Dive Brief:
- Administrators at the Montour School District in Pennsylvania saw the tangible benefits for student learning of flipped classrooms, and during the 2015-16 school year, they decided to capitalize on the concept for professional learning.
- For eSchool News, education consultant Aaron Sams and Montour director of innovation Justin Aglio write that the Montour Learning Network for EdTech and Innovation created a digital network with professional articles, event listings and ways to contact colleagues.
- Participation in digital professional development increased 600% after the launch of the new learning network, and as students become more active learners in flipped environments, so too do teachers.
Dive Insight:
A common complaint from teachers is that professional development opportunities offered by their districts or schools are not relevant or useful. Administrators should be trying to fix that. Everyone in education is too busy to be wasting time on professional learning that doesn’t teach anyone anything.
Besides flipping the script on where professional learning happens, forming professional learning communities provides an opportunity to engage teachers in the steady improvement of their craft. Gamble Rogers Middle School in northeastern Florida is in its fifth year with PLCs and has noticed greater teacher satisfaction as a key result of collaboration among colleagues and steady increases in student performance.
