Professional Development Improves Student Learning at HCT

The mission of the Professional Development Program at the Higher Colleges of Technology is to improve and sustain the professional growth of faculty and staff through different learning opportunities that align with the institution’s strategic goals.

Every semester during the Professional Development Week, HCT offers a wide variety of training workshops and certification programs for all faculty and staff to improve knowledge and skill sets needed to improve teaching, student learning and ultimately student success.

 IMG_3508During the Professional Development Week, faculty and staff are encouraged to complete certification programs and master teaching tools that will help them boost student achievement in their courses. Certification programs from the HCT PD Framework include: Professional Online Instructor Certification (POIC), Designing Mobile-friendly Courses, Blackboard Learn Basic Certification Program, and Building Interactive Mobile Content using SoftChalk. During this semester’s Professional Development Week, January 4-8, about 30 faculty and staff members successfully completed certification for Building Interactive Mobile Content Using SoftChalk.

The week concluded on January 8 with a Mobile Learning Festival. During the Festival, Vaishali S, Educational Technology Coordinator of Dubai Men’s College, introduced faculty and staff to SoftChalk’s new eBook Builder tool. This innovative tool is an exciting new feature that allows educators to create-their-own interactive eBooks from content they develop using SoftChalk. The new eBook Builder tool is one of the new features available with SoftChalk’s award-winning digital curriculum authoring solution. With the growing popularity of SoftChalk’s as authoring solution, HCT will offer the certification course on Building Interactive Mobile Content Using SoftChalk during the upcoming Professional Development Week in 5th – 9th April 2015 and encourage SoftChalk Champions to share best practices in 3rd Annual Mobile Learning Conference in 2015.

See what some of the participants of conference had to say:

“The presenter ensured we were prepared for the session by getting us ready with the necessary software and materials. Everyone got a chance to make his/her own lesson on SoftChalk. The presenter took us through the workshop step-by-step with easy-to-follow instructions.”

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“I enjoyed the way the workshop was ran; we followed steps to create our own SoftChalk lessons. Prepping was done well ahead of time and I was able to follow the instructions clearly. I’m definitely keen on using SoftChalk with Blackboard Learn. Thank you.”

If you have an innovative professional development program at your institution, share it with us for a chance to be featured on our blog!

 

 

 

 

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