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Activating Prior Knowledge provides students a bridge between what they know and what they are learning. Activating Prior Knowledge uses storage and retrieval procedures designed to elicit preconceived ideas, retrieve known knowledge and experience, and provide a focus for the new information.
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Credits: 3
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Concept Mapping is an activity that utilizes a visual organizer to place concepts into patterns for clearer understanding. It is a graphic representation that helps students to compare and contrast while working out meanings in new information. This course will show teachers how to help students organize and categorize their thinking with Concept Mapping for a superior impact on learning.
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Credits: 3
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Utilizing Critical Thinking Skills encourages students to gain new understandings and insights into presented or gathered information by testing the validity of propositions using higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) in conjunction with effective use of content organization.
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Credits: 3
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Decoding through Clues allows students to use context clues and word knowledge to identify unknown words. Students will be able to apply word knowledge to new or slightly familiar words in any context with this powerful decoding strategy.
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Credits: 3
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Utilizing a compare and contrast format, you will learn about the significant impact both these strategies can impart on learning when paired with the correct type of learner outcome: procedural or declarative. This first module of a two-part class lays the foundation for understanding the theoretical underpinnings of each strategy, how they both relate to current brain research and Multiple Intelligence Theory, and the defining characteristics, steps, and processes involved in the use of both Heuristics and Explicit Instruction.
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Credits: 3
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This module of the two-part class continues in a compare and contrast format to allow each learner to put the content understanding acquired during Part 1 of this class into actual classroom practice. The learner will identify the components of each strategy imbedded in actual instruction, assess his/her own grade level curriculum to identify content for use with each strategy, and custom-design instruction for actual classroom delivery using both Explicit Instruction and Heuristics.
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Explicit Instruction / Heuristics - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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Graphic Representations/Organizers are visual organizers used as a way of giving information a pattern for better understanding and meaning making. This strategy will enable learners to represent and organize main ideas, and key concepts, causal relations, vocabulary, symbols, concepts, principles, and generalizations. Graphic Representations/Organizers have a powerful impact on learning when teachers match the appropriate organizer for the type of information or process, and for the type of memory path to be used for remembering.
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Credits: 3
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Improving Content Reading/Writing Skills involves participation in relevant activities before, during, and after the reading or writing tasks in science, math, social studies, and literature. This strategy helps students to read and write more purposefully, think more carefully about vocabulary and concepts, and make connections between what they already know and what they are learning.
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Credits: 3
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Improving Content Reading/Writing Skills involves participation in relevant activities before, during, and after the reading or writing tasks in science, math, social studies, and literature. This strategy helps students to read and write more purposefully, think more carefully about vocabulary and concepts, and make connections between what they already know and what they are learning.
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Improving Content Reading and Writing - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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Journaling is an information processing strategy that involves activating prior knowledge to stimulate Metacognition while processing new learning. Journaling increases learning for students by recording personal experiences, exploring reactions, understandings, interpretations, and recording and analyzing information related to both content and their own learning process.
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Credits: 3
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Making a Graph, Chart, Table, and Information Organization is a problem solving strategy that enables learners to clarify the meaning of new information by arranging and/or rearranging data in a visual organizer as a way of giving information a pattern for better understanding and with which to making meaning.
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Credits: 3
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The use of Manipulatives is an educational strategy that engages students actively in learning by using a variety of hands-on materials and concrete representations to engage the learner kinesthetically, connect new learning to prior knowledge, and promote a concrete operational understanding of concepts, principles, and ideas.
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Credits: 3
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Model Making is a strategy that is concrete, involves physical movement, and has sequential steps to follow. Model Making engages students actively in learning by using a variety of hands-on materials and concrete representations to stimulate the learner, connect new learning to prior knowledge, and promote a concrete operational understanding of concepts, principles, and ideas. . In mathematics this means working with objects – sorting, counting, building patterns of number and shape, graphing, constructing, and diagramming. Real-life projects that involve collecting data, estimating, calculating, creating a mathematical model, drawing conclusions based on the model, and making decisions relative to the model allows students to learn mathematics and discover a variety of ways to solve a problem.
