Drawing from a review of the research literature, interviews with national experts in online learning, and the authors’ evaluation of a statewide online learning program in California, this Knowledge Brief identifies key issues that schools should investigate when considering the online learning option.
Net Choice, Net Gains makes recommendations related to online curriculum and assessment, effective student support, technology, professional development for online instructors and student-support staff, policy and administration, funding, and outreach.
A National Perspective of K-12 Online and Blended Learning: Current Issues and Trends in Policy and Practice
Do you want to learn more about models for integrating online/blended or competency-based learning programs? Are you interested in learning more about current issues in this area?
The field of online and blended learning holds tremendous potential for improving the learning and achievement of all students.
The International Association for K-12 Online Learning recognizes the transformative potential of technology-enabled new school models to catalyze change in the K–12 sector by removing instruction from the confines of a physical classroom.
Digital learning has the ability to personalize instruction to meet each student’s individual needs and interests through competency-based, online and blended learning models.
This archived webinar highlights the important trends in innovations around policy and practice in the field of K-12 online and blended learning.
David Haglund, Principal of Riverside Virtual School and Director of Educational Options for Riverside School District in California, highlights his districtwide programs, why online learning matters, and helps clarify some of the most pressing issues in the field.
Online learning is changing policy at the local, state, and national level and has implications for funding and budgeting, policies, quality, curriculum, and instruction.
This archived webinar was designed for district and state administrators as well as technical assistance providers.
Narrowing the Distance in ‘Distance Learning’: Lessons from Carnegie Math Pathways on Designing for Student Success Online
Students are increasingly pursuing their education online. Although wide-ranging distance learning options offer learners flexibility and increased access to education, research shows that failure and withdrawal rates are sharply higher in online courses than in equivalent in-person courses, including for developmental math. For distance learning to fulfill its promise to students, online math learning must be rethought.
Carnegie Math Pathways has designed and tested a new approach to online learning that moves away from the traditional asynchronous learning model, which provides few supports to enable student success.
This new brief highlights some of the key learnings from the design and implementation of online Carnegie Math Pathways courses as well as recommendations for how educators can support community and collaboration online in order to narrow the distance and promote student success.
Filling a Need: Professional Development for Charter School Teachers
Teachers and administrators in independent charter schools tend to wear multiple hats and have enormous workloads. Most independent charters are small. Many are geographically isolated. And a good number are struggling financially; just meeting the monthly payroll can be difficult.
All too often, opportunities for high-quality professional development in this context are minimal or nonexistent.
WestEd’s Charter School Teachers Online (CSTO) project is working to advance professional development opportunities for charter school teachers.
Moving professional development online is key to CSTO’s approach to overcoming the geographic and cost constraints of reaching charter school teachers. CSTO builds on an extensive online library of education resources from another WestEd project, Doing What Works (DWW). School districts can access the material free of charge at the DWW website (www.dww.ed.gov).
CSTO is developing and facilitating eight online professional development courses, each spanning four to seven weeks. Five of the courses are designed to give charter school teachers strategies they can use to boost middle and high school students’ reading comprehension.
The courses cover topics ranging from ways to more effectively lead discussions on textbook material and teach new vocabulary in the classrooms, to strategies for teaching to the Common Core State Standards for reading.
Download this article to read more about CSTO.
Evaluating Online Learning: Challenges and Strategies for Success
Online education is expanding rapidly, with increasing numbers of providers offering services and more students participating. As with any education program, online learning initiatives must be held accountable for results. Thus it is critical for students and their parents—as well as administrators, policymakers, and funders—to have evidence-based data informing them of program and student outcomes.
This free guide helps evaluators and program leaders who plan to use data to guide program improvement. It features evaluations of seven online learning programs and resources. The evaluations range from internal assessments to external, scientific research studies. All demonstrate how evaluators and program leaders have been able to implement strong evaluation practices despite some challenges inherent to examining learning in an online environment.
