Some of your required professional development hours must be spent outside PD meetings. The latter are often not that much fun, depending who you talk to. Since some of your hours have to be self-initiated anyway, consider learning online.
There are many websites that offer educators free or low-cost options for earning their professional development hours. That means you have many options of courses that you can take to help you improve your teaching without ever having to do one of the team activities that always seem to be a part of PD meetings.
Learning Online is Convenient.
With the advent of mobile technology, education can now be taken on the go. For example, if you sign up for one of the thousands of courses available online, it’s pretty likely that the website you bought the course from has a smartphone app that you can download. You can then watch the videos and work through the course exercises on the go. Whenever you have a free moment, you can do the work for the course, and it doesn’t have to be done in front of a computer.
It’s also engaging.
You’re not stuck in a chair at a table, listening to a lecture while you’re taking online PD classes. You shift between reading, videos, interactive exercises, reflective writing, and other activities the course author uses to make the content memorable and immediately applicable to your teaching. If one type of course doesn’t suit you, there are plenty of other ones to choose from. So don’t let one course that was boring stop you from trying another.
Getting PD Hours Online is Often Very Affordable.
You can find many classes created just for teachers through local or national, and even international, professional organizations, websites designed just for teachers, and on self-learning websites that offer courses for teachers. This content is often free or very affordable. With a membership to a teacher association, for example, you may qualify for a significant discount on courses it offers online.
Learning online is a great way to get those PD hours you need on your own time and without having to attend so many meetings.