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Credits: 3
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Teaching Pattern and Organization is a method that allows students to see the pattern or direction that the author is taking through the use of visual organizers, discussion, and concrete examples, and is a key to improving reading comprehension. Both expository and narrative organizational patterns will be explicitly taught to improve learning.
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Credits: 3
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Patterning in Mathematics is a strategy that focuses on patterns in mathematics to make meaning, connect new information and procedures to known, and uses information processing strategies (e.g., critical thinking, deductive reasoning, logic) to solve problems. Both an elementary (arithmetic, measurement, space and shape) version and a secondary (statistics, algebra, geometry) version are available for teachers.
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Credits: 3
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Research has found that Patterning in Mathematics enhances student learning. Patterns arise in all part of mathematics - in numbers and chance, in geometry and data, and in formulas and functions. Patterns not only engage students in all areas of mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry, probability, statistics, etc.), but also in all types of mathematical activity. Patterning in Mathematics for secondary students will focus on the strategy of using patterns to make meaning and connect new information and procedures to known information. Critical thinking, deductive reasoning and logic will be emphasized as problem solving skills. Participants will design a lesson in which students use patterns to improve their understanding of mathematics. The lesson will in incorporate current brain research and theory of multiple intelligences. Class participants will share their lessons in the Conference Center and be required to provide and respond to feedback on fellow teachers' lessons.
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Credits: 3
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Phonics Applications is a powerful decoding strategy used in the process of teaching reading. It helps students to understand that speech is composed of a series of individual sounds. Students analyze or manipulate the units of speech rather than focus on meaning as they master Phonics Applications.
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Credits: 3
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Phonological Awareness is the ability to perceive that symbols signify sounds and that sounds can be blended together to make words. This decoding strategy will improve reading by helping students use a variety of strategies (e.g., listen to and reproduce the blending of sounds, recognize the relationship between print and speech, interpret the meaning of symbols, sounds and words, blend and split syllables, perform phonemic segmentation and manipulation).
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Credits: 3
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This four-module class is designed to help mainstream teachers work more effectively with their students who are learning English as a second language. In this series of courses, teachers will examine research and theoretical perspectives on English language learning, see models of effective practice, apply best practice strategies in their classrooms, and reflect on the outcomes. The first class gives an overview of second language acquisition, outlines characteristics of each stage, and describes general goal areas and principles of instruction.
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Credits: 3
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This four-module class is designed to help mainstream teachers provide more effective reading/language arts instruction for their students who are learning English as a second language. In this series of courses, teachers will examine research and theoretical perspectives on English language learning, see models of effective practice, apply best practice strategies in their classrooms, and reflect on the outcomes. This class will focus on students in the silent/receptive stage of language acquisition. Participants will learn characteristics of students in this stage, appropriate learning goals, and instructional strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Reading For English Language Learners - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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This four-module class is designed to help mainstream teachers provide more effective reading/language arts instruction for their students who are learning English as a second language. In this series of courses, teachers will examine research and theoretical perspectives on English language learning, see models of effective practice, apply best practice strategies in their classrooms, and reflect on the outcomes. This class will focus on students in the early production/speech emergent stage of language acquisition. Participants will learn characteristics of students in this stage, appropriate learning goals, and instructional strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Reading For English Language Learners - Part 2
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Credits: 3
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This four-module class is designed to help mainstream teachers provide more effective reading/language arts instruction for their students who are learning English as a second language. In this series of courses, teachers will examine research and theoretical perspectives on English language learning, see models of effective practice, apply best practice strategies in their classrooms, and reflect on the outcomes. This class will focus on students in the intermediate fluency stage of language acquisition. Participants will learn characteristics of students in this stage, appropriate learning goals, and instructional strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Reading For English Language Learners - Part 3
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Credits: 3
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Part 1 The Role of Metacognition in Developing Strategic Readers and Writers. The research on what good readers do identified specific strategies used to construct meaning. The research also shows that all students, especially struggling readers, benefit from direct, explicit instruction and practice in how and when to use strategies before, during and after reading. This part of the Strategic Reading and Writing Course includes an overview of seven strategies called Metacognition, Activating Prior Knowledge, Using Text Structure, Making Inferences, Generating Questions, Summarizing, and Developing Word Meaning. Following the overview, participants will study the Metacognition strategy in more depth and learn classroom activities that promote student awareness of the reading and writing processes that aid comprehension.
