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Join the PISA4U Network!
We're back! Connect with teachers from across the globe to drive innovation in your classroom and in the global education community.
As a PISA4U Network member, you’ll have access to exclusive resources, webinars, live Q&As with education heroes and special community events.
- Opening: November 8, 2018
- Language:English
- Membership:Free of charge
- Duration: Open-ended
Sign up today!
Community Highlights
- Enjoy free access to carefully-curated resources, expert materials, special community events and webinars;
- Connect with an international community of teachers passionate about driving innovation in education;
- Shape the future of education by sharing your ideas, best practices and solutions with the network;
- Tap into the creativity and experience of education heroes and the network community to tackle your own day-to-day challenges.
ABOUT THE NETWORK
Welcome! We are excited to invite you to become a member of the PISA4U Network, one of the world’s largest growing online professional learning communities (PLC) for educators. Building from a global demand for PISA-related offerings, the PISA4U Network serves as a learning platform that consistently delivers fresh and effective content to educators like yourself on an ongoing basis. The Network is available to you whether you are deep in PISA4U course or in-between.
This unique PLC is available free of charge to educational practitioners of all types, such as teachers, administrators, education policy actors, and educational researchers around the globe. The PISA4U Network is the space for you to collaborate with other teachers and other educators to share best practices, inspiration, and problem-solving ideas.
Let’s get started!
What you can expect:
As a member of this network, you will be part of a global team of passionate educators like yourself. You will have special access to quality insights from leading international experts in education, as well as the expertise and best practices of pioneering educational institutions from Singapore, Malta, Arizona, and Israel. Beyond this access, you will have access to a community manager, who acts as your trusted guide and point of contact for help.
How it works:
The Network will run on a unique online learning platform engineered by candena to provide a collaborative environment where educators from around the world can connect, and learn with and from one another. You can access the learning environment anytime from a desktop or a mobile device. The PISA4U Network fits flexibly in your schedule and your needs – whether it be inspiration or support solving a class issue.
How does it work?
Access expert webinars
Join our monthly webinar with education expert on a topic of your choice, and have a chance to participate in a live Q&A afterwards. Every month we will run an expert webinar on a different topic selected by the community.
Meet other educators
Meet experts in education practice and policy from around the world, and a community who will ensure you have the proper guidance, direction, and support to connect and succeed.
Share your story
Have a chance to share with the Network what you've accomplished or what you struggle with in the classroom, and this way have an impact on other teachers' didactic practices.
Receive personal feedback
Set up brain dates with educators you admire and also get a chance to participate in a 1:1 coaching session with an education expert. Have your ideas and challenges heard and suggestions made.
Learn from the best
Speak with an educator from Chile, an educational policy maker in Singapore, connect with teachers in your community to discuss common issues you are facing and come up with varying solutions.
Access exclusive content
The PISA4U Network gives you free access to carefully curated resources and educational content that will enrich your knowledge and elevate your teaching practice.
Upcoming Themes
Below find the range of various topics we will tackle in the PISA4U Network online events and activities:
Orientation Days
Getting Acquainted
Get to know your new network, develop and update your profile. Identify your goals, find commonalities, discover our new platform tools, find out what's ahead, and you’re good to go!
Teacher and Student Motivation
How to maintain them?
We often focus on student motivation, but what about us – teachers? We will dedicate a significant amount of time and network activities to teacher motivation – a topic too often neglected in professional teacher development programmes.
Move deeper into clarifying classroom challenges with support from your peer, topic experts, monthly webinars, and a library of resources. Uncover what factors influence challenges and break them down into manageable components.
PISA Results
How they impact you
The PISA Test for Schools provides the most influential research report in education. Let's work through these results and see what we can learn and how the impact our own classrooms.
Network Events
Teacher of the Week 2018
November 26th - November 30th
December 17th- December 21st
What is it? A resource competition!
How? Share a lesson plan and the voted best wins a 25 EUR gift card to Amazon!
Winner will be picked the Friday of that week.
Network Events 2018
Upcoming Webinars
To the Point: STEM Education with Dr Richard Spencer (December 6th)
Real Talk in Education: Empowering our Students in STEM (December 12th)
Frequently Asked Questions
About the PISA4U Network
Q: Who can join the PISA4U Network?
A: The PISA4U Network is available to teachers and other educational professionals such as administrators, education policy actors, managers, and educational researchers from around the globe.
