Student Achievement Courses

Building Effective Parent-Teacher Partnerships

When schools work together with families to support learning, children tend to succeed not just in school, but also throughout life. In fact, the most accurate predictor of a student’s achievement in school is not income or social status, but the extent to which that student’s family is able to create a home environment that encourages learning; express high expectations for their children’s achievement and future careers; and become involved in their children’s education at school and in the community. Researchers typically agree that parent should be partners in the education process. This helps children do better in school andContinue Reading

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Collaborative Teaching 2

This course is a continuation of the Collaborative Teaching: A Marriage of Talents and Temperaments, which gave you the skills to build your collaborative teaching partnership. This course specifically focuses on collaboratively planned and taught lessons. The planning process in many cases consists of two phases. The first or initial phase involves drafting the actual lesson. The lesson is activity-based, rigorous as it relates to content standards, challenging and relevant to engage the learner, and inclusive so all students have the opportunity to learn and be successful. The second phase of the planning process involves the dialogue that occurs betweenContinue Reading

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Multi-Level Instruction

You will never look at instructional decision-making the same way again! This course provides you with four simple questions for designing lessons that are standards-based, promoting student engagement and providing opportunities for success for even the broadest range of diverse learners. In this innovative course, participants are able to customize their learning opportunity on the basis of the grade level they teach. Course Objectives Design a multi-level instructional lesson and learn the simple five-step process Identify two typical "errors" in planning a standards-based lesson and learn how to avoid them Select the grade level and subject area most relevant toContinue Reading

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Collaborative Teaching

Within the past decade, collaborative teaching partnerships have opened the doors of general education classrooms for millions of special populations students. These students and their typical peers receive increased personal support from trained educators, achieve more, and benefit from higher expectations and challenging curriculum and instruction. The teaching partners also benefit from the lower pupil-teacher ratio. Ironically, if you talk to most educators who are beginning a collaborative partnership or who have had poor experiences with the practice, the list of their concerns and perceived barriers is usually extensive. This course is organized to address three aspects of the collaborativeContinue Reading

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Creating a Culturally Responsive Classroom

Each student’s culture significantly influences his or her learning; each teacher’s culture significantly influences his or her teaching practice. With this understanding, every educator recognizes that it is imperative to become culturally competent and to effectively use culturally responsive instructional strategies in the classroom. In this compelling course, participants delve deeply into their own perceptions of culture competency, learn specific ways to build authentic relationships with every student and to create classrooms that encourage the gifts and contributions that culturally diverse students bring to the classroom. If schools are to close the large and persistent achievement gap, the skills gainedContinue Reading

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Adequate Yearly Progress

Educators have made tremendous strides in organizing our vision and our practices to include all students in the educational process. We are focusing on effective practices, learning to recognize what works and discarding the rest, and building competencies to meet the needs of increasingly numbers of diverse learners. Yet, while our progress is impressive, we still have not achieved the level of success necessary to ensure excellence and equity in our schools. Just look at the national statistics regarding school attainment of the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) component of No Child Left Behind legislation as one measure of our continuingContinue Reading

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Instructional Accommodations and Curricular Modifications

Every educator is familiar with instructional accommodations and curricular modifications that increase student access to learning and success in the classroom. Yet these important terms are often used interchangeably or inappropriately. One key to bringing learning within the reach of every student is a clear understanding of instructional accommodations and curricular modifications and their importance to effective instruction for a wide range of students. From gifted students who need more challenging learning experiences to students who struggle in school and need additional supports to succeed, every educator will significantly enhance their practice through this course. Course Objectives Use the correctContinue Reading

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A Guide to Differentiating Instruction

Differentiated Instruction is a set of decisions the educator makes to bring learning within the reach of every learner in today's diverse classrooms.  More specifically, differentiated instruction is a decision-making process that guides the design of instructional lessons to support the mastery of standards-based curricular objectives for all students, to allow for differential learner outcomes, to energize the learning process for students, and to provide appropriate levels of challenges or supports for students who require them. Course Objectives Define differentiated instruction and the basic characteristics of this practice Create a template for displaying information regarding the students in your classroomContinue Reading