Multi-State Online Professional Development ToolKit

Changing professional development and meeting teacher needs

MOPD - A Model for Online Professional Development

Standards for Online Professional Development

Guidelines for Planning and Evaluating Online Professional Development Courses and Programs

Teachers need high-quality professional development to help their students meet states’ new academic standards and meet the goal of having a high-quality teacher in every classroom. Online instruction provides teachers with quality professional development through “anytime, anywhere” access to courses and workshops.

While there is a wealth of information in the literature about what is required to provide quality professional development, the use of new technologies to provide teachers with access to quality online professional development is new. Building on the research regarding traditional, face-to-face professional development, online professional development affords teachers, schools and states opportunities never before available. These Standards for Online Professional Development have been developed to help schools and states as they begin to use the Internet to provide teachers with much needed professional development.

The Standards for Staff Development document by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) provides widely accepted and highly regarded standards for professional development. While these standards were developed with face-to-face professional development in mind, they also reflect important aspects of quality professional development, regardless of how it is provided. This document expands NSDC standards to include important issues and topics unique to online learning.

The SREB Multi-State Online Professional Development (MOPD) initiative wishes to acknowledge and thank the National Staff Development Council for its support and assistance in the development of these standards. The standards were developed with  the assistance of the SREB states’ departments of Education, Educational Development Center Inc., National Staff Development Council and SouthEast Initiatives Regional Technology in Education Consortium (SEIR*TEC).

View the Standards in PDF format.
 

For more information, e-mail Bill Thomas at bill.thomas@sreb.org.