As much as we long to get back to our “life before Covid” — seeing each other and working with SLPs, teachers, and schools in person — we can’t. The world has changed.
Extended school closures forced changes to professional development. Online learning made it possible for PD providers to reach more people and educators to access learning around the clock. And they did. In droves.
Where would we all have been without all those online classes on how to do teletherapy and use Zoom? Without them, we’d still be standing in our bathtubs with our laptops, using the shower wall as a makeshift whiteboard.
Anyone who’s taken or paid for online professional development can see the advantages. No longer is there a need to find sub coverage or cancel sessions with students. Online learning is efficient, convenient, and economical.
And it’s here to stay.
A big driver for us at Vivido is how to share effective teaching methods, tools, and strategies with educators in this new world of professional learning. Whether we are teaching online or in person, we hold fast to the same principles we always have. For us, effective instruction (in any medium) must be:
- practical,
- collaborative,
- hands-on, and
- usable immediately.
We believe that adults learn better when they can interact with each other, dig in, and do. By wrestling with how new ideas apply to their content, their curriculum, and their students, they see new possibilities for themselves and their students’ futures.
In 2020, we started by transforming our live two-day Brain Frames training into a 30-day online course we are proud to offer. In just a handful of months, just shy of 900 SLPs and educators have taken it. Thanks to the possibilities of online learning, they all know how to make learning visible. So do the 22,500 students in their care.
We give teachers tools that work, and they give them to their students.
Everybody wins.