Virtual field trips are an effective alternative to traditional field trips because of accessibility, ease and interactivity. They are cost-effective, safe to use and break down geographical and learning barriers. Virtual field trips work well for all types of classrooms. In this course, teacher discover innumerable tips and resources, can plan, create and customize virtual trips to cater to their students’ needs. Take classroom learning beyond the confines of the classroom.

Understanding and using visual materials is an important life skill and advantageous for students. Visual tools make useful teaching aids in the classroom whether they are technology-rich or technology-free.

Teaching students with special needs can be both rewarding and challenging, even on the best of days. Students with disabilities have unique requirements, learning preferences, strengths, and social skills. In today’s inclusive classrooms, these students can make significant progress in their social, emotional, and academic growth.

Reading should be a meaningful activity that is focused on comprehension and that results in understanding. When students struggle with a specific subject matter the underlying reason is nearly also identified as under developed reading skills. The strategies in this course are imperative for all educators to help their students become proficient readers.

The implementation of standards across the curriculum provides a real-world approach to learning and teaching. It is increasingly essential for educators to develop students who not only are critical thinkers but innovators as well. This course helps teachers to build up such students.

Every student is unique and has different needs, learning levels and abilities. As teachers, it is certainly challenging to teach each and every student effectively. This online course presents reaching students with special needs as a real possibility. It prepares teachers to plan for IEPs (Individualized Education Plans), reveals the Universal Design of Learning framework, and shares Assistive Communication tools and technologies to help all students attain their maximum educational potential.

Designed to train and introduce new substitute teachers to a range of topics and skills generally required for teaching in the classroom. Topic area sections covered include overviews of the following: Professionalism: Conduct, confidentiality, and legal responsibilities. Honoring diversity: Basic terminology and appropriate actions. Foundational classroom management techniques: Ways to control a classroom and diffusing conflict. Basic instructional strategies: Effective questioning, assessment methods, and lesson plans. Supporting students with special needs: Basic terminology of disorders and characteristics and appropriate strategies. Working with at-risk youth: Learning traits, characteristics, and appropriate strategies.

Reading requires proficiency in a range of skills from phonemic awareness, understanding context, asking questions, to analyzing types of text. This course lays out explicit, sequential, and systematic approaches to reading instruction from developing students’ early reading skills and phonemic awareness to helping every child become a competent reader, regardless of their current reading level or learning condition.

Topics: Designing hybrid lesson plans, online and hybrid teaching strategies, shared rubrics, technology safety, online PLCs, multi-faceted assessments, and more.

Topics: Online and hybrid teaching strategies, implementing asynchronous and synchronous lessons, recording a teaching video, student engagement, online assessments, and more.

Assessment is a key aspect of teaching methodologies. It helps teachers monitor their students’ progress over time, identify the strengths and weaknesses in their understanding and skills, evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices and curriculum materials, and inform important educational decisions. It is not without its challenges: time constraints and the need to avoid biases in student evaluations and align them with standards can make it difficult for teachers to properly assess their students. The new research on the Science of Reading (SoR) is shaping literacy education across the country. As teachers start using these approaches to instruction, we need assessments that align to those approaches. This course introduces reading assessments in all areas of the Science of Reading.

Mastery of instructional practices in reading provides teachers with the necessary tools to deliver high-quality instruction. New research on the Science of Reading (SoR) is shaping how schools are approaching literacy education. Emphasis on explicit and systematic teaching methods is now a core aspect of teaching students to read. By understanding these methodologies and strategies, teachers create engaging and effective lessons that cater to the diverse needs of all students. Proficiency in reading is also foundational to academic success across all subjects. When teachers hone their evidence-based structured literacy practices, they can better support students in developing essential literacy skills, which are fundamental for comprehension, critical thinking, and communication.

Content area reading and writing enables students to engage with subject-specific materials effectively. By developing strong reading comprehension and writing skills, children can better understand complex concepts and theories, and think critically about the information they encounter. The new research on the Science of Reading (SoR) is shaping how we teach students to understand content across subject areas. This course is a spotlight on reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction across subjects.

Reading is a crucial life skill: it equips children with the ability to communicate, think critically, navigate the world independently, access information, and acquire knowledge from multiple sources. Effective reading instruction is based on a range of needs, the complexity of language, developmental variation among students, continual assessment and adjustment. In this course, educators learn to implement evidence-based structured literacy practices that can transform students into master readers. The course provides an overall understanding of Science of Reading (SoR) and how it influences the classroom with a focus on systematic and phonetic reading instruction.