February 2017's Online Professional Development Opportunities

With everything that is going on in the country and the world, it can be a little hard to focus on other things. However, I've found that, at times like these, it can be comforting to to find things that you can do that are proactive and that can help improve the future. I've been telling my students that, as future teachers, they have a unique opportunity and responsibility to help bring about change. In order to do this, it is vital to keep learning new techniques in teaching. So, without further ado, here are some very promising (and free!) online professional development opportunities for this month.


NCTE's monthly Twitter chat is scheduled for Sunday, February 19 at 8:00 pm ET. The topic is "Teaching Controversial Works of Literature," and I can't wait to see what books others are teaching and how they handle the potential controversies that arise. For more information or to read past NCTE chats, visit the #nctechat page.

ASCD has a free webinar, "Making Academic Vocabulary Stick," on February 9 at 3:00 pm. There is also a members-only webinar, "School Culture Recharged," on February 22 at 3:00 pm ET.

I've always found Teaching Tolerance to be an excellent resource, but given everything that is happening now, it is more vital than ever. This month, it has two free webinars:

• "Equity Matters: Confronting Implicit Bias" on February 21 at 3:30 CST (4:30 ET).
• "Equity Matters: Understanding Equity Literacy" on February 28 at 3:30 CST (4:30 ET).

As always, edWeb has many webinars on a wide variety of topics. Given the growing concerns regarding fake news, I'm particularly intrigued by "Media Literacy: A Crash Course in 60 Minutes," which is on February 22 at 5:00 pm ET.