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Teaching for Engaged Learning

Course Coordinator:

Melanie Hobbs

About the course

Schools and educators are facing many unprecedented challenges today due to the coronavirus pandemic. While transitioning classrooms to virtual learning environments, keep in mind that raising the performance levels of all students, attending to equity and access, creating safe havens for learning, and preparing students for life beyond the classroom are still the ultimate goals! As the learning needs of today’s students become increasingly more diverse, Teaching for Engaged Learning explores ways to integrate, both cognitive and social learning to optimize student performance and enhance teacher effectiveness.

• The Classroom Management Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together
Whether your classroom is virtual, physical or a mixture of both, using time efficiently and supporting students’ academic and behavioral needs are essential. Join this two-part session to explore and share multiple approaches for establishing and maintaining routines, co-regulating student behavior, and reflecting upon how classroom management affects student progress. Participants will also learn strategies to reflect upon their own practices and set goals to effect change.

Course Objectives:
o Design and implement classroom procedures and routines for virtual and physical learning settings in order to increase instructional time.
o Utilize multiple strategies for creating a classroom management system that includes clear behavior expectations, positive reinforcement and co-regulation.

• Every Child Needs a Champion: Unlock Your Ability to Build Online Caring Relationships
Are you looking for ways to refresh and renew relationships with your students? Regardless of whether you are teaching virtually or in person, cultivating positive teacher-student relationships is key. This course explores ways to unlock the power of care in building and sustaining safe and supportive learning communities and attending to individual students’ academic and emotional well-being.

Course Objectives:
o Apply a variety of approaches to building and sustaining caring relationships with and among students.
o Reflect upon their own practices and design a plan for improving and strengthening relationships with individuals or groups of students in their classrooms.

• What You Get Is What You Expect
How do teacher expectations influence student performance, attitudes and behaviors? What messages are communicated to individuals or groups of students through our instructional practices, the way in which feedback is provided, and the quality and quantity of teacher-student interactions? This session will take you on an introspective journey to examine how the self-fulfilling prophecy may be unintentionally leading to negative expectation effects.

Course Objectives:
o Use self-reflection to assess their own beliefs and how they affect student outcomes.
o Apply strategies to encourage and support high expectations for all students.

• Real Talk
Expressing ideas, valuing diverse views and communicating respectfully are all skills necessary for success in life and career. This course provides attendees with a mix of strategies to promote meaningful discussion across content areas, elevate student voice and input, and welcome multiple perspectives and opinions.

Course Objectives:
o Select and implement techniques for explicitly teaching speaking and listening skills across content and learning experiences.
o Use sentence stems as a way to support students in communicating effectively.

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