Long-Term Educator Professional Development in Online Instruction and Assessment during Pandemic Teaching

Abstract

Educators were forced into emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19. Educational grants through the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund provided assistance. A regional university partnered with a local educational service center to use GEER funds to prioritize P-12 teacher professional development in online instruction. The partnership revamped a 12-credit hour four-course graduate certificate program in online learning and assessment, co-taught by university faculty and K-12 community partners, enrolling 58 local educators across 42 school districts in free graduate courses during the 2020-2021 academic year. With a 95% completion rate, this long-term professional development met educators’ needs, including how to simultaneously teach face-to-face and at-home students in changing school environments. This descriptive study gathered educator perceptions regarding how the courses impacted their ability to learn and use best practices in technology integration with their students, and support colleagues as they created district-specific professional development and developed into technology leaders.