Abstract:

Educators must continuously work to create effective professional development that supports the growth of teachers and positively impacts student learning. In this session, attendees will learn the importance of challenging traditional teaching models by utilizing technology and how a more future-focused approach to teaching can improve students’ engagement with the curriculum and inspire faculty to become students again themselves.

The session will focus on 3 different ways educators and administrators can rethink teaching.
Reimagining The Role The Teacher: Attendees will look to reverse the standard teaching model - standing at the front of the class and lecturing - in favor of taking a more collaborative role in a students’ education, asking them to come up with the answers to their own questions. Faculty shouldn’t “teach at students,” they should facilitate engaging discussions and activities that build students’ curiosity and interest in what they’re learning. Using specific examples of technology that can create this atmosphere of facilitated learning - like virtual reality - participants will learn how they can help students can take ownership of their learning and knowledge.

Practice What You Preach: If teachers don’t feel comfortable using tech in the classroom, it will impact their ability to effectively utilize it with students. This section will explain how to create a professional development program that introduces tech to teachers in the same way teachers will be expected to have students utilize it. By mirroring what students experience in the classroom, this hands-on approach to professional development fosters a learning environment that inspires students and teachers alike to cultivate a greater understanding of the technology they work with.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration: For students to truly master a subject, they need to learn how it interacts and connects with other subjects and fits into a bigger picture. Instead of siloing off their curriculum to focus on math or English, science or history, attendees will learn to take an interdisciplinary approach to education. This involves collaborating across departments to create a new curriculum that engages and challenges students to think about how subjects must interact to truly solve the real-world problems they will be facing after graduation.

Keywords:

Education, professional development, collaboration.