How do teachers get ongoing subject matter training?

[YoBeaches]

Meaning if you teach perhaps college and university students in a specific subject, how do you access industry knowledge or experience in order to stay relevant? Do you have training budgets? Attend conferences? Self study in your own time?

How does this work, or is there a gap in academia and industry for teachers/Tutors/lecturers?

Appreciate any insight.

CPD - often courses run by the exam boards. For instance, I’m doing an online course later this month to deepen my knowledge of the course I teach at A-level.

I also do a lot of reading around the subject, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, etc.

Thanks for replying. Do you think it would be useful if businesses and industry sectors held learning conferences that you could attend, for free?

To share current practice, industry insights, real life discussions?

Perhaps 2 hour evening sessions or longer sessions during school holidays?

Might not be relevant to subjects like Maths, English, but other subjects like business management, economics, computer science, Actuarial stuff maybe?

There's CPD run by a variety of providers, STEM learning do lots for Science for example, both in person and online. I think free conferences would be a nice idea, but I think I'd only attend any that were directly relevant to our exam specifications. Mostly through lack of time rather than lack of interest.

Thankyou. Ok so it would be important for content to be reflective curriculum/ exam scope.

I think that would get much more uptake, yes. Only because time is so scarce, any CPD really needs to be very relevant and useful. Nice to do's are a luxury few teachers can afford time wise. If it was online for no longer than an hour, I'd be more likely to do something for general interest, it all helps to provide context for students after all, much like I'd choose to watch a science documentary of an evening. But if in person, or a long session, it's got to be stuff that directly improves teaching of my subject. Unfortunately there's no time for going off spec, at least not at GCSE and A Level in Science.

Why evenings or holidays? Wrong message! Professional development should not be in unpaid time.

Oh yes that's true @Littlebluedinosaur ! Holidays would be a massive nope, and most online CPD after school is in the 4-5pm slot, so it can still be done during normal working hours. I wouldn't deviate from that.

I teach a science A-level and level 3 applied science BTEC.

I will be honest, there is so much content in both courses, there's limited scope for going beyond the syllabus, and it can, in some cases, confuse students, to bring in new developments which don't match the exam spec.

The current exam specs were written prior to 2016 and not updated to reflect recent developments, even massive events like Covid-19.

I also wouldn't have time for a 2 hour evening slot unless my school was willing to let me forgo other after-school commitments etc. I do keep up with developments in my field by reading papers etc when I have time.

For me, what would be more useful, would be for an organisation to come in and talk to students in, say, an enrichment slot.

You'd probably get more uptake for a full day course, with teachers getting a "day release" from their school.