New Norms of Hybrid Professional Development

Guests Tyce Miller, the CEO of Mobilemind and Sarah Porisch, Director of Technology, Brainerd Public Schools, discuss what’s happening now with teaching the teachers.  Where schools once had those eight-hour days of intensive professional development, training is now shifting to on-demand and highly personalized through advanced technology.  The talk focused on the success from Minnesota, and how Sarah helped lead change with all their teachers becoming immersed in how to use technology successfully for their student learners.    

In reference to getting reluctant teacher-learners on board, Sarah said, “A couple of (our teachers) actually even said, ‘I always said, it'd take an act of God to do this!’  Now they're like, ‘Here it is!’ (Referring to the pandemic as the ‘Act of God’ that has gotten all teachers on board.) So that has really, as you said, kind of that almost spiritual thing to kind of watch that change happen and people really realize why we've been introducing this all along the way. It's not to force change. It's not to do something different just to do something;  it's because this is what our learners need to be successful in the world.”

“Especially with a program like MobileMind, it's not just a sit-and-get and now I'm going to go back to my classroom and maybe I'll use a piece of it, maybe I won't.  It’s something built into everything we do,” said Sarah.