On June 25, CEHD’s Office of Teacher Education’s (OTE) New Teacher Network held the first of a series of professional development workshops supporting new teacher candidates. Led by OTE’s Administrative Fellow Sarah Barksdale with the support of School Partner Network Coordinator Kelly Meyer and technology integration specialists from across Minnesota, the synchronous Zoom workshop provided an overview of the foundations of online learning, community building, virtual activities, family roles, and support systems.

Participants then had the opportunity to collaborate in breakout sessions with four technology integrationist educators who experienced the impacts on teachers and students firsthand during the pandemic. Participants were able to more deeply explore a topic (community building, assessments/activities, navigating learning management systems, and online classroom culture) in conversation with experts and peers. Future workshops in the series include an asynchronous version of this introductory workshop, building and fostering relationships in an online environment, and tools for classroom management. 

Fifty-seven new teacher candidates from across nine teacher education programs were in attendance. General comments about the workshop were:

“[L]ots of resources, and tangible ways to engage over ‘distance’”.

“I think this was probably especially helpful for those teachers who haven’t done distance learning yet.”

“Good speakers. I was in the [Online Classroom Culture] breakout group and found it very valuable and easy to access the concepts in the short time period. Thanks.”

“…you gave us one of the top 3 best Video conferencing calls! Top 3, hands down, no sarcasm, since the Corona pandemic hit.”