Are we investing enough time in professional development for teachers?
Professional development for teachers is a growing industry, particularly with the rapid increase in online courses and online training for students. Learning new teaching techniques and how to inspire students to learn is one of the most important parts of being an online educator.
The problem is that far too often, this professional development is shunted to the background with more emphasis placed on addressing society’s disadvantages than on supporting the educators themselves. It’s fair to say that students who live in economically disadvantaged households or suburbs are less likely to be successful at learning, however this is something that is not always easy to fix.
Professional development for teachers inspires students
If we are completely honest, an educator’s role is to teach and inspire students, it’s not to fix the woes of the world. Having said that, many teachers find that students who don’t want to learn or consistently underperform at school, college or even university, come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Research has consistently supported these facts, but it also emphasises that good teachers can overcome these disadvantages, helping students to be more successful in their learning, despite their poor backgrounds.
This brings us back full circle to the issue of professional development for teachers, because if we can be the very best teachers possible, we can help these disadvantaged students to succeed. As teachers, our priority is to help students learn and it’s through professional development that we can identify new techniques and even inspire ourselves to be better teachers.
Online training and online courses are easily available to students of all ages and it’s our job as educators to motivate our students to learn, even though they might not have the best of backgrounds. In fact, we can’t control whether our students want to learn or have any effect on their family’s circumstances. Instead, what we can do is to give them a positive learning environment, use the latest online training techniques and encourage them to succeed, regardless of their situation.
Call Australian Online Courses on 1300 76 2221 or send us an email to explore how our online courses can help you to succeed in life.