TOP 15 Free Professional Development Courses For Teachers

Becoming an online teacher sure sounds like an easy job that also serves justice to your teaching profession within the comforts of your home.

Holidays, unforeseen circumstances, summer breaks, nothing can cause a halt in this profession and the long term results are definitely promising!

But what do you do when you are completely new in this field?

You can easily get confused by the whole working algorithm of online teachers and this confusion can be scary!

So to avoid all this dilemma, we have compiled a list of top 15 professional development courses for all those new online teachers which are completely free of charge!

What Are Online Development Courses For Teachers?

Well you must be wondering why as a teacher you need some development courses to set your ground?

Think of it this way; whenever a person decides to opt for teaching as their career, they do not just grab their coats and walk into the classroom,  but they go through a short period of training, attending workshops and gathering the basic know-hows.

Just like an astronaut working on simulations before actually stepping into the spaceship! 

Similarly, to be a certified online teacher who offers invaluable courses for their students, you need to surf through some online development courses.

The major perk of these online courses for teachers is that you can train to be an online teacher in your garden or in your casual stay-at-home outfits!

Well how to get these development courses? That is why we’re here to help! So let’s get started! 

1. Apple Teacher Free Program For K-12 Teachers:

We all have heard of Apple and its amazing products of course.

But Apple never misses an opportunity to amaze us again!

For all those new online teachers out there, Apple provides amazing learning courses for teachers which is completely free of charge!

The program Apple provides is for K-12 teachers, targeting the students of age group 5 to 18.

Apple enables online teachers to help provide their courses to students via Apple products.

Whether its an iPad or iMac, Apple has detailed comprehensive tutorials for online teachers on their website to help them plan out the perfect course for their students.

Apple also provides it teachers a range of features to interact with all of their students at once, like iMovie etc. 

What could be better than being an Apple certified teacher!

The biggest advantage of using Apple’s development course is that after you have gone through their tutorials and guides, you can take a series of quizzes on Apple to earn some online teaching badges!

You can attach these badges on your profile to give your online course a boost and some serious student traffic. 

2. Free Professional Development Courses by Classcentral

Class Central provides an amazing opportunity to all the new online teachers  by offering absolutely free online courses on any subject or topic.

The major distinguished feature Class Central is that it also enables online teachers to access  the courses they desire from any top university or college.

Class Central provides a direct portal to its users to get directly affiliated with the top rated universities and become a professional online teacher with their certification.

The courses available on Class Central cover almost every subject of every domain so the vast exposure of courses can help you establish a highly certified profile that is sure to lure in some massive student traffic!  

3. Learning To Teach Online

This is another initiative launched by Apple to help train online teachers before their actual interaction with the students.

Apple provides a detailed list of audios and podcasts available on iTunes that can give all the new online teachers the insight that they need before preparing their online courses.

All these podcasts and audios available on iTunes are of course, free of charge so you can easily access them and get your online teacher training done.

The podcasts and audios available are of multiple successful online teachers from all across the world that share their experience with you and enlighten you with the basic dos and don’ts of online teaching.

There are more than 50 podcasts available on iTunes to give you a head start on your career as an online teacher.

This can definitely help you in establishing a strong profile for your online courses!

4. EdTech Teacher

Ed Tech Teacher enables millions of online teachers from across the globe to gear up for their career as a professional and a successful online teacher.

Ed Tech provides courses for online teachers with multiple tools such as podcasts, teaching guides, webinars and presentations, and all entirely free of charge!

All you need to do is to head up on their website and start taking those courses!

Ed Tech also gives its users a premium luxury of live webinars and sessions where you can directly interact with experts and get your queries answered.

These live sessions and webinars do require some little amount of money , but the presentations, online courses and many other tools are completely free.

Ed Tech also specializes in arranging some workshops so you can get the certification that you need to bring your online profile into the limelight!

5. Education Closet’s Free Online STEAM Workshops

If you are an online teacher who wants to build their course content revolving around science, arts and math then this is the perfect website for you!

Education Closet offers free of charge workshops and podcasts to online teachers that are up to 15-20 minutes long and certainly fill in all those detail gaps that you may have in your mind at the beginning of your online career.

All those workshops and courses for teachers are exclusively designed to give you a bunch of cool and creative ideas that you can incorporate in your courses.

Apart from course related workshops, Education Closet also trains its users regarding assessments criteria and how to design the accurate assessment for you students.

This will definitely ensure you some student traffic on your online teaching profile! 

6. Free Technology for Teachers

Free of Technology for Teachers is an online website by Richard Byrne that contains multiple detailed PDF files on almost every course and the basics for online teaching, all written by Richard Byrne.

These comprehensive PDF files are completely free of charge and give online teachers all the necessary information that they need for designing their online courses and for using different apps and Google tools that online teachers can use to establish themselves as a professional online teacher and to interact with their students.

