What Great Teachers Do

Course 855

Discover the specific things that great teachers do that others do not. This course explores the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that form the fabric of life in the best classrooms and schools. Explore such issues as classroom management, testing, decision making, classroom relationships, and much more.

Note: This course is very similar in content to course 900. Registrant may take either 855 or 900, but not both.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: What Great Teachers Do Differently

Parent Trap: Achieving Success with Difficult Parents & Difficult Situations

Course 859

Explore ways to establish positive, constructive relationships with parents of your students. Learn how to work with the most challenging parents in the most challenging situations, learn strategies to help deliver “less than positive” news, and build your credibility in the process.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: Dealing with Difficult Parents

Effective Classroom Management

Course 737

This course will better prepare you to effectively manage students so that learning is maximized in your classroom. The approach advocated in this course (emphasizing the dignity and value of every student) is used by countless schools and teachers across the country.

Recommended K-9
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: Discipline with Dignity

Literacy Essentials: Building Comprehension in the Primary Grades

Course 760

Tap into a wealth of techniques to help your primary students better comprehend what they read. Real life examples and dozens of scenarios demonstrate effective ways to: select the perfect books, model think alouds, assist students in making important connections, and empower your students to have meaningful conversation about the texts they are reading. Watch your students become thoughtful and independent readers!

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Reading with Meaning

 Literacy Essentials: Reading for Understanding Grades 4-12

Course 766

Not merely a collection of reading strategies, this course provides a model for effective lesson design that will help you build better, more reflective readers. Delve into the power of metaphor, proper framing/focus, and a variety of comprehension strategies. Explore ways to help students dig into the deeper layers of texts, enabling them to not only understand what the text means, but also why the text matters. Perfect for teachers of language arts, as well as teachers of other content areas looking to nurture thoughtful, independent readers.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text:  Deeper Reading

Across the Spectrum: Teaching Children with Autism

Course 776

Finally, a course specifically designed to help you work with students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Explore the following important components: characteristics and types of ASD, the role of assistive technology, intervention models, proven instructional approaches, parent involvement techniques, and available support services.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

180 Degrees: Rethinking Classroom Management

Course 990

This course will challenge all of the most common assumptions about discipline and classroom management. Be prepared to question the notion that problems in the classroom are usually the fault of students who don’t do what they’re told. Reconsider what it is that they’ve been told to do --or to learn. Explore how to work with students to create caring communities where decisions are made together. A revolutionary concept/course!

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Beyond Discipline: from compliance to community

Driving Force: Keys to Developing a Motivating Classroom

Course 988

Explore dozens of strategies to more effectively engage and motivate your students. Learn how to engage students more fully in the following areas: homework, literacy development, classroom procedures, and progress tracking. Examine ways of making your classroom more positive, more inviting, and more conducive to student learning and student success.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Classroom Motivation from A to Z

What  Great

Leaders Do: Excelling as an Administrator

Course 900

Delve into the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that elevate the best administrators above the rest. Investigate the specific things that great principals do…that others do not. The author’s 15 recommendations explore such issues as school climate, student achievement, management, hiring, testing, decision making, and relationship building. 

Note: This course is very similar in content to course 855.  Registrants may take either 900 or 855, but not both.

Recommended for all School Leadership Positions
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: What Great Principals Do Differently

What Kids Need: Building Self-Discipline

Course 964

Explore the importance of teaching students the skills and attitudes associated with self-discipline. Learn how saying “no” can help students build the foundation for self-respect, respect for others, integrity, and perseverance—the essential attributes of self-discipline.

Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

 Core Text: No! What kids of all ages need to hear it and ways parents can say

The Write Foundation

Course 608

The 6+1 writing traits model has improved student writing in countless districts across the country; now you can apply these strategies in your primary classroom. Learn how to pinpoint students’ strengths and weaknesses in ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation-and how to plan and carry out effective instruction. 

Note: This course is very similar in content to course 523. Registrants may take either 523 or 608, but not both.

Recommended

K-2
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: 6 + 1 Traits of Writing: The complete guide for the primary grades

Literacy, the Write Way:
Developing Writers in All Content Areas

Course 523

This course is centered around the powerful 6+1 Traits of Writing model, the centerpiece of many districts’ literacy programs. Teachers of all subject areas will learn how to help their students write more capably. Numerous strategies/activities, sample papers, and scoring guides are provided. 

Note: This course is very similar in content to course 608.  Registrants may take either 523 or 608, but not both.

Recommended 3-12
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: 6 + 1 Traits of Writing: The complete guide grades 3 and up

Instructional Strategies that Work

Course 704

This course explores instructional strategies that have proven to have a major impact on student achievement. Increase your skills and comfort level with the following strategies: cooperative learning, questioning techniques, visual tools, graphic organizers, structuring homework, helping students understand what they read, building students’ vocabulary, improving note taking, utilizing higher order thinking skills, and many more!

