With the rising tide of online learning options, it is easy to lose the solid instructional foundation to flashy web resources. This course is designed to help you build online learning environments in Canvas and other common learning management systems, based on research frameworks and essential elements that will increase participation, improve instructor/student and student/student relationships, and provide a user-friendly and effective online learning experience for all learners.

The course will focus on developing an understanding of social and emotional learning by focusing on the five core competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. We will learn why social and emotional learning is important and how it impacts student success both inside and outside of the classroom. Finally, we will learn approaches to incorporate social and emotional learning into our classroom practices.

Access to and the effective use of current and emerging technologies are essential elements for contributing to a deeper learning experience for students. This class is designed to guide educators through the Virginia Standards of Learning for Digital Learning Integration.  This guided exploration of the standards also includes the curation and creation of resources, strategies, and lesson activities to help educators create learning experiences that empower student learners.

This course will allow participants the opportunity to have an understanding of current legislative action, the influence of past laws, and to develop an awareness of legal decisions. The results will yield a new-found knowledge of our “teaching parameters.”

Conflict is a very real part of every workplace. Left unresolved, conflict can eventually destroy an organization. Deal with it properly, and conflict can produce positive change and encourage personal and professional growth among colleagues. This course is designed to help individuals at any level in any organization identify, face, and resolve conflict.

The class is designed to study and examine how a growth mindset can increase engagement, improve results, and inspire students in the classroom.

The purpose of this course will be to examine and discuss elements of a well-organized classroom. Participants will discuss what works in their own classrooms as well as what does not. Assignments will address strategies for overcoming areas of weakness and setting short and long-term improvement goals. The instructor will adjust the syllabus based on the needs of the class participants.

This course is designed to help educators teach higher-level reading concepts at a lower readability level. We will use texts by Dr. Seuss to address higher-level reading vocabulary and reading strategies.

Research proves that understanding poverty and its relationship to education can help open up a world of achievement for students and adults. In order for that to occur, one must first have a clear understanding of the definition of poverty and the hidden rules that divide the social classes. Students will learn about the role of language and the hidden rules related to poverty in order to understand what resources are missing and which ones are needed to make a change in the lives of the impoverished. The challenge this course brings is not only to learn the information but also to utilize this knowledge.

Trauma has a severe, lasting, and pernicious effect on the brains and learning of students, from young children to adolescents. The educational community is awakening to the realization that they must address the underlying effects on learning readiness in students impacted by trauma. In many cases, this must happen BEFORE the student can effectively learn. In effect, we have to go back before “square one” to SQUARE ZERO, the thing that happened to the student before he or she ever entered the classroom, and that must be understood and treated before making erroneous assumptions about behavior or study habits. This course is designed to introduce educators to those effects, give them tools to recognize students who may be impacted, offer suggestions for connecting with professionals and resources who can help, and help them to better understand the needs of impacted students.

If you are working in the field of education it is likely that you will encounter a student with autism sometime during your career. This course is designed to help educators understand autism and how it impacts students educationally and socially in the school setting. The course will also introduce you to some basic strategies and interventions that have been proven effective in teaching and supporting students with autism. The focus will be on practical information that can be applied immediately. This is an introductory level course. The information provided would be beneficial to special education teachers(with limited knowledge of the subject), general education teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and parents.

Providing 21st-century learners with engaging, meaningful learning experiences can be challenging. By providing digital learners with opportunities to use technology, instructional content can be reinforced and retained. The Google Apps for Education course provides teachers with opportunities to learn about and use Google Apps in an educational setting. Teachers will begin the course with an introduction to Google Apps followed by an in-depth look at each specific Google App. Included in the course are helpful ideas and strategies for utilizing Google Apps in the classroom. Finally, an exploration into the Chrome Web Apps, followed by helpful guides for following copyright laws and policies is provided.

This course is designed to help educators target struggling readers in their classrooms and examine the different areas that could be causing their individual weaknesses. The course content will include exploring techniques and strategies that target the five main components of reading: phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. The course will provide an online community where educators can explore these areas together and begin to formulate new and exciting ways to target specific areas of reading difficulty in their classrooms.

This course focuses on using social media within the classroom setting. It will include a brief history of social media and its current role in society. Portions of the course will concentrate on how to use social media with students and parents for communication and learning. The course will also address using social media for professional development and the advancement of instructional skills for the educator. Digital citizenship and best practices for using social media in the classroom setting will also be discussed.

The majority of the nation’s students will complete their education without ever being touched by peer violence. Nevertheless, televised images of frightened and injured students fleeing school grounds have imprinted themselves on the American consciousness. Compared to the other types of violence and crime children face both in and outside of school, school-based attacks are rare. Statistics indicate that few students will fall prey to serious violence in school settings.

However, highly publicized school shootings have created uncertainty about the safety and security of this country’s schools and generated fear that an attack might occur in any school, in any community. Increased national attention to the problem of school violence has prompted educators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, and parents to press for answers to two central questions: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?" and, if so, "What could we have done to prevent these attacks from occurring?"

Math C407 is designed to refresh your conceptual knowledge of geometry while gaining technology tools to enhance your geometry classroom. Explore geometry concepts through real-world applications that combine technology and problem-solving skills to make math exciting and challenging for today's learners. Throughout the course, we will also discuss various methods of teaching these geometric topics. This class is designed to be a truly supportive learning community where students can learn and work together in an online format. Since there are no face-to-face meetings, students are required to post on a teaching tip forum each week to share activities and ideas. Students are also required to submit homework weekly or biweekly.