Professional Development: 2019-20 Remote Learning Wrap-up
The COVID-19 Pandemic meant a quick shift for everyone in education to online remote learning. Through the new challenges that came with instruction on a digital platform, the professional development team at the Western New York Regional Information Center (WNYRIC) was there to help over 3,000 teachers provide meaningful instruction to their students in a new way.
Now that the 2019-20 school year has come to a close, the professional development team is taking this opportunity to prepare for how to best support educators and their students going forward.
“We were all thrown into this emergency situation and we all did our best to adapt on the fly. Now we know what remote learning looks like and we are shifting to a planned remote learning. If we know the plan, then we can develop engagement on a digital platform,” Joseph Roaldi, CSLO/Model Schools supervisor, said.
Roaldi’s team has prioritized research into remote learning best practices and is now shifting focus on what they can do better if remote learning continues in the fall.
“We are working on developing tools that districts can use to survey stakeholders and do gap analyses that will better drive professional development next year,” Roaldi said. “We were doing this before, but we saw this as an opportunity to have more data-driven professional development for next year.”
Once data is collected it will be shared with districts. For information on professional development opportunities, contact Roaldi at jroaldi@e1b.org or Steven Graser, director of Professional Development and Instructional Technology Resources, at sgraser@e1b.org.