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Classroom Instruction that Works

Knowing What You Know:
Summarizing Savvy

Course 644

Everybody knows that the ability to summarize-to identify important information and structure it for meaning, long-term retention, and successful application-is an essential skill. And it doesn’t have to be boring! In this course, you’ll find an exciting classroom-tested collection of written, spoken, artistic, and kinesthetic summarization techniques to use in your classroom to raise student achievement.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Summarization in any subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning

Learning by Doing:
Active Learning in Your Classroom

Course 853

Explore dozens of active learning lessons geared to important life-long skills, including decision making, diversity, collaboration, managing stress, self-esteem, anger management, substance abuse, relationships, goal setting, communication, and more.   The activities in the course are particularly useful for teachers in the middle levels who have an advisory/pro-time/homeroom period. 

Recommended 4-9
Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

Core Text: More Activities that Teach

Engaging Multiple Intelligences
and Learning Styles in Your Classroom

Course 716

Explore the Multiple Intelligences (MI) and Learning Styles (LS) in your classroom, learn how to integrate MI and LS strategies in your classroom, and create assessments that incorporate both MI and LS. Apply strategies to nurture strengths and motivation in students and increase teaching effectiveness.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: So Each May Learn

Math Works: Teaching Math with the Brain in Mind

Course 970

Explore the latest brain research and its impact for teaching mathematics at all grade levels. The course will delve into the cognitive mechanisms for learning math and the environmental and developmental factors that contribute to math difficulties. Learn how to plan effective mathematics lessons with a host of brain-compatible strategies.

Note: $15 additional materials fee applies.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: How the Brain Learns Mathematics

Succeeding With Problem-Based
Learning in the Classroom

Course 861

With the process of problem-based learning (PBL), any teacher can create an exciting, active classroom where students eagerly build problem solving skills while learning content. Teachers will learn how to structure the experience so that specific learning occurs as students generate problem-solving steps, research issues, and produce a final product.

Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

Core Text: How to use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom

CSI: Creating Science Instruction Through Inquiry

Course 901

At last, a course specifically designed to help you teach science! Cultivate a  science learner’s sense of discovery and critical thinking skills by utilizing inquiry-based strategies. Gain a thorough understanding of these strategies that have proven effective in the science classroom.

Note: Please indicate grade level on Registration Form.

Recommended 3-12
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Texts: Inquire Within, and Teaching High School Science through Inquiry

Brain Works: Better Teaching with the Brain in Mind

Course 505

Filled with the latest information on how the brain learns, this course will energize and inspire! Learn how to teach in a more meaningful, powerful manner. Explore the role of emotion, retention, windows of opportunity, the primacy-recency effect, and much more. Whether this is your first brain course or your 4th, you will find a wealth of usable strategies.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: How the Brain Learns  

Fully Wired: Understanding & Empowering Adolescents

Course 693

This eye-opening course will explore the various changes occurring in the adolescent brain and will show teachers how to understand, communicate, and stay connected with these students.  With the arsenal of strategies discussed in this course, teachers can help their students learn to control impulses, manage erratic behavior, and cope with their changing bodies.

Recommended 4-12
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Why do they act that way?

Integrating the Brain
and the Arts into Your Classroom

Course 721

A perfect fit for teachers of music, theater, art, physical education, and industrial arts, as well as “regular” education teachers who would like to incorporate the arts into their classrooms.  For a teacher of the arts, this course presents a definitive case for making the arts a core part of the school curriculum.  For the regular education teacher, this course is filled with ways to include visual, musical, and kinesthetic arts to increase opportunities for more students to learn, enhance their thinking, and make classrooms more positive and inclusive.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Arts with the Brain in Mind

Succeeding with Performance-
Based Learning

Course 728

Explore the advantages of performance-based, authentic learning tasks, and gain valuable insights on how to effectively structure such tasks. The course text provides numerous examples of how to assess students' understanding through visual representations, the written mode, and oral presentations. This course focuses on how to construct both large scale projects and simpler tasks-ranging from short and specific to lengthy and substantive. And the authors provide numerous examples/variations of rubrics to help you assess student performance on the tasks.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Great Performances

Raising Student Achievement
in Your Classroom

Course 706

If new standards, requirements and accountabilities are making your job more complicated than ever, here's a course that helps cut through the confusion. Uncover a blue print for curriculum and instruction that includes 4 clear standards (including rigor, thought, authenticity, and diversity) and proven strategies that help students meet the standards in any subject and grade level.

Recommended 4-12
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Teaching what Matters Most

Differentiation & Grading: Making it Work

Course 665

This course addresses two related elements of good teaching: quality differentiation and effective grading practices. Being sensitive to students’ readiness levels and learning styles while holding them accountable for the same standards can be a challenge.  This course will provide a thought-provoking look at differentiation, grading, and related situations that we all encounter in diverse classrooms. 

