Is it Time to Flip Your Professional Development?

It’s easy to feel bored, overwhelmed or not engaged during traditional professional development. When this happens, professional development (PD) becomes a waste of time, and the technology that teachers are encouraged to use ends up with low implementation and usage rates.

If this is happening inside your school, now could be a great time to flip your professional development. Yes, just like flipping your classroom, try flipping your PD! This is exactly what educators want to do in our classrooms, so why not do it with PD? Flipping professional development keeps face-to-face training at a minimum so teachers can move at their own pace and focus on what they do best: teach! Many school districts are having great success using their learning management system to flip their professional development.

Here are the four main benefits they’re experiencing from flipping professional development.

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Experience. When you use your school’s LMS for professional development, you’re teaching educators to use the technology just as you hope they would for instruction inside the classroom. It helps them become comfortable with the LMS because they’re required to do many of the same tasks for their own PD.

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Time. Similar to the diverse rates at which students learn inside a classroom, teachers should be encouraged to move at their own pace during professional development. Instead of boring a teacher who has mastered a skill while overwhelming another teacher new to the concept, they both can move at their own pace.

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Follow-through. Instead of your PD taking place during an overwhelming one-day of training, your teachers now get the time to become familiar with their new skills and feel more confident to implement the technology in their own classrooms.

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Attitude. Teachers will realize that they’re now able to grow at their own pace instead of being told what they will learn and how quickly. This will create a newfound appreciation and a positive attitude toward their own professional development. Are you ready to start flipping your professional development in your school district? Are you ready to start flipping your professional development with your learning management system?