Teacher Attitudes toward Alternative Professional Development in Geography

Abstract

As some teachers cannot participate in face-to-face workshops because of various constraints, a geography PD opportunity was offered in a variety of alternative formats, face-to-face, online, and hybrid, to identify opportunities that could reach more teachers and increase levels of participation. Teacher reaction to the program and delivery model was explored via focus groups. Some teachers still prefer face-to-face workshops; however, many teachers are willing to accept and participate in web-based PD. A hybrid approach, where face-to-face and online methods are combined, is one solution that has the potential to best impact the number of teachers receiving quality PD.

Keywords:

• Teacher training
• online professional development
• hybrid professional development

Additional information

Funding

The author thanks the journal editor and the reviewers whose comments improved on an earlier draft of this article. This work was supported by funding from the E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Grant for Research in Geographic Education (National Council for Geographic Education).