Supporting the transition to online teaching through evidence-based professional development

Abstract

Professional development (PD) is essential to support teachers to transition to online teaching, yet there are few evidence-based guidelines to assist those designing PD to determine both its content and structure. This paper provides an example of the design of an evidence-based PD resource that drew on Kilgour et al.’s (2019) threshold concepts, Northcote et al.’s (2019) pedagogical guidelines for PD and various institutional inputs as a form of evidence. By combining these sets of evidence, the resource was designed to support teachers to develop skills for online teaching that was both evidence-based, and tailored to the educational context and needs of staff. The paper adds to the literature by providing those developing PD with an example of how institutional inputs can be combined with scholarly research to develop an evidence-based PD program that was readily adaptable to support staff teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic.