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Facing the Pandemic

8K local educators attend Arizona State University Prep Virtual Teacher Institute

Pivot to digital maintains professional development amid COVID-19

Posted 3/4/21

As the nation approaches the 1-year mark of the global COVID-19 pandemic few groups have been more affected by the pandemic than public school teachers.

Last spring, when classes suddenly went …

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Facing the Pandemic

8K local educators attend Arizona State University Prep Virtual Teacher Institute

Pivot to digital maintains professional development amid COVID-19

Posted

As the nation approaches the 1-year mark of the global COVID-19 pandemic few groups have been more affected by the pandemic than public school teachers.

Last spring, when classes suddenly went remote and playgrounds across the nation went quiet, ASU Prep Digital gathered a group of education leaders together to understand how best to support teachers navigating this uncertain future, according to a press release.

From this meeting, the Arizona Virtual Teacher Institute was born, officials there say.

The free training offered through AZVTI was designed to help Arizona teachers not only survive but thrive in adopting new digital, blended, hybrid, and tech-rich instructional practices. The training is provided at no cost to schools or teachers through the generous investment of the Arizona Department of Education, the Governor’s Office, Helios Education Foundation, and Arizona State University.

During the two weeks of Arizona’s spring break, March 9-11 and March 16-18, AZVTI will be conducting two professional development boot camps for educators focused on blended learning models and educational technology.

Additional boot camps will be available during Summer 2021 and training continue to be available to all interested teachers at the times that work best for them.

Over the last year nearly 8,000 Arizona teachers have participated in the institute, representing 367 districts and more than 1,000 schools across the state. AZVTI offers 400 separate pieces of training aimed at not only bridging the divide created by remote learning but empowering teachers with tools that will have application long beyond the pandemic.

“Arizona is home to over 47,000 public school teachers and AZVTI has already touched 8,000 of them,” said Julie Young, managing director of ASU Prep and ASU Prep Digital. “We’ve interfaced with nearly half of the state’s public schools and our mission is to ensure that every single teacher in need of resources has free access to them.”

Go to asuprepdigital.org/training.