Dive Brief:
- A new series of iBooks, available through iTunes, are going to be released by PBS Education to help deepen classroom instruction for K-8 educators in math, English, social studies and Spanish.
- Each 200 page iBook will offer contextualized lessons plans, professional development resources, and other resources to assist classrooom instruction.
- The goal of the series is to help drive classroom performance, the Vice President of PBS Education said, and the series is supposed to give students and teachers new perspectives on all topics.
Dive Insight:
The new interactice i-book series may be a welcome addition for districts looking to modernize professional development (PD) and digitize educator learning. Two recent reports, one from the National Center on Education and Economy and one from the Center on International Education Benchmarking, showed American teacher development trails other countries. In many other nations, professional development is "built in" to educators' daily workloads.
But a bouquet of new options exist in the U.S. Video PD is one option, with online video coaching platforms for classroom observation encouraging collaboration and reflection from teachers in relation to their classroom performance. Digital PD platforms like Knowledge Delivery Systems also offer low-cost solutions for experienced and new educators alike. In Maryland, a unique model of PD called "PLAY" helps teachers participate in peer-directed PD, gathering collectively to explore, ask questions, and experiment with digital PD tools without a formal trainer or instructor.