Q: What does the PISA4U Network offer?
A: The PISA4U Network was created out of a need for knowledge sharing on an ongoing basis. With your membership, you will benefit from: Access to exclusive teaching content that has been curated by a global network of teachers and educators; a ccess to education experts and the wealth of knowledge a global teaching community has including policy makers, administrators, top educators, researchers and more; a ccess to a number of educational webinars held by topic specialists, as well as early registration to upcoming PISA4U programmes and events; f lexibility in having the network when and how you need it, for free. With the support of your community manager, you can be matched up with peers based on interest, location, and challenges, or make groups on your own. You will also have access to a facilitated chat system that keeps you connected to your network for constant and interesting exchanges; as well as g etting quality feedback from experts and peers on challenges and ideas and having a 24/7 access to digital community of like-minded peers.
Q: Who developed the PISA4U Network?
A: In 2017, candena GmbH offered PISAU as a pilot programme, which enabled educational practitioners to drive meaningful change in school systems around the globe. Further, the programme showed that educators around the world are responsive to inspiration, eager to collaborate and share knowledge, and able to deliver actionable results.
Building on this pilot, candena GmbH decided to enhance PISA4U offerings by turning it into a permanent Network which allows participants to become members of a global learning community online. At its core, PISA4U provides a structured professional learning community (PLC) for educators around the world using a state-of-the-art collaborative learning platform. As a network ecosystem, the PISA4U platform provides a space where educators can share and improve on each other’s visions, solutions, and challenges on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, it operates as a problem solving, content distribution, and resource development environment. With adjoining data-driven professional development programmes, educators can additionally gain in-depth insight into more complex strategies and work on building practices with structure and support. On this basis, we are working on the development of a global professional development community for educators which activates the wealth of existing data in a new way - bringing it directly into classrooms. CANDENA GmbH is a subsidiary of Digital Education Holdings Ltd, a kENUP Company.
Q: Does being member of the PISA4U Network cost money?
A: Membership in PISA4U Network is completely free of charge.
Q: What is the language spoked in the PISA4U Network?
A: Currently, the PISA4U Network is operated in English. The learning materials and candena learning platform are in English, but you are free to interact with community members in any language you agree upon.
Q: Will anyone be able to assist me throughout the PISA4U Network experience?
A: Yes. You will have access to a community manager, Sabina, who is there to help you during your time on the platform in many ways including tech help, peer support, team building, resource guidance, and more.
Q: Do I need to have strong tech skills to use the platform?
A: Moderate technical skills are helpful, however, if you are having an issue or difficulty on the platform, you are supported by the candena team while you explore the platform. You can always reach out to our team and ask your questions, we will happily help you along – this is a learning platform, after all!
All about Chat4U
Q: Chat4U: What is it and how do I use it?
A. Chat4U is a great place to get lots of things done.
When logged in to the PISA4U Network platform, Chat4U is a chat function that you get to from your PISA4U homepage or from your mobile. If you are interested in the app, you can find the link to download it (Apple or Android) here: https://rocket.chat/docs/installation/mobile-and-desktop-apps/. This service is provided by Rocket.Chat.
Q: What is the difference between Chat4U and the Forum?
A. Chat4U is useful for instant messaging and quick exchanges, the Forum is for more specific discussions. Chat4U is great for a dynamic exchange that’s personalised, however later it’s rather difficult to find the discussion again in the history. For a meatier topic or discussion the Forum is a better choice because it is easier to find later on... Think of Chat4U as more of a text message while the Forum is more of a blog post!
Courses
Q: What is the difference between PISA4U programme and the PISA4U Network?
A: Happy you asked! While the two are connected, they are quite different.
The PISA4U programmes and course offerings take place on set dates and are calibrated towards a specific learning goal. Participants in these courses submit assignments, receive mentor guidance and can earn certificates. These offerings take place on a platform that encourages engagement, interaction, and exchanges between participants. When we ran the first PISA4U programme in 2017, we were astounded by the immense engagement and demand for a continuation of the community outside of the course and programme offerings.
Q: When is the next PISA4U programme?
We will launch additional courses in 2019 and members of the PISA4U Network will be first to know! Be sure to signup to the platform and check the course updates and read the newsletter to stay up to date on events. If you follow/like us on Facebook, we publish our most current events and offerings there as well!