For more than four decades, the Alaska Staff Development Network (ASDN) has provided professional development for educators across Alaska. As the professional development division of ACSA, we are committed to enhancing student achievement through evidence-based professional development programs designed specifically for Alaska’s teachers and school administrators.
OUR IMPACT
- 5,000 annual registrants participate in our courses and events
- Nearly every school district in Alaska maintains an active subscription
- One-third of participants engage in multiple professional learning opportunities throughout the year
- Over 900 educators contribute to our comprehensive annual needs assessment
- We develop partnerships and write grants that bring significant additional resources to school districts and associations in the state.
Our annual needs assessment of over 700 district leaders and teachers statewide sets our priorities for the upcoming school year. Our team delivers evidenced-based professional learning in a variety of formats to meet the needs of our educators.
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Webinar Series
ASDN strives to provide equitable access to high quality PD for all educators in the state. We have been providing professional development through webinar series since 2007. Each series features 3-6 sessions with nationally recognized experts, serving approximately 700 educators annually. This cost-effective format ensures that geographic barriers don’t limit professional growth opportunities.
Online Courses
Our online catalog includes more than 70 professional learning courses, with new offerings added each semester. We facilitate over 3,000 university credit registrations annually through partnerships with UAA-PACE and APU. These 500-level credits support teacher recertification requirements and often qualify for salary advancement.
Conferences and Workshops
ASDN offers a variety of in-person and virtual conferences throughout the year. Our largest annual event is the MTSS Effective Instruction Conference. Since 2013, this January conference has attracted over 1,000 educators from 45+ districts, featuring presentations from state, national, and international education leaders.
Targeted Professional Learning with Individual School Districts
ASDN is the lead organization or a primary partner in a number of educational grant projects. These projects allow us to join with school districts for more focused and intensive district-wide professional development efforts. They also bring a significant amount of resources to districts to deliver supplemental services to students and to purchase curriculum and student materials.
Districts who are subscribers may work with ASDN to develop customized professional learning opportunities for a school, district, or region.
Statewide Projects
As Alaska’s regional partner for CodeAI.org, ASDN is spearheading the expansion of computer science education across the state. Code.org’s professional development and excellent, free curriculum empower teachers from every type of background to teach computer science. ASDN has provided professional learning to over 1,100 teachers and 49 out of 54 districts have one or more teachers prepared to teach computer science.
This initiative, supported by Code.org, the Department of Education and Early Development, and corporate partners including GCI, ACS, and Alaska Airlines, represents our commitment to preparing students for tomorrow’s digital economy.
The Our Alaskan Schools Blog helps get the word out about the great things happening in our schools. When the Alaska Council of School Administrators (ACSA) first started the work of blogging about the great things happening in classrooms and schools across Alaska we wanted to balance the dialogue about education in our state. It can be so easy to get stuck in the logistics of how schools are funded or organized.
The brilliance of a public school system, however, is and always will be at the ground level, in classrooms, where a dedicated, creative and kind educator takes on the task of kindling the fire of learning in a young person.
For years now, educators from across our state have been willing to share the creative, powerful ways that they bring learning opportunities to their students. More than that, we’ve observed how schools shine as the center of communities in our state, how they bring people together, and how they further the advancement of Alaska’s future by investing in our children.