Reimagining Professional Development

 
Most teachers work 40 hours per week, right? Actually, it’s more like 54 hours per week these days, says EdWeek. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much room outside of the classroom for professional development and training.

What is being done to help teachers better themselves and become the best possible educators they can with such limited time?

On Voices of eLearning, host J.W. Marshall was joined by Harris Goodman, content general manager at GoGuardian, to discuss EdTech startup culture, what lifelong learning means for educators, and the future of educational research.

GoGuardian is a toolkit that helps manage classrooms, ensures student safety via online monitoring, identifies learning gaps, improves academic progress and professional development. Today, identifying and solving learning gaps is critical. In fact, this is especially true as learning loss increased during the pandemic due to online learning. For example, one NPR report claimed that students who spent as little as one month or less learning online lost seven to ten weeks of math learning.

Goodman described GoGuardian’s culture: “I’m incredibly impressed, actually, with GoGuardian’s emphasis. The team takes a very strong approach to development of talent, nurturing it, respecting people, creating a framework of appreciation and gratitude, and I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.”

Marshall and Goodman also discussed…

● Advice for educators and administrators for maintaining a high-quality startup culture

● What it means to be a lifelong learner as an educator

● The future of teachers in the educational research realm

Goodman explained how education companies are at the center of teacher talent development: “A good education company thinks of themselves as really an enabler and supporter of a teacher, right? Ultimately, we want to extend the use of a teacher through technology…but we’re at the core of what they do. So, my guiding principles have always been: ‘How do I save teachers time? How do I improve student outcomes?’ If I’m doing both of those things, I know I’m going to be successful because I’m aligned with the market.”

Goodman has extensive experience building organizations and improving organizational efficiency. He is an expert in collaboration and team leadership and has served in numerous roles, such as senior VP of corporate development and strategy at Achieve3000 as well as VP of business development at Learnosity. Goodman earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yeshiva University and is a multi-time Forbes publisher.