This week my college students have been submitting their own professional development plans for what they’d like to continue learning after they graduate in a few weeks. In light of that, I've been thinking about the ways that I learn new ideas and stay in touch with other educators. In the last few years many wonderful online learning opportunities have been developed for teachers. The best of these sites offer one or more of these characteristics: 

Here are my favorite sites that I return to over and over again:

Edutopia is an amazing website devoted to transforming learning. It focuses on the core strategies of Project-Based Learning, Integrated Studies, Comprehensive Assessment, and Social and Emotional learning, Technology Integration, and Teacher Development. There are videos, blog, classroom guides and a section on Schools That Work. It’s a wonderful community of educators who share their talents and ideas. All age groups.

CONNECT: The Center to Mobilize Early Childhood Knowledge provides free online modules in the following areas: Embedded Interventions, Transition, Communication for Collaboration, Family-Professional Partnerships, Assistive Technology Interventions, and Dialogic Reading Practices. They each have an interesting 5-step process with videos, audio, handouts, and training materials. This is a brand new website and they will be adding more modules soon. Also available in Spanish.

The IRIS Center provides an extensive array of interactive multimedia modules that focus on children with disabilities. They also have Case Studies, Activities, Information Briefs, and Podcasts. Also in Spanish. This is one of my favorite sites because of the wide variety of topics and the practical, commonsense way they put research into practice. All age groups.

The Teaching Channel is my newest favorite site. It’s hard to find high-quality free videos of exemplary teaching, but they do it! There is a wide range of videos, lesson plans and other resources. They are adding new videos all the time and if you sign up for a free membership you can get notified by email when there are new ones on topics you choose. All age groups.

The Center for the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning is absolutely the best resource for helping teachers with behavior problems in preschool children. There are training modules for staff development and lots of practice resources for teachers. This is the best place to go for information on teaching children social and emotional skills. Although it is geared to preschool, many of the ideas are appropriate with elementary school children as well.

Please share in the comments your own favorite professional development sites!