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Virtual Schools Offer PD Programs for E-Teaching

Homegrown programs target the needs of educators teaching online classes

Because schools of education, with a few exceptions, have been slow to offer programs to develop virtual instructors, many of the nation’s leading online schools have, for more than a decade, crafted homegrown online and blended professional development.

And with the flexibility offered by the online classroom, instructors who also have face-to-face experience sometimes say the continuous, embedded professional development now in vogue is easier to achieve—be it in collaboration with colleagues, correspondence with advisers, or participation in supplemental education—in an online setting.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that, as more instructors from brick-and-mortar schools are seeking professional development online, virtual schools are exploring how to become providers to teachers...