Curriculum-Aligned Professional Development for Geospatial Education

Professional development (PD) designed to accompany curriculum materials prepares teachers for specific classroom practices, guides them during practice, and creates opportunities for reflection. We present the theoretical underpinnings for our model of curriculum-linked PD and describe a hybrid (face-to-face and online) professional development program for curriculum materials that make use of the My World™ Geographic Information System software. Research-derived design principles for curriculum-aligned PD include the following: (1) identify goals for the professional development, (2) adopt a learning theory and use it, and (3) evaluate whether learning goals were met and then revise PD practices according to this feedback. We do not intend our design to be the model for online PD, but rather an example of an approach successfully applying our design principles.

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