Becoming a Better Teacher: Exploring Professional Development
Grow your skills as a teacher and learn more about professional development for teachers with this online course.
Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
3 hours
Becoming a Better Teacher: Exploring Professional Development
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Improve your teaching skills by exploring professional development
Keeping up professional development as a teacher can be hard to fit into a busy timetable. It doesn’t need to be. This online course, broken into simple steps, will help you develop your reflective skills and improve your practice in the classroom.
Join a community of others working in education, share your experiences and grow as a teacher. This is professional development designed to help you respond to your needs and is accessible to everyone whatever level of resource is available in their setting.
What topics will you cover?
- Understanding continuing professional development
- Areas for professional development
- The challenges and solutions of professional development
- Defining and explaining reflective practice
- Understanding and using Kolb’s cycle as a reflective tool
- Considering peer observations as a means of professional development
- Learning through and from classroom observation and peer feedback
- Understanding what communities of practices are and why they are important
- Exploring a range of online communities of practice
- Building the necessary skills for interacting in communities of practice
- Refining the skills to observe your own classroom
- Exploring the Spiral of Inquiry as a tool for improving classroom practice
- Understanding the importance of being a lifelong learner
- Creating your own iterative professional development plan
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Reflect on your own beliefs about teaching, learning and professional development
- Explore the characteristics of successful professional development
- Apply a range of tools, activities and strategies to reflect on and improve learning and teaching
- Identify aspects of your professional practice to develop
- Collaborate with and learn from peers by engaging with communities of practice
- Develop your own iterative professional development plan
Who is the course for?
This course is designed for recently qualified and experienced teachers who are looking to:
- further develop their reflective skills
- update their current practice
- connect with other professionals
It specifically addresses the needs of teachers who teach English (either as a medium of instruction or as a subject) but is also relevant for those who teach other subjects.
What do people say about this course?
"It was just so amazing to be part of this course, this is my first experience and I must say that as a teacher and as a learner I felt really supported. The knowledge you shared with us is so useful and challenging. Everybody taking this course was so kind and willing to share with others, thank you for all the resources and all the comments and feedback. I think now I feel even more proud of being part of a network of people who care for their learners, it makes me desire to be the best teacher I can be and keep learning to achieve it."
Who will you learn with?
Namaste! I work with the British Council on large-scale teacher development projects in India in the areas of material development, training and academic project management.
Who developed the course?
British Council
The British Council builds connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language.
We work on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2019-20 we connected with 80 million people directly and with 791 million people overall, including online and through our broadcasts and publications.
UCL Institute of Education
Founded in 1902, as a teacher training college in London, the IOE is now a world-class research and teaching institution.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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