Seizing the Opportunity to Promote Student Agency Through Online Learning in a High-Poverty School District
Remote and online learning is surfacing existing inequities in schools and classrooms across the country and is raising critical questions about how we support students to develop the agency and autonomy required for learning.
This recorded session is the second in a series of online conversations, Perspectives on Formative Assessment, Student Agency, and Equity, that highlights both scholarly and practitioner perspectives on the intersections between student identity, classroom culture, and formative assessment as levers for promoting agency and equity.
Led by WestEd’s Nancy Gerzon and Barbara Jones, these conversations explore emerging ideas, practices, and research, and professional contributions to the study and promotion of student agency.
This archived session features Steve Holmes, Superintendent of the Sunnyside Unified School District (SUSD) in Tucson, Arizona. A champion for equity, his work focuses on urban education reform and bringing about deeper learning practices, coherence, and innovation to high poverty districts. Under his leadership, SUSD is now recognized as an industry leader in open educational resources, formative assessment, and design thinking. He is a staunch supporter of public education and a leading voice in support of English Learners. When his district shifted to online learning in the spring, his message to educators was, Let’s seize this opportunity to promote student agency.
View suggested readings and materials for this session.
View additional session recordings from this series.
Listen to the Audio Recording
Connecting Students to Advanced Courses Online
This guide highlights six providers of academic course work that are using Internet technology to deliver rigorous curricula to students. These providers are expanding beyond the traditional bricks-and-mortar classrooms and increasing access to the rigorous courses students need to be better prepared for the demands of higher education and the global marketplace.
Student success depends on partnerships between providers and the schools and districts they serve. The guide offers examples of promising practices in key areas including ensuring course quality; recruiting, counseling, and supporting students; and tracking outcomes for
continuous improvement.
The featured online course providers are:
- Colorado Online Learning
- Florida Virtual School
- Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy
- Johns Hopkins University — Center for Talented Youth
- Michigan Virtual High School
- Virtual High School (Massachusetts)
The guide also features districts and schools that partner with these providers.
E-Learning for Educators: Effects of Online Professional Development on Teachers and Their Students
Are you considering the use of online delivery to provide widespread professional development (PD) needs to implement new initiatives? Are you looking at designing a PD model that can improve teacher performance as well as student achievement in a cost-effective manner?
This archived webinar on online professional development (OPD) provides an overview to the topic.
Lynne Meeks, e-Learning for Educators Project Director at Alabama Public Television, discusses the e-Learning model and the research findings of the large-scale studies conducted by the e-Learning for Educators (eFE) project. These were among the first public studies that demonstrated that high-quality online teacher professional development can positively affect teacher content knowledge and teaching practices that translate into improvements on targeted student outcomes.
The webinar covers these topics:
- A successful, nimble OPD model that can produce both teacher and student improvements
- The research evidence supporting the effectiveness of the model
- Standards for high-quality OPD
This webinar is aimed at school, district, and state administrators, as well as professional development providers, such as regional inservice centers or university teacher centers.
Behavior and Classroom Management: Online Professional Development Modules and Resources for Implementation
Are you concerned about how to implement and sustain classroom management and behavioral interventions?
This archived webinar highlights the free, online professional development modules and resources on Classroom and Behavior Management provided by the IRIS (IDEA ‘04 and Research for Inclusive Settings) Center for Training Enhancements.
Silvia DeRuvo, Senior Program Associate at WestEd, leads the webinar. She is joined by two classroom teachers who discuss how the content of these instructional resources are effective when setting the foundation for solid classroom management and for implementing multi-tiers of behavioral interventions.
This webinar is tailored to professional developers, district and site administrators, teachers, and teacher trainers.
The IRIS Center provides a series of instructional resources for use in professional development about behavior management including
- case studies
- interactive instructional modules
- activities
The Classroom and Behavior Management Modules are available at the IRIS Center website.