Courses
We know that in the changing landscape of education settings, educators need diverse strategies to meet students where they are. With more than 50 offerings, this program offers a variety of professional learning opportunities to meet varying teaching and learning needs. Courses range from online asynchronous classes available to all AFT members (look for the “Virtual– Asynchronous” tag) on the AFT eLearning platform to 30-hour-plus graduate-level, train-the-trainer courses that require approval and involvement from your local union. However, any courses listed here can be customized to meet the unique needs of your local union. For more information, contact Lisa Dickinson at edickinson@aft.org.
Note: Prospective trainers who participate in train-the-trainer courses are required to take Facilitating Equity-Based Learning in advance. This module focuses on understanding the purpose and value of union-sponsored and union-led AFT professional eLearning offerings and programming, and on understanding the importance of equity-based professional learning and the roles and responsibilities of an effective AFT facilitator of adult learners.
Classroom Management/Behavior
Managing Student Behavior for Support Staff
This course is designed for paraprofessionals and school-related personnel who support and/or are responsible for overseeing the behavior and safety of large numbers of students outside the classroom setting, whether that setting is the cafeteria, school bus, office, playground or school corridors.
Community/Family Involvement
Community Schools 101: The Nuts and Bolts
This course provides an overview of the community schools strategy, including basic elements, core principles, research, community school results (academic and nonacademic), family and community engagement components, site- and system-level implementation, the collaborative leadership framework needed for successful implementation and examples of successful community school initiatives.
Engaging Families as Educational Partners
This SSS module outlines how and when to talk most effectively with families, the kind of school climate that fosters a positive learning and working environment, and what teachers can do to help families discover how to effectively support student learning at home.
Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment
Content Area Writing Instruction in the 6-12 Classroom
The ability to express thoughts, ideas and understanding through writing is a life skill and a critical component of writing within content-area standards. In all content areas, students are expected to learn to produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to purpose, task and audience. The writing standards address the expectations of content-area writing as students progress through the secondary grades. The research on effective writing instruction stresses the importance of the recursive nature of writing and the interdependence of writing to learn and learning to write.
Grading in a Standards-Based Environment
What do grades tell us about mastery of content? How should students’ levels of understanding be assessed and reported? What are the obstacles to making grades more informative? Above all, what should the grading process look like in a standards-based environment? Discover the answers to these questions in this SSS module.
Informing Instruction: Linking the Assessment Process to Teaching and Learning
Now, more than ever, it’s important to understand how the various types of assessments can be used for different purposes. Most of our classrooms have students performing on many levels in different subjects. This reality makes it critical to understand how and how not to measure your students’ growth—what assessments to use and how to analyze your data so that it informs instruction in a timely way for all your students.
Instructional Strategies That Work for All Disciplines
This course is designed to provide participants with instructional strategies that meet the needs of all students at all grade levels. Emphasis will be placed on cognitive challenges and contextual circumstances that either support or impede learning. The implications of brain research and digital literacy will be central to the learning.
Is My Teaching Effective?
This SSS module explores how to create effective learning conditions in the classroom, appropriate ways to assess background knowledge, student-friendly instructional plans, lesson designs for specific learning opportunities, and the infusion of rigor and relevance into your repertoire of instructional strategies.
Meeting Writing Expectations K-5
The ability to express thoughts, ideas and understanding through writing is a life skill and a critical component of all writing standards. Students are expected to learn to produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to purpose, task, audience and content. Many writing standards stress collaboration and support from teachers and students, and the research stresses the importance of writing frequently, utilizing the writing process and writing to learn as well as learning to write.
Instructional Supports for All Learners
Creating a Supportive Learning Environment Through Social-Emotional Learning
Bringing together key research from the science of learning and development and the “educating the whole child” approach, this mini-course explores the “why,” “what” and “how” of social-emotional learning. Participants will unpack the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Framework and explore evidence-based, developmentally appropriate strategies to foster self-awareness, self-responsibility, responsible decision-making, relationship skills and social awareness in students.
Teaching for Engaged Learning—Virtual Care Package
Schools, educators, families and communities are facing many unprecedented challenges today that impact how and where learning takes place, who is allowed to teach and what is allowed to be taught. Through these storms, educators maintain focus on three broad goals: creating safe havens for learning, raising performance levels of all students and preparing students for life beyond the classroom. This virtual package provides participants with a series of 90-minute virtual snippets derived from a larger body of research integrating both cognitive and social learning theories to optimize the classroom environment and support teaching and learning.
Universal Design for Learning: Everyone Learns Differently
This course is based on the Center for Applied Special Technology’s Universal Design for Learning framework and guidelines. Participants will build an understanding of neuroscience as a foundation for educating the whole child and experience multiple engagement, representation and expression activities throughout the session that can be replicated in schools, classrooms and professional learning settings alike.
Math
Thinking Mathematics K-2
This beginning Thinking Mathematics course focuses on research about how children learn mathematics and implications of these findings for the classroom. It has been redesigned to help teachers understand the content and practice standards of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and their connection to the research.
Reading
Safe, Welcoming and Healthy Classrooms
10 Trauma-Informed Strategies to Help Students Heal
Children face many adverse childhood experiences—violence, abuse, neglect, loss and more. The result can be psychological trauma, which interrupts healthy development. AFT professional learning helps educators support students with trauma. Course content is grounded in diverse research, including resources from university research centers and federal government technical assistance packages.
Science
Experiential Learning in STEM
STEM is experiential learning in the purist sense of the word. How can you investigate and ask questions like a scientist or design solutions to solve real-world problems like an engineer without experiential learning? You can’t! These customizable trainings come with a complete three-dimensional lesson plan aligned with the Framework for K-12 Science Education and hands-on activities to model the learning process through the eyes of students.
Special Needs
Accessible Literacy Framework
This course is designed specifically for educators and school staff who are responsible for providing and/or adapting materials for students with disabilities who have complex communication needs, use assistive technology to access the curriculum, or require adaptive materials to participate in a learning environment.
Finding Strengths: Supporting Students with Disabilities
This module provides a historic perspective on the identification of high-incidence disabilities, the use of evidence-based strategies focused on students’ strengths and removing barriers to rigorous curriculum through Universal Design for Learning. Participants will use the case-study method to develop appropriate accommodations and modifications to support student access and achievement in grade-level academic content.
Instructional Supports and Tools: English Language Learners
This workshop provides approaches and practical ideas and resources for what works for English language learners. Participants will be provided with research-based strategies, best practices and accommodations for working with ELL students.