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Credits: 3
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Part 2 Prior Knowledge and Text Structure. Proficient readers and writers draw on their Prior Knowledge to help them construct meaning from print and call up ideas to use in their writing. Knowledge of Text Structure also aids reading comprehension and helps the writer organize ideas when writing. Students benefit from explicit instruction and modeling of these strategies. Participants in this course will explore learning activities that help students acquire and practice these two strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Strategic Reading and Writing - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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Part 3 Making Inferences and Generating Questions Comprehension of text requires the reader to go beneath the surface of the printed text to make predictions or draw conclusions from what the text implies, but does not state explicitly. We call this strategy Making Inferences. Another strategy proficient readers and writers use is called Generating Questions. In this course participants will learn exciting ways to give all students practice using these two important strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Strategic Reading and Writing - Part 2
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Credits: 3
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Part 4 Summarizing for Meaning and Developing Word Meaning Strategies. In Part 4 participants will explore how the Summarizing Strategy helps students remember important information learned from texts and how to write effective summaries. The importance of vocabulary development and its effect on reading comprehension will also be studied, as well as motivating learning activities for developing Word Meaning Strategies.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Strategic Reading and Writing - Part 3
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Credits: 3
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Part 1 - Writing Process/Narrative Systematic Writing Process is the most effective method for learning the recursive processes involved in writing. It emphasizes what students do and think as they write. Participants will produce a superior piece of written language (either expository or narrative) and will learn how to teach the writing process across nine genres. These are: story-writing (narrative); and sequential, chronological, enumerative, descriptive, compare-contrast, problem-solution, cause-effect, and argument-persuasion (expository).
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Credits: 3
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Part 2 - Expository/8 Generes
Systematic Writing Process is the most effective method for learning the recursive processes involved in writing. It emphasizes what students do and think as they write. Participants will produce a superior piece of written language (either expository or narrative) and will learn how to teach the writing process across nine genres. These are: story-writing (narrative); and sequential, chronological, enumerative, descriptive, compare-contrast, problem-solution, cause-effect, and argument-persuasion (expository).
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Prerequisite(s):
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Systematic Writing Process - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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Teaching for Relevancy provides a “real-life”, authentic application for the student’s learning during the teaching and learning process. Relevance is the “hook” that takes a lesson out of the abstract of empirical knowledge into the here and now of student priorities. Relevance sets up concrete links between the classroom and the real world, stimulating student curiosity and encouraging them to construct their own meaning.
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Credits: 3
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Vocabulary Strategies provides teachers with 4 methods to improve vocabulary skills for specific purposes that have a powerful impact on learning. Vocabulary Strategies to Improve Comprehension is a method of combining direct instructional strategies with webbing, semantic associations, and analogies to increase content comprehension. Vocabulary - Math Context is a teaching strategy that enables students to learn the common sense relationship between context vocabulary and Mathematical representations. It will enable the learner to understand and utilize the basic language of logic in mathematical situations. Vocabulary Through Context is a teaching strategy that enables students to learn the common sense relationship between context vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension.
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Credits: 3
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Writing Process - Primary Traits, Part 1 explicitly teaches the stages of writing (planning, drafting, revising, sharing, and publishing) and the heuristics for each of the recursive stages. Improvement of writing competence depends on students' understanding of the process, frequent opportunities to practice the process, peer group participation, and specific feedback on proficiency based on criteria for the quality traits. This module gives participants ideas and practice in presenting the writing process and its related vocabulary.
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Credits: 3
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Writing Process – Primary Traits, Part 2 reviews the writing process and details the use of a rubric to clarify the traits of excellent and effective writing. In this module participants learn the importance of providing specific and timely feedback and have a number of opportunities to hone their skill at using a rubric as a tool for giving feedback on students’ writing. Throughout this module, participants will interact with one another regarding their philosophy and experience regarding the teaching of writing. Finally, each participant will design and teach a lesson that focuses on one specific writing trait.
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Prerequisite(s):
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Writing Process - Primary Traits - Part 1
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Credits: 3
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