Boosting Teacher Professional Development Vol. 1 | Page 23

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As the vast majority of teachers in AECS prefer online continuing professional training and 91,7% of respondents state they have never attended MOOCs, either because they don’t know this type of CPD course or they’re just not interested, I organised a small study group to take a Teacher Academy course together. I chose the course “Introducing Project-Based Learning in your Classroom”, as it was quite useful in the Portuguese education system – we have new legislation about Flexibility and Autonomy in schools and Project-Based Learning (PBL) is one of its main focuses.

I chose teachers from different subject areas and with different levels of English proficiency to get a wider range of responses to the participation in the course:

*1 Vocational Coordinator, teacher of Economy and Sociology (secondary and vocational students), member of the Erasmus+ team – Aldina Nobre;

*1 Science Teacher (coordinator of the Autonomy and Flexibility projects in school) (3rd cycle students) – Ana Lemos;

*1 Head of the Foreign Languages Department, teacher of English (2nd cycle students) – Elisa Morais;

*1 Head of Department and member of the coordination of one of the schools in the school cluster, Maths and Science teacher (2nd cycle students), member of the Erasmus+ team – Filipa Neves;

*1 Head of 2nd cycle Headteachers, teacher of Maths and Science (2nd cycle students) – Nazaré Brito;

*Celeste Simões - Teacher of English, Erasmus+ Coordinator, EUN pilot project Coordinator, Teacher Trainer (3rd cycle students and 3rd cycle vocational students).

Creation of a study group & PBL course