Online Professional Development and Training

Beginning in 1996, The College of Exploration (TCOE) has brought together educators from every state in the US, all provinces in Canada, and many countries around the world to participate in one of the first and cutting-edge online professional development environments ever offered using the internet. Over the years these professional development events have involved thousands of educators from all corners of the globe as well as leading scientists in their fields. 

For educators, professional development involves connections to information, research, resources, expertise, colleagues, and materials related to education methodology and to particular topics within subject areas. It is all about the mental and social activities of self-improvement, reflection, deliberation, communication, collaboration and collegiality.

The College of Exploration maximizes the utilities of the internet using the latest related technologies to facilitate all of these connections, helping minimize complexity and guiding the participants through an intuitive and organized online environment. This is accomplished mostly through three-week workshops that facilitate the dissemination of leading scientists’ current and recent research, plus the connection of information to education standards. In addition, we provide invaluable interaction among colleagues, scientists, advisors, educational specialists and the TCOE online learning staff. 

This entire professional development process--from design to implementation to evaluation--as well as all of its technological, web-based tools and platforms, has always been successfully managed by TCOE’s Online Workshop Team, in a highly collaborative effort using research-based methods and pedagogy with various partners over the years, including: National Geographic, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, National Science Foundation, NASA, DoD, and many other governmental agencies and organizations, as well as hundreds of universities.

The bottom line is this simple equation: 
We bring educators together to provide them with cutting-edge research from top-level scientists, plus we facilitate collegial dialogue among peers, thereby impacting thousands of K-12 and university students as well as participants in informal education settings.