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Schools pursue flexible & sustainable solutions, LMS, social-emotional education, QR codes, micro-credentials
Educators want more effective ways to implement new teaching methods into lesson plans. The professional development market is advancing, offering flexible and sustainable solutions rather than one-off workshops, lectures and in-service programs.
Many companies offer PD tools that show teachers how to embed lessons into learning management systems, so students have universal access to educational content. Productsthat guide teachers in integrating social-emotional learning into their classrooms have become more prevalent.
The way instructors learn is also changing. While PD videos remain relevant, the range of educational footage is broadening beyond DVD. Teachers now view clips online, sometimes via QR codes provided in e-textbooks.
Educators can earn micro-credentials or badges in individual courses focused on a specific skill, such as teaching digital citizenship.
Playbook, an online community where K12 educators share teaching strategies on all subjects, features new content on topics such as how to improve or bolster student engagement. Panorama has also partnered with social-emotional learning content provider Character Lab to offer WOOP, an app that encourages students to set goals and to identify ways for overcoming any obstacles that might prevent them from achieving those goals.
Flexcat is a classroom audio system with a wearable microphone, speaker and set of two-way audio pods. The system features a new app allowing instructors to switch between the two-way audio pods with their iOS device. It also provides expanded coverage of up to 12 audio pods and supports Whisper Coaching, an earpiece that lets a nearby mentor, who’s training the teacher, listen in on classroom discussions and have private conversations with the educator, offering tips and suggestions.
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