Value Added

The majority of this PD is targeted at helping teachers effectively use Pearson products, including how to set up products, students and other “getting started” procedures associated with Pearson curricula including popular programs such as Reading Street, enVision Math and SuccessNet. myPearson also aims to help teachers get the most out of their Pearson curriculum. For example, a tutorial will help teachers understand the best way to teach a Common Core literacy lesson, including the most effective methodology for approaching and teaching the topic.

How does it work?

myPearsonTraining was created to supplement the online Pearson products, or programs by providing teachers with the tools to optimize their implementation. The tools include free 5-7 minute tutorials, which provide “how-tos” and best practices for implementing a Pearson product, free 15-60 minute webinars about how to get started with a product and 3 to 6-hour online courses that are more interactive and involve a fee.

Through myPearsonTraining.com, teachers can access all tutorials, webinars, and online courses for all Pearson products. The tutorials and webinars are categorized by school type (elementary, middle, high school, or university), and disciplines.

Pearson typically recommends teachers and administrators watch between one and three tutorials or webinars to get acquainted with products. Administrators are also invited to watch webinars created for them about the learning management systems, SuccessNet and SuccessNet Plus. “Student tutorials,” which aim to demonstrate to teachers and administrators what students experience, are available for platform based products.

Tutorials:

Pearson offers about 150 free online tutorials, typically 5 to 7 minutes long, for each product from PreK through high school. These cover issues from set-up and troubleshooting, to best practices and aligning with the Common Core standards. These require no registration, nor require you to be a Pearson customer.

Webinars:

Pearson also offers about 20 free pre-recorded webinars that go into how to use Pearson products in the classroom. These are typically either 10 to 15 minutes long, or 45 to 60 minutes long. The videos walk teachers through a program overview, classroom use, program design and components, and teaching guides and points to additional resources. These also require no registration.  

Online Courses:

For additional fees, Pearson also offers six-hour long online courses on how to use its products. The courses teach teachers how to use Pearson products effectively to teach certain material.

The pricing for these six-hour course are:

• Self-paced online course: $120.00;
  
• Fused online course (self-paced + live online with a Pearson facilitator): $2275 for up to 15 people, $2625 for up to 30 people, and $3325 for up to 50 people;
  
• Fully live online course with a Pearson facilitator: $2625 for up to 15 people, $2975 for up to 30 people, and $3675 for up to 50 people.
  

Courses are self-paced, interactive, and broken into five sessions. For the self-paced online courses, teachers are responsible for taking the course and submitting the work. The ”fused” online course introduces a Pearson facilitator in the first and last session. The facilitator delivers the material via an online session (webinar) or in person; teachers watch parts 2 through 4 on their own.  The fully live online course is also meant for larger groups, and is specifically tailored to the needs of that group. Pearson will create a program and a live facilitator will deliver the five sessions live.

How is it used?

Teachers can go to myPearsonTraining.com and begin accessing the PD immediately. There is no sign-in process nor registration required. Sometimes, teachers or administrators watch these tutorials as part of an effort to evaluate whether the products would be useful for their classes or schools.

Each product has unique tutorials. For example, Reading Street has up to an hour of tutorials that range from Common Core Standards to using Reading Street in different states.

Content, Content, Content….

Each tutorial, webinar, and online course is created by a team of content developers. Pearson editors review and and finalized the content, working with a media production team. Sometimes the courses are written by the author or organization that developed a framework, for example a blended learning model or flipped classroom, though the team at myPearsonTraining remains the primary authors and developers.

Some tutorials exists for higher education products, but are mostly centered around platforms like myMath Lab, myEnglish Lab, among others. Higher education tutorials can be found in the High School category or searched for directly.

Landmines

Because the experience is self-guided, teachers are either on their own to learn to use Pearson products or must fulfill requirements established by their school leaders. There is no way to track what a teacher has done or take notes on the material or save them to an  account.

Tech/Price/Credit

Tech

All tools on myPearsonTraining are web-based. Materials can be watched via the web or downloaded to a local computer. They are also optimized for viewing on both iOS and Android devices.

Cost

All Pearson product tutorials, webinars, and additional materials such as PDFs, are free. Fees for the online courses start at between $120 for a self-paced course and go up to $3675 for a 50-person live online course.

Credit

The online courses provide continuing education credits for teachers.