Collaborative, Resource-Rich, and Impactful PD



“Never A Dull Moment” at Moreland University

From April to June of 2020, Moreland University’s TEACH-NOW ® Graduate School of Education began a no-cost professional development (PD) initiative that served 2,122 teachers around the world during a time of desperate need: the transition to virtual learning due to COVID-19. During the subsequent 2020-2021 school year, an additional 830 teachers successfully completed a series of responsive, collaborative, and engaging no-cost PD offered on the 15th of each month. During this time of growth and expansion, Moreland maintained the level of programmatic excellence that candidates in our TEACH-NOW ® online teacher certification and online master’s degrees have come to expect.

  • “This professional development allowed me to incorporate the knowledge I already had with the new information that I received during the course. I was pushed outside of my comfort zone and… have already begun to work with some of the new [digital] tools.” (PD Participant, “Mastering Digital Technologies,” October 2020)

  • “This course has led me to do further research on how to consciously support SEL in my classroom. There were resources provided to help teachers integrate SEL into everyday learning activities.” (PD Participant, “Social-Emotional Learning in Professional Learning Communities,” January 2021)

  • “My instructor not only helped me learn from her and the course, but she also facilitated learning from my peers (other teachers from all around the world) through breakout room discussions and collaborations.” (Candidate, “Data-Informed Online Instructional Practice,” March 2021)

  • “This PD provided great resources and ideas that I would like to implement in my classroom. This was impactful to me because I felt like I could take something out of the PD.” (PD Participant, “Humanities and Languages Content Conference,” June 2021)

Moreland’s administrative team took time this summer to meet with teachers in our first PD conferences and in a series of Moreland Meet roundtable discussions to learn more about teachers’ needs for continuing education. We also executed our first Moreland Data Dive survey of 603 teachers to ascertain the top-five topics for PD during the switch to hybrid learning as a result of COVID-19’s impact on education.

The aim of these efforts was to determine ways to focus and improve our PD in alignment with teachers’ needs and our institutional mission, “Teaching teachers around the world to be resourceful problem solvers and tech-savvy educators through an online, collaborative, activity-based learning system designed for tomorrow’s students in a dynamic and diverse world.” 

Moreland University has engaged in a process of data-driven decision making to design our most engaging, resource-rich, and highly effective PD for fall of 2021! The focus of our PD programming in September, October, and November is differentiated instruction to close learning gaps through student-led and inquiry-based learning opportunities. Students have grown in important ways outside of formal teaching and learning in classroom settings during this time away from schools; however, teachers must develop best practices and gather resources to leverage the diverse ways students have grown outside of the classroom as they return to standards-based instruction. We have designed our monthly no-cost PD in response to the needs teachers identified as most important for the coming school year. 

No-Cost Professional Development Coursework

  • No-Cost PD – Increase Student Engagement in Hybrid Learning (September 15th, 2021)

  • Hybrid Teaching Strategies to Close Learning Gaps (October 15th, 2021)

  • Redefining Differentiation for Hybrid Learning (November 15th, 2021)

We continue to offer monthly no-cost courses as we have done for the past year and a half. We have also diversified our programming to meet teachers’ need for a variety of synchronous and asynchronous engagement opportunities. In alignment with the topics of our no-cost monthly PD, we are thrilled to include in our calendar a diverse collection of webinars, discussions, and Twitter chats. Click here to learn the exact dates, times, and topics of each of the following: 

  • Moreland Meet Webinars – Panel discussions on high-interest topics led by Moreland’s expert faculty

  • Moreland Meet Roundtables –  Teacher-led conversations on the issues facing teachers

  • #MUEdTechChat – Twitter chats to share technology resources and build community

As we launch the fall season of PD here at Moreland University, we take a moment to honor the life and legacy of our Director of Clinical Practice, Patti Froom, who died earlier this month. A dear friend and mentor to countless teachers and the entire faculty and staff at Moreland, Patti worked tirelessly to serve teachers through her work with the online Clinical Practice portion of our TEACH-NOW ® program. Her efforts inspire the work we do to offer online PD at no cost that challenges teachers to grow as professionals, enables them to build professional learning communities, and supports them as they facilitate student achievement. As Patti was famous for saying, “There is never a dull moment…” in the pursuit of teacher excellence and student success. We invite teachers, administrators, and educational professionals around the world to join us for our upcoming courses, webinars, roundtable discussions, and Twitter Chats as we strive to live fully into our mission as an innovative and responsive provider of teacher education. 

Joseph A. Pearson, M.S.Ed., Professional Development Officer

Joseph A. Pearson, M.S.Ed.
Professional Development Officer, Moreland University

Additional Reading

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In today’s diverse and interconnected world, classrooms are filled with students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Regardless of the subject area of grade level, educators must equip themselves with […]