I have been training teachers almost 10 years around Finland and in couple of other countries. I have learned that a) it is impossible to scale the standard way of training teachers with lectures, b) lectures are not impactful. After the trainer/consult has left the school, nothing really changes in long term. The only way is to change the school inside and the change must be done by the teachers.
Teachers already have most of the answers in them about how to become a better teachers. They are experts in learning (every child and adult is an expert in learning when motivation is in place) and in teaching. The problem is that education cultures and habits guides teachers to act without thinking critically. What can be done is to help teachers focus and find the better version of them inside them.
This innovation is really simple, super scalable, cheap, easy to access and impactful way in training teachers.
Step 1: Find a group of teachers (3-5 pers) from your own school.
Step 2: Gather around a same laptop (or have a e-meeting).
Step 3: Log in to an online course and play a pedagogical video.
Step 4: Pause the video whenever someone has a question.
Step 5: Have a pedagogical discussion, reflect share thoughts and best practises.
Step 6: Repeat steps 2-5 10-20 times a year (for creating a habit of having pedagogical discussions).
Step 7: Repeat your whole teaching career.
Since 2019 I have created two online courses about pedagogy, assessment and teaching innovations and methods. Longer has 20 online lessons (takes 6-9 months to complete), shorter has 8 online lessons (takes 2-3 months to complete).
In two years I have had teacher groups attending from more than 300 different schools in Finland, Spain and Qatar. Content is only in Finnish at the moment so schools in Spain and Qatar are Finnish speaking schools.
It is also worth mentioning that all of the teachers are paying customers, so it is not spreading because it is free to test but because it is actually working in practise.
In Finland at least one team of teachers from around 10 % of schools in the whole country are using my online material and innovation in their professional development.
This innovation is super scalable and impactful but it is also really simple to do.
Step 1: Create 8-20 interesting and high quality video lessons from topic you choose. (At least 8 for creating a habit for teachers to have pedagogical discussions on regular basis).
Step 2: But those video lessons available in some online platform.
Step 3: Educate teachers to study those in small groups.
