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Paper: Cross-Forum Five-Year Professional Development Review
Volume: 500, Celebrating Science: Putting Education Best Practices to Work
Page: 233
Authors: Davey, B.; Davis, H.; Bartolone, L.; Buxner, S.
Abstract: The Science Education and Public Outreach Forums (SEPOFs) provide resources and opportunities to enable sharing of best practices relevant to SMD EPO community members. In 2010, a number of efforts were undertaken to identify the professional development needs of EPO professionals. Several surveys, face-to-face, and webinar discussions were used to collect information from as many people as possible. From 2010 to 2014, more than 50 professional development opportunities were offered, attended by over 250 community members and viewed online more than 3500 times. Several opportunities have been made available for SMD EPO community members to participate in discussion and professional learning with one another. Several of the opportunities were event based and when possible videos of the sessions were archived on the SMDEPO.org workspace. Other opportunities were asynchronous or activities that could be completed when time allowed. When asked what motivated them to attend, SMD professionals named “relevant topic” as the primary reason followed by “learning more about the topic” and “convenient format.” Other impactful professional development events are retreats. Retreat participants are offered a wide range of professional development opportunities based on their needs and interests. When the retreat and the accompanying professional development were help for more than one forum community collaboratively, participants felt strongly that it added value to their work, they were able to collaborate with colleagues, and that they would like to have similar opportunities in the future.
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