Are you planning on training your teachers online? Checklist for school leaders.

Are you planning to develop the professional capacity of your group of teachers? Are you
considering of purchasing an online training for them? If you answered yes, that’s great – but
we urge you to stop for a moment to take a look at our checklist for school leaders. There are
certain things to consider before taking the decision to buy an online training and we will
guide you through them.

Technical considerations:

1. INTERNET. Our online training platform is great and easy to use, but your teachers will
need an internet connection to join the trainings. If you have the connection at school,
that’s great. If not, you need to consider where the teachers will have the access: is it
going to be a public library or do the teachers need to go to a café or restaurant or
access WiFi – or use their personal mobile data?

2. DEVICES. What kind of devices do your teachers have, to study with? Our platform is
very flexible: you can access with a computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone – as long
as it has an internet connection. This allows for various studying solutions: teachers
can study at school in the computer lab or at home with their laptop – or they can
study with their smartphone on the bus while commuting between home and work.

3. FACILITIES AND TIME. Partly related to the topics above, one thing to consider is the
space to study. Are the online trainings part of the teacher’s paid duty, in which case
can they use the school facilities to attend to this duty? If the online learning happens
outside working hours, can the teachers still use the school facilities? Or if the teachers
are expected to study on their own time at the place of their own choosing, how will
you make sure they will succeed?

All these considerations can affect teacher’s capacity to participate in the course and also
either boost or decrease their motivation to study. If the technical considerations are well met
and there are no technical obstacles to study, your teachers are on the right track to successful
studying online.
Content considerations:

1. TRAINING TOPICS. Do you already know the topics your teachers need capacity
building on? If yes – that’s great. You can go and check our courses to see if we already
offer what you need. If we don’t have your topic on our list, don’t worry – Huippu
Education offers also customized online trainings tailored to your specific needs. If you
don’t know your teacher’s needs yet, we can also help you with that, by conducting a
needs assessment or curriculum review to pinpoint the need for professional
development.

2. TRAINING LANGUAGE. Most of our courses are in English, but we are ready to offer
courses in other languages upon request. Don’t hesitate to ask us, if you are looking
for courses and content in your language.

3. TRAINING METHODS. Our courses are designed by Finnish teachers and they are based
on Finnish pedagogy which sees learning as an active process with interaction,
creativity and peer learning. In case you are looking for a data bank of self-study
materials with a multiple choice test at the end, we are sorry to inform you that it’s
not our way. We believe in applying and adapting information, in creative assignments
and giving personal feedback for the course participants – and that calls for their active
engagement to the course.

These considerations relate to your and your school’s developmental needs and how to
provide your teachers the kind of training they need. No matter how interesting and of high
pedagogical quality the course content is, if the training topics don’t match with your teacher’s
needs or interests, the trainings will not be very successful. Related to language skills, it’s
important to offer the course in the language your teachers can understand well enough to
understand the vocabulary and answer our open questions, discussions and webinars.
Leadership considerations

1. BEING INFORMED. As a school leader, we recommend that you yourself or someone

working very close to you, will also participate in the online training. This will help you
to stay on track to what kind of classroom applications are included in the course
content and what kind of advice teachers get from the course, and understand the
pedagogy and reasons behind something “new” teachers might do in their classrooms.

2. ALLOWING CHANGE. As a school leader, are you willing to let teachers try new
teaching methods? How about re-arranging their classrooms? If you are going to
choose Huippu Education’s online trainings, you have already learned that our
methods are active and encourage teachers to be creative. Our courses include
practical tips for teachers and encourage them to try new things in their classrooms –
all based on the renown Finnish pedagogy and best practices from real Finnish
classrooms. From the school leadership, we are hoping for a flexible and development-
minded attitude to lead the change in our school and let your teachers be the agents
of change.

We at Huippu Education have learned, that a successful implementation of the trained content
in the school recalls not only motivated teachers, but also commitment and support from the
school leaders. This is why we want to make sure that when teachers attend to out online
trainigns, the school leaders are committed to create the possibilities for the teachers to apply
what they learn. That is how we can create a successful training together!