Professional Development Opportunities Tailor-Made for You

If you attended the 2018 Education Forum, you were among the first to experience the new PAEA Learning, a professional development initiative that has been in the making behind the scenes for the past four years. PAEA Learning originated from a plan called “Pathways to Professional Excellence.” This is an approach based on design thinking — one that is created around the needs of the user, our members.

The Pathways are meant to be highly personalized to the individual user’s needs, creating a seamless user experience. Members only log in once and then can do everything within the same system. We want our members to be able to focus their attention on their learning needs rather than having to deal with cumbersome technology.

PAEA Learning is being rolled out in phases. Phase 1 is briefly outlined below:

• We launched a PAEA Learning website dedicated to PA educators and their professional development.
• We introduced a new PAEA Learning Community where members can access learning on-demand as well as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). This will ultimately become the one-stop shop for members to access all of their professional development needs, including registering for workshops, the Education Forum, and a selection of additional educational meetings that PAEA is developing.
• The PLCs are online groups that will replace the current listservs, allowing for a more intimate, cohesive experience. Members can personalize the frequency and way they receive the information that is shared in the PLCs. Files and documents are stored in one convenient place rather than scattered across your inbox.
• We created a Digital Learning Hub — a robust online learning experience platform hosted by EdCast that includes a variety of content from PA educators and PAEA staff and premium content from LinkedIn Learning. The platform is based on machine learning, which means that the system adapts and adjusts based on a member’s personal profile, preferences, and usage. We equate the experience to using Netflix or Amazon. The system starts to know your learning needs and will make recommendations based off of those. Members can take advantage of over 7,000 digital resources including courses, modules, videos, articles, and so much more via the new Digital Learning Hub. The Association’s Learning Team mapped content based on this learning map designed to meet the needs of today’s PA faculty, staff, students, and administrators.

If you are a member and don’t have an account in the new Digital Learning Hub, click here or visit PAEAlearning.org to request an account. To help you get started, we have developed some how-to guides. 

Currently, the Learning Team is working on Phase 2 of PAEA Learning, which will allow members to register for face-to-face events such as the PAEA Workshops, Education Forum, and Regional Education Meetings (coming soon!). Members will be able to register for the Spring 2019 workshops through their PAEA Learning account.

Look for more exciting news and professional development opportunities soon.