Apart from the free PDF files, Richard also owns a blog where he shares his experience and knowledge about online teaching and also confronts the queries of online teachers.

This website is definitely a must visit for you to build up a good online teacher profile! 

7. Free EdWeb Webinars

Ed Web Webinars offers detailed  webinars and recorded courses for teachers to thousands of online teachers free of charge, preparing themselves for their online career.

These webinars are completely equipped with all the essential requirements that an online teacher needs before starting their career as an online teacher.

One of the biggest advantages of attending these webinars offered by Ed Web is that whether you attend them live or even attend an online recording, you would still be offered with a participation certificate that will give you the shine that you need on your online teacher’s profile!

All these webinars and courses for teachers are entirely free of charge so all those young new online teachers out there, this is definitely the place for you!

8. NASA’s STEM Professional Development Webinars for Educators

The world leading space technology center, NASA, also offers an exclusive development program for online teachers.

NASA offers completely free STEM courses for teachers so they can mould their online courses accordingly for their students.

A wide variety of courses related to engineering, aerospace, solar system and space technology is available on their website.

You can surf through them for free and pick out the desired course for your online teacher’s profile and start creating informative course content for your students.

You can also search for some ongoing space events that are happening and prepare your future course content accordingly.

Being a NASA certified online teacher is bound to attract your students and make you a successful online teacher.

9. SimpleK12

If you are a new teacher in the world of online teaching and are not sure on how to use the modern technology to prepare for your courses, then SimpleK12 is the go to website for you!

SimpleK12 offers more than 800 hours of training programs and recorded courses for teachers.

These recorded videos are extremely helpful and provide detailed description tutorials to online teachers on how to use online teaching tools such as whiteboards etc. to make interactions with their students easy and effective and are completely free of charge.

So if you are a K12 online teacher, then SimpleK12 is a must visit for you!

 10. Using Virtual Scenarios to Create Effective Learning By FutureLearn

Want a more realistic experience in your online teacher training that will give you an insight on how the actual online teaching algorithm works?

Then virtual scenarios by FutureLearn are the go to place for you!

FutureLearn offers a handy bunch of virtual scenarios that will give you the real impact of an online class.

These scenarios are extremely helpful as they can boost your judgement ability and prepare you for a much more comfortable student teacher interaction.

To make your online course a success, you really need to dive into the minds of your students and these virtual scenarios by FutureLearn make that possible for free! 

11. Free Training Professional Development Courses By Alison

The professional development courses by Alison are some specialized courses for teachers that give them a complete insight on how to deal with students with special education needs.

All these professional courses offered are entirely free of charge.

These courses train online teachers to interact with the different groups of students that they may encounter on their online course.

Professional development courses by Alison pays special attention to students with special needs and offers exclusive courses on them.

A certification that makes you eligible to teach special children will definitely give your online profile the confirmed boost and traffic! 

 12. Techniques for Teaching Adjectives and Adjective Clauses

If you are an online English teacher then you must be aware that teaching grammar can often be boring for students, and engaging them in the course can be tough.

Well the courses and tips and tricks offered by this website can definitely help you to overcome that problem!

The multiple courses and techniques available on this website can help online teachers prepare their courses in an appealing way for students.

The major catch for this website is that the courses for teachers offered are exclusively affiliated with some renowned universities and can give you some major highlighted certification on your online teacher’s profile!

All for free! 

13. The U.S. Department of Education: Office of Educational Technology

The office of educational technology by the United States department of education offers a special course for teachers which is completely free of charge.

The program focuses on the training of new online teachers and equipping them with the basic know-hows of online teaching tools.

These online teaching programs are a project of the US government.

The major aim of the program is to raise awareness among the new online teachers so they are facilitated with the best online tools and online teaching hacks to make the online teaching experience for students as real as possible! 

 14. Intel Teach

Intel Teach provides another amazing opportunity for the new K12 online teachers, all free of charge!

The program development courses focus on training new K12 online teachers so they provide a better learning experience for their students.

The courses provided are extremely detailed and comprehensive.

The courses range from using online tools to crafting up assessments for the students.

All the guided courses for teachers aim on equipping and training the new K12 online teachers with the modern educational technologies.

This will definitely get you some major traffic  on your online teacher’s profile!

 15. Take Your Teaching Online By OpenLearn

OpenLearn is a brilliant online teaching initiative taken by the Open University.

The OpenLearn program also provides some detailed training, programs, and courses for teachers which are all free of charge.

These courses do a fine job of training the new online teachers so they are aware of the tips and tricks on online teaching, which can help them ensure some major student traffic on their online teachers’ profile.

The biggest perk of this program is that you will get an exclusive certification by the Open University to polish up your online teacher’s profile!

All these websites do a fine job in delivering the best and preparing you for a successful career in online teaching.

We really hope our blog was useful! Good Luck for your new online teaching career! 

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