As part of Goal 3 of the Pilot Project – Transfer Learning at School Level – and the dissemination of the work done at the school cluster I created an accredited short course in which the project would be explained to fellow teachers, both from the school cluster and other schools in Portugal. With this activity I intended to demystify some opinions I had come across while analysing the results of the survey done in the beginning of the pilot (see page 22).
The event took place on 13th November, from 2:30 to 5:30. Luís Fernandes, member of the Teacher Academy Pedagogical Advisory Board, was the invited guest and made a presentation about Continuing Professional Development for Teachers. As the coordinator of the pilot in my school cluster I gave the audience an overview of the project, the activities done and the results achieved while the elements of the study group focused their talk on the course attended, their difficulties and how they overcame them and the implementation of the methodologies learnt in the course. 50 teachers attended the event and their opinions revealed that they had learnt a lot and were more open to online training courses than before.
Aldina Sobral, a Biology teacher, said: “I demystified the idea that you need to master the English language to be able to attend these courses”.
Ana Paula Ferreira, another Biology teacher, revealed she “would register on the Teacher Academy website in order to have access to the courses” and José Rui Pessoa, a Geography teacher, emphasized the fact that online courses could be accredited through CCPFC, something he didn’t know. For him, this was an important discovery.
Some colleagues even showed their interested in participating in a future TA course, using the same methodology of the study group.
DISSEMINATION of THE PILOT PROJECT
This is proof enough of the success of the project developed in Agrupamento de Escolas de Carregal do Sal and the challenge is now to continue expanding this learning community while promoting online learning at the same time.
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