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Fair Isn’t Always Equal

Virtual Field Tripping:
Explore the World Without Leaving School

Course 846

Explore the world without leaving your classroom. Delve into the unique advantages of virtual field trips, and learn how to effectively structure such Internet activities.

Recommended 3-12
Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

 Core Text: The Big Pocket Guide to Using & Creating Virtual Field Trips

Teaching with Technology

Course 648

This course provides teachers with an excellent entry point into the world of technology. Most importantly, teachers will explore the foundations of Internet literacy, and learn tools to help students become critical consumers of the Internet. For the novice in technology/Internet.

Recommended 2-12
Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

Core Text: Empowering Students with Technology

Achieving Success with
English Language Learners

Course 842

Explore over 40 proven strategies that help students develop their English language skills in all subjects. This course addresses basic principles of teaching and assessing English learners, adaptations necessary in helping ELL students understand content, active participation by ELL students, and vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Fifty Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

Succeeding with the Struggling Student

Course 753

Many struggling students have never been taught strategies that are compatible with the way they think and learn. Once we teach them the appropriate techniques, their learning problems diminish significantly.  Explore a myriad of ways to help any student become a successful learner-without remediating, watering down content, or lowering expectations.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom

Caring for the Mental Health
of Your Students

Course 854

This course explores the range of mental health issues that teachers face in classrooms today. Learn how to detect early warning signs of mental illnesses, along with suicide, chemical dependency, substance abuse and depression. Explore relevant classroom accommodations and instructional strategies so that students can achieve success in the classroom.

Recommended 1-12
Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

Core Text: An Educator’s Guide to Children’s Mental Health

Reaching the Top: Taking Coaching & Advising to the Next Level

Course 992

Learn how to be a more effective coach and advisor. Explore numerous strategies to motivate your students/athletes to reach their potential, build teams out of groups, build self-esteem in students/athletes, and effectively manage difficult situations that all coaches and advisors face from time to time. This course is applicable to coaches of all sports and advisors of all extracurricular activities.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: Positive Coaching

Literacy & Learning: The Building Blocks

Course 506

This course provides creative and practical strategies that can be used to create a literacy-rich environment for the young learner. Explore ways to promote phonemics, phonetic awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and fluency. Whether you are a teacher, a parent, or child-care professional, this course will provide a multitude of interesting and meaningful ways to support and provide literacy to the youngest children in your care.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Building Literacy with Love

Excelling in the Early Childhood Classroom

Course 910

Cutting edge research emphasizes the importance of stimulating a child’s brain long before that child enters kindergarten. Examine the implications of this research and explore the components of a successful early childhood classroom. Particular attention will be given to the important roles that music, art, language, and play have in the development of the neural networks from birth to age 5.

Recommended Pre-K
Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Baby Teacher: nurturing neural networks from birth to age five

Caring for the Mental Health of the Young Learner

Course 915

Examine the range of social and emotional development issues faced when working with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.  Gain a deeper understanding of the strategies and resources available in this important work with the childhood learner (infant through kindergarten).

Recommended Pre-K – K
Credit options:
Audit
1 credit

Core Text: A Guide to Early Childhood Mental Health

Gender Matters: How Boys and Girls Learn

Course 738

For the past 30 years, conventional wisdom has held that there are few, if any, innate differences between boys and girls in how they learn, think, or interact with one another. The educational tradition has held that girls and boys should be taught the same subjects in the same way at the same time. The latest research suggests otherwise. This course will explore the innate differences between boys and girls and will offer a new vision for what gender-friendly education may look like.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Why Gender Matters

Sticks and Stones: The Bully Free Zone

Course 712

This course will help make your school/classroom a safer place for all students to learn. Explore the following areas: school-wide anti-bullying measures, problem solving dialogue, the role of the bystander, building staff-to-student connections, supporting and empowering the targets of bullies, and more. Discover new ways to reduce bullying, regardless of what level/subject you teach.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: School Where Everyone Belongs

Responsive Classrooms: Shaping Respectful, Responsible Learners

Course 993

In this course, participants will explore numerous ways to establish an ongoing social curriculum where a sense of community and self control are valued. The Responsive Classroom approach recognizes that successful classroom management is a foundation of teaching/learning, and it offers educators tools and techniques for creating a classroom community that is nurturing, respectful, and full of learning.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

Core Text: Teaching Children to Care

Tapping the Talent: Working with Gifted Students

Course 783

Learn how to succeed with your gifted and talented learners!  Explore multiple strategies and techniques to provide needed support in the general education classroom and transform how you instruct gifted and talented students.

Credit options:
Audit
3 credits

 Core Text: Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom