Professional Development

District Professional Development Library

The district is compiling a library of professional reference materials for anyone in the district to use. Click on the link above to see what the district has. If there are professional learning books that you would like to request, please email sachiang@bogotaboe.com. 

Free Recommended Coursera Online PD

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects: 

(15 PD hrs) (Dr. Barbara Oakley) 

The Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization is a foundational program that prepares you to teach based on leading-edge insights from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and movie-making. Your instructors have real-world experience in teaching some of the world’s most popular courses, and they bring their background from academia and beyond, including perspectives that could be obtained only from decades of teaching at virtually every level, personal experience with neurodiversity, adventure from the Bering Sea to the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and much more. 

Overcoming Dyslexia

(12 PD Hrs) (Dr. Sally Shaywitz)

Dyslexia is everywhere, touching so many children and adults, and while science has made extraordinary progress in understanding and clarifying the condition, this incredible powerful knowledge rarely reaches those who most need to know and would greatly benefit from it. Our goal is to change all this with the Coursera you are about to view, produced by Dr. Sally Shaywitz, the Audrey G. Ratner Professor in Learning Development, both the leading scientist studying dyslexia and the most devoted advocate for helping those who are dyslexic.

Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms

(10 PD Hrs) (Dave Levin)

Positive psychology meets K-12 pedagogy. This course explores key ideas of positive psychology and shows how great teachers apply those lessons to maximize student engagement and accomplishment.  Through lectures, discussions, interviews and footage of great educators in action, you’ll learn how to integrate character-based objectives into your own teaching.

Get Organized: How to be a Together Teacher

(7 PD Hrs) (Maia Heyck-Merlin)

This course is designed for classroom teachers who juggle time-sensitive tasks and often-exhausting teaching schedules. With an eye toward long-term sustainability, The Together Teacher examines the purpose for planning ahead, provides tools for tracking time commitments, deadlines and tasks, and helps teachers develop a personal organization system that interacts with their day-by-day practices. 

All teachers, from the pen & paper list maker to the tech-savvy digital maven, will benefit from the no-nonsense approach to "togetherness" that's presented in this course. We don't care what format you use; we care that you know when you have free time during the day, and that you have a plan for using it.

Art & Ideas: Teaching with Themes

(12 PD Hrs) (Larissa Raphael, Lisa Mazzola, Francis Estrada)

This course is designed to help build critical skills that support theme-based teaching practices and build confidence in  incorporating modern and contemporary art into interdisciplinary lesson plans.  By addressing themes and questions that arise in relation to modern and contemporary art, the course will help you to think creatively about links to your curriculum and the ways that you can tap into students’ knowledge and life experience. 

In this course, you will explore four themes that educators at The Museum of Modern Art use frequently in their teaching: Places & Spaces, Art & Identity, Transforming Everyday Objects, and Art & Society. Through videos, slideshows, and a variety of resources, readings, and activities, you will explore the content and context of works of art in MoMA’s collection.

Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Introduction to Student Assessment

(12 PD Hrs) (Dr. Peter Keegan)

The Foundations of Teaching for Learning programme is for anyone who is teaching, or who would like to teach, in any subject and any context - be it at school, at home or in the workplace. With dynamic lessons taught by established and respected professionals from across the Commonwealth, this eight course programme will see you develop and strengthen your skills in teaching, professionalism, assessment, and more. As you carry on through the programme, you will find yourself strengthening not only your skills, but your connection with colleagues across the globe. A professional development opportunity not to be missed. 

There are various techniques which help to assess student learning. This course helps teacher to acquire the skills to develop and use appropriate assessment procedures. 

Host a Quiz Review with Blooket

(1 PD Hr) (Coursera Project Network)

By the end of this project, you will be an expert at using Blooket to set up and run a unique quiz game that is guaranteed to engage your students time and time again. Blooket provides not just one, but many different game modes to ensure that students remain engaged as they learn and review key concepts you have prepared for them. As we go through this project together, you will be fully equipped to use Blooket to create memorable and exciting learning experiences for your students.

Improve your productivity and performance with Canva

(1 PD Hr) (Coursera Project Network)

By the end of this project, you will create printables that you can use to structure your day, improve your productivity and enhance your performance.

You will be able to incorporate a color scheme, images, and other design elements for aesthetically pleasing and value added business marketing collateral. Creating high quality teaching printables is the perfect way to offer digital products to your students, blog readers or clients to market your business and grow it.

This project will include intermediate to advanced level skills using the free version of Canva.

Art & Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom

(8 PD Hrs) (Larissa Raphael)

Explore how to integrate works of art into your classroom with inquiry-based teaching methods originally developed for in-gallery museum education.

Introduction to Calculus

(58 PD hrs, David Easdown)

The focus and themes of the Introduction to Calculus course address the most important foundations for applications of mathematics in science, engineering and commerce. The course emphasises the key ideas and historical motivation for calculus, while at the same time striking a balance between theory and application, leading to a mastery of key threshold concepts in foundational mathematics. 

Students taking Introduction to Calculus will: 

• gain familiarity with key ideas of precalculus, including the manipulation of equations and elementary functions (first two weeks), 

• develop fluency with the preliminary methodology of tangents and limits, and the definition of a derivative (third week),

• develop and practice methods of differential calculus with applications (fourth week),

• develop and practice methods of the integral calculus (fifth week).

English and Academic Preparation - Pre-Collegiate

(23 PD Hrs, Alice Llanos, Rachel Kraut, Ph.D)

The English and Academic Preparation - Pre-Collegiate non-credit course is for students with a (minimum) high-intermediate level of English. This certificate course is designed to help domestic and international students develop the academic skills necessary for success in undergraduate studies at an American university while strengthening their English proficiency.

Ideally, prospective students have completed or are near completion of a high school diploma in their country and would like to come to the United States to study for a bachelor’s degree.

The total length of time required to complete the course is approximately 4 weeks. Students should expect to spend about 5-7 hours per week working with the materials and assignments.

The course is made up of 4 modules:

• Listening, Speaking, and Critical Thinking

• Writer’s Workshop

• Reading and Note-taking

• Capstone Project

Each module consists of video lessons, opportunities for practicing English and academic skills, interactive discussion boards with classmates, and graded activities. All courses are asynchronous, which means that the lessons and their activities can be completed at any time of day or night, provided that all course assignments are completed by the final day of class.

The Science of the Solar System

(29 PD Hrs, Mike Brown)

Learn about the science behind the current exploration of the solar system in this free class. Use principles from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology to understand the latest from Mars, comprehend the outer solar system, ponder planets outside our solar system, and search for habitability in our neighborhood and beyond. This course is generally taught at an advanced level assuming a prior knowledge of undergraduate math and physics, but the majority of the concepts and lectures can be understood without these prerequisites. The quizzes and final exam are designed to make you think critically about the material you have learned rather than to simply make you memorize facts. The class is expected to be challenging but rewarding.

Spreadsheets for Beginners using Google Sheets

(2 PD hrs, Coursera Project Network)

This 2-hour long project-based course is an introduction to spreadsheets. We’ll be using Google Sheets in this project, which is the free spreadsheet program offered by Google. With that said, most of the concepts that you will learn in this project will be applicable to other spreadsheet programs, such as Microsoft Excel. 

We will cover the following concepts in a hands-on manner:

- Basic data entry, formatting and calculations

- Relative and absolute cell references

- Basic functions: concatenate, split, sum, average, median, min, max, count, counta  

- Advanced functions: vlookup, if, and, or, iferror, countif, countifs, averageif, averageifs, sumif, sumifs

- Dealing with error messages

- Conditional formatting

- Filtering and sorting

- Basic charts to visualize our data

We will end the project by applying these concepts and create a basic spreadsheet model that helps us analyze household expenses.

Note:  If you don't have a Google account, you will need to create one to be able to complete the content.

Improving Content Mastery with Quizlet

(1 PD hr, Coursera Project Network)

By the end of this project, you will be ready to use Quizlet to help students master any content. With the study sets, quiz modes, and in-class games Quizlet provides, memorization is made easier making mastery an achievable goal. Throughout each task in this project, we will work together to ensure that you are ready to use Quizlet with your students. By the end, we will have created and curated study sets that you can use with your class right away.

*You will need a free Quizlet account for this project. 

Duolingo for Schools: Language Learning Webinar PDs

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 1 (Videos 1-6)

(1 PD hr)

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Videos 1-6. This will introduce how to incorporate Duolingo for Schools which is a free supplemental platform for educators and students.

Video 1: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Duolingo for Schools 101

Video 2: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Setting Up Your Account

Video 3: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Adding Students to a Classroom

Video 4: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Creating and Managing Assignments

Video 5: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Managing Student Data

Video 6: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Settings Overview

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 2 (Videos 7-8)

(.5 PD hr)

Video 7: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: Using Duolingo in the Classroom

Video 8: Duolingo for Schools Professional Development: The Student Experience

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 3 (Videos 9-12)

(2.5 PD hrs)

Video 9: Duolingo for Schools PD: A teacher guide to understanding the new Duolingo for Schools

Video 10: Duolingo for Schools PD: Using Duolingo Podcasts in the Classroom

Video 11: Duolingo for Schools PD: Classroom gamification with Duolingo

Video 12: Duolingo for Schools PD: 6 easy ways to get started with Duolingo for Schools

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 4 (Videos 13-16)

(2 PD hrs)

Video 13: Duolingo for Schools PD: Maximizing Duolingo in a blended learning classroom

Video 14: Duolingo for Schools PD: The science behind brain breaks

Video 15: Using Duolingo for Schools in a Modern Classroom

Video 16: Duolingo for Schools PD: Help Center walk through and FREE teacher resources

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 5 (Videos 17-21)

(2 PD hrs)

Video 17: Duolingo for Schools PD: Celebrating World Read Aloud Day with Duolingo Stories

Video 18: Duolingo for Schools PD: Boosting student literacy skills with Duolingo

Video 19: Duolingo for Schools PD: Tips for staying in the target language

Video 20: Duolingo for Schools PD: Using blogs in the world language classroom 

Video 21: Duolingo for Schools PD: Goal-setting in the world language classroom with Duolingo

Duolingo for Schools Professional Development Part 6 (Videos 22-27)

(3 PD hrs)

Video 22: Duolingo for Schools PD: Using project-based learning with Duolingo

Video 23: Duolingo for Schools PD: Activities for social emotional learning in the language classroom

Video 24: Duolingo for Schools PD: Student Streak Societies: Motivating Daily Student Participation

Video 25: Duolingo for Schools PD: Lowering the affective filter with Duolingo

Video 26: Duolingo for Schools PD: Avoiding the school break slump with Duolingo

Video 27: Duolingo for Schools PD: Turn up the heat with classroom leaderboards

District Recommended PD Opportunities and Vendors

Click on the image to the left to access the teacher's cheat sheet with hundreds of curated links on how to do various tasks using ed tech.  

Reading PDs 

Google Certification Levels 1 and 2 Process

Step 1: District registration: 

Step 2: Complete the courses: 

Step 3: Obtain a access code

Step 4: Install the ProctorU extension in Chrome

Step 5: Certification exam

Step 5: Retake (if necessary)

What am I allowed/not allowed to do during the exam?

Sample Google Certification Questions 

Google Slides Presentation on the exam

Quick and Short "How-to" tech videos

GoGuardian Help Documents

District Live Webinar PD Recordings