As districts grapple with decisions on what the fall will look like for teachers and students amid the surging COVID-19 pandemic, Learning Company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt today announced new professional learning opportunities for educators nationwide. This follows the recent launch of Teacher’s Corner™, a new online space for continuous professional learning through HMH’s digital teaching and learning platform, Ed: Your Friend in Learning and another solution within HMH’s suite of professional learning offerings.
According to an EdWeek Market Brief survey of K-12 educators, professional development is a critical need for educators right now—with building comfort with technology, learning how to teach with a combination of digital and print, and cultivating students’ social-emotional learning as they cope with the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, as the top cited priorities.
HMH’s all-new live online professional learning will help districts navigate the unique challenges facing them this back-to-school season, including addressing student learning gaps, training for remote teaching, supporting social-emotional needs and improving equity and access. Professional learning consultants, who are teachers themselves, provide a digital ‘shoulder to shoulder’ experience partnering with educators via live online courses and coaching through HMH’s award-winning Coaching Studio™ platform, with a focus on each district’s needs and goals.
“At HMH, we know that teaching in unpredictable learning environments requires a different set of skills and experience,” says Amy Dunkin, General Manger and EVP of Professional Services at HMH. “We also know the resilience of teachers, and we’ve created these virtual professional learning opportunities to support their skill-building so they can feel equipped to excel in a remote and disconnected world, and their confidence in meeting the academic and social-emotional needs of their students.”
HMH’s live online courses provide a dual approach to support strategic planning and implementation:
*Planning for Effective Remote Learning teaches new strategies for instruction that enables synchronous, asynchronous, and unplugged opportunities will ensure all students have high levels of learning.
*Navigating Unpredictable Learning Environments explores methods and practices to develop a plan that addresses the effects of unpredictable learning environments while meeting the needs of the whole child.
The offering includes ongoing live support for teachers that allows for collaborating, sharing, and applying new practices with flexible scheduling. The format provides the potential for schools to partner on a year-long engagement of tailored sessions with highly certified coaches to address student learning gaps, social-emotional challenges, and impact access and equity. Courses can also be tailored to connect directly with the HMH solutions the district is using.
Clayton County, Georgia, is partnering with HMH to prepare for the back-to-school season with district-wide training and coaching, training almost 500 teachers and teacher leaders during its summer institute. And the results have proven impactful, with teachers feeling more prepared to meet the challenges of the new school year and the combination of teaching and learning methods it will inevitably demand. The training focused on the following: ensuring clarity on the different virtual learning modalities and techniques for purposeful planning; equipping teachers with methods for ensuring rigor, relevance, and relationship-building in a virtual environment; and empowering students with the habits of mind and wellness to excel. This partnership grew out of HMH’s many years of service and collaboration with the Clayton County school district across supplemental and intervention solutions and professional learning services.
“In an effort to build capacity for virtual learning to ensure continuity of high-quality instruction, we sought HMH’s expert guidance, support, and practical, research-based solutions,” says Dr. Ebony Lee, Assistant Superintendent at Clayton County Public Schools. “Through this partnership, we’ve trained hundreds of our teachers who now have greater confidence and knowledge to support their students and families– from teaching in a remote or hybrid environment, to handling the dramatically increased need to support kids from a social emotional perspective.”
https://www.hmhco.com/about-us/press-releases/hmh-supports-k-12-school-districts-nationwide-as-they-prepare-for-remote-and-hybrid-teaching-and-learning-this-fall