Lesiak Atom J, Griswold Joan C, Starks Helene
Genome Sciences Education Outreach, Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Department of Bioethics and Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
J STEM Outreach. 2021 Aug;4(3). doi: 10.15695/jstem/v4i3.05. Epub 2021 Aug 30.
Access to professional development opportunities promotes equity for both teachers and students. We identified time, distance, and childcare needs as limiting factors for teachers seeking to attend our conference workshops and in-person professional development opportunities. Therefore, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid shift to online learning, the Genome Sciences Education Outreach (GSEO) program transitioned to online professional development for the NIGMS sponsored SEPA grant Genes Environment and Me Network (GEMNet) program. Our program was well positioned to support teachers in our network by providing online PD that included technology support and rapid access to our online curriculum for use for distance learning. Here we share the process of creating online PD as well as converting our materials to the digital environment. Additionally, we provide survey data and lessons learned from eight online PD trainings from January 2020 to January 2021 for both Health/Family and Consumer Science Teachers (n=20) and Biology Teachers (n=23). Notably, Teachers provided feedback affirming our initial reasons for providing online PD, and appreciated being supported at an overwhelmingly difficult time to be an educator. Our findings support the need for both online and in-person professional development opportunities for future programs.
获得专业发展机会有助于促进教师和学生的公平。我们发现时间、距离和儿童保育需求是教师参加我们的会议工作坊和面对面专业发展机会的限制因素。因此，就在2019年冠状病毒病大流行以及迅速转向在线学习的几个月前，基因组科学教育推广（GSEO）项目转向了为美国国立综合医学科学研究所（NIGMS）资助的东南部伙伴关系拨款基因环境与我网络（GEMNet）项目提供在线专业发展。我们的项目通过提供包括技术支持和快速访问我们的在线课程以供远程学习使用的在线专业发展，有能力支持我们网络中的教师。在这里，我们分享创建在线专业发展以及将我们的材料转换到数字环境的过程。此外，我们提供了2020年1月至2021年1月期间针对健康/家庭与消费者科学教师（n = 20）和生物教师（n = 23）的八次在线专业发展培训的调查数据和经验教训。值得注意的是，教师们提供了反馈，肯定了我们提供在线专业发展的最初理由，并感谢在作为教育工作者极其困难的时期得到支持。我们的研究结果支持未来项目需要在线和面对面的专业发展机会。
