David Levin ran one of the largest educational publishers in the world. Before that, he made a name for himself by completely revamping the business operations of a 200-year-old British publisher. But for the past year, he’s been obsessed with training teachers online.

“The lack of emphasis on pedagogy to support online and blended learning – it’s just striking,” Levin said via video conference (pictured right). When the Covid-19 pandemic erupted earlier this year, ASU Entrepreneur-in-Residence quickly organized a massive free event, REMOTE, to help connect post-secondary educators with qualified online learning practitioners. . The event attracted 26,000 attendees. Now, Levin is working on rehearsing the lecture for K-12 teachers. KNEW REMOTE K12: the summit of connected teachers will take place on January 9. Participation is free and registration is currently open. Educators who attend can earn a professional credential from ASU.

Levin’s involvement in teaching teachers online is doubly ironic. He joined ASU in late 2019 as a department (ASU EdPlus) launched an end-to-end adaptive education platform to support his entire undergraduate degree in biology. Levin has since also joined AI developer SparkBeyond as president, among other ventures.

Hearing Levin talk about the integration of learning technology and teacher training clarifies his vision for education.

How 2020 brought online teacher education to the fore

“Look at the massive investment K-12 has made in technology — and it’s been massive,” Levin said. “Compare it with the investment that virtually any other institution has made in technology, from the military to government to business. By far the biggest investment has been in software and in evolving workflow. People wonder how they can use technology to do something different. Well, education hasn’t done any of that.

ASU has announced the REMOTE K12: The Connected Teacher Summit in which teachers and attendees can register for free and earn an ASU K12 Remote Teaching Skills Certificate from @asueducation. Read more and register: https://t.co/YFYLdUGrcA #distance learning #certification

— Policy Center for Excellence in Education, ASU (@DCEdExASU) November 20, 2020

Levin isn’t the first person to have criticized K-12 education technology spending. U.S. sector spending totaled approximately $13 billion before the pandemic. We won’t know the full cost of education technology in 2020 for some time. A sort of cottage industry has formed to help schools make better use of their edtech licenses. But follow edtech return on investment is not easy. And with the exception of educators who proactively trained in the online modality, there was little incentive through 2020 for educators to seek professional teacher education online.

“There hasn’t been a corresponding investment in follow-up, pedagogy, teaching, workflow in a business sense,” Levin said. “It’s funny because, in all other areas, digital technology has completely changed practices and behaviors. Productivity is a word you have to tread carefully with in the world of education. But however you measure it, the military is more effective today. Businesses move faster and are more agile. Governments deliver services in a totally different way. And yet, our view of education has not changed.

Connected Teachers and Professors Summits

Throughout 2020, Levin has been working to course correct. In partnership with ASU (and many sponsors like Pearson and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Levin helped organize REMOTE: The Connected Faculty Summit in July. The event brought together experienced online educators who showcased high-impact, actionable best practices. It attracted 26,000 faculty and speakers (including approximately 700 K-12 teachers), who spent an average of three to five hours participating in the event. Individual sessions attracted over 5,000 people.

“We got loads of fantastic responses,” Levin said. “People would say, ‘My school hasn’t done teacher professional development. I have no idea how to approach this.

Following the event, there was overwhelming interest in repeating it with a focus on K-12. This follow-up — REMOTE: The Connected Teacher Summit — will take place on Saturday, January 9.

According to Levin, many themes are common to professional online teacher training for K-12 and higher education. But there are also important differences.

“Higher education instructors have a dozen years, fifteen years of expertise in delivering online learning to large numbers of students,” Levin said. “This practice existed before 2020. When we set the agenda for this event, we could turn to people who managed grant programs and who were known in the network.

“The contrast with K-12 couldn’t be stronger,” Levin continued, “because the domain expertise hasn’t been developed in the same way. The muscle is still really raw.

As a result, the second REMOTE conference is holding a contest for K-12 educators. ASU asks participants to nominate those who they believe have developed strong online teaching or leadership skills. The selected winners will be invited to present the practices they have developed.

Levin acknowledges that good professional online teacher training takes years. REMOTE conferences present a way for educators to improve their online teaching in the absence of this possibility.

“We don’t offer a holistic course on how to make fantastic online and hybrid education,” Levin said. “We are designed to be a fantastic resource available on demand. Let’s say Miss Jones is going to teach tomorrow and she freaks out. She needs ideas. In fifteen minutes, the conference will present some good ideas on its specific field. »

The conferences are organized by school level and teaching disciplines. Along with various topics, these disciplines will also include things like serving students with special needs or addressing mental health issues.

Waiting for 2021

Levin hopes that the lessons and best practices of professional online teacher training learned this year will not be forgotten.

“If we go back to school and everyone says, ‘Thank God for that Covid-19 vaccine. Now what were we doing? This will be a terrible wasted opportunity for me,” Levin said. “It will be an indictment, a terrible indictment against education. We learned some really important things. And it was very painful to learn them. We must not forget them. »

REMOTE: The summit of connected teachers will descend on January 9 for one day. Teachers can participate for free. Registration is currently open.

Featured image courtesy of ASU.