Teachers Network: Online Courses

Teachers Network: Professional Development: Online Courses

How to Use the Internet in Your Classroom
Teachers Network has created a series of self-guided online courses designed to introduce teachers to resources and strategies for integrating use of the Internet in their daily classroom practice. Teachers can follow along at their own pace and at their convenience. These courses are offered in conjunction with our book, How to Use the Internet in Your Classroom, and two CD-ROMs, How to Use the Internet in Your Classroom and Making the Most of the Web With Your Students. Licenses for these courses are available for school districts and/or universities to purchase. School districts and universities grant professional development credit for those who complete the optional assignment. For more information, contact Peter Paul at ppaul@teachersnetwork.org.

Becoming a Tech-Savvy Teacher
Becoming a Tech-Savvy Teacher is designed to provide educators with a working knowledge of what is current and valuable on the Internet as it applies to their teaching and techniques to integrate technology into their curriculum.

Information Literacy
This course introduces teachers to the concept of information literacy, the skill of being able to examine and appraise sources of information--now mostly found online. Participants will learn how to find quality material on the web, identify some of the risks involved with open sources of information like the Internet, and learn how to evaluate a web site for authenticity.

Internet Projects for the Classroom
How can we use the resources and capability of the Internet to enhance our classroom curriculum? We present three types of Internet-based projects for the classroom: email collaboration, virtual field trips, and WebQuests. Participants will also view teacher-created model projects and uncover resources to help them create Internet-based projects of their own.

All About WebQuests
This course will take participants through an overview to WebQuests, a dynamic, inquiry-based Internet project for the classroom. Participants will create their own WebQuest outline, as well as come away with a host of new ideas and strategies to create a complete WebQuest on their own.

Going Public: Writing & Publishing on the Web
This course will examine ways in which students can easily use the web as a literacy tool, including publishing their writing, collaborating with each other, and sharing their stories with the world. Through three different forms of online media, blogs, wikis, and online maps, we will examine new forms of digital literacy in which online publishing becomes an accessible and powerful tool for the classroom.

Stop, Look & Listen: Digital Audio-Visual Resources
Participants will explore new audio-visual resources found today on the web: digital images, podcasting, and streaming video. We will discuss how to utilize these materials in the classroom, across grade levels and subject areas. Teachers will acquire the tools necessary to find quality content online and become savvy users of multimedia resources for the classroom.

Internet Safety
The goal of this course is to increase both student and teacher awareness of some of the dangers that are inherent with web use. The Internet is a powerful educational tool that is here to stay, but ensuring that students both remain safe and broaden their awareness of the online world is crucial. We will examine some strategies and explore resources that demonstrate how to impart Internet safety to students and teachers alike.

Digital Storytelling
This course introduces teachers to digital storytelling, a new media literacy tool for the classroom. We define digital storytelling, and explore ways in which to compose web-based digital stories. Different web sites and media platforms are discussed, student digital stories are introduced, and the use of digital storytelling is discussed as a strategy for student learning and engagement.

Reading & Writing in the Digital Age
In the 21st Century, new collaborative tools are changing the way our students read, write, communicate, and participate. We will examine some of these resources, understand how to integrate digital literacy into the curriculum, explore how digital technologies are changing and enhancing students’ literacy, and uncover new methods for reading and writing in the digital age.

New Teacher Resource Program
Teachers Network has created a series of self-guided online courses for new teachers who wish to improve their professional practice. Based on the best-selling New Teachers Handbook and our companion CD-ROM sets: Successful Teaching Practices in Action for Elementary School Teachers and Successful Teaching Practices in Action for Secondary School Teachers, teachers can follow along at their own pace and at their convenience. Licenses for these courses are available to school districts and/or universities for purchase. School districts and universities grant professional development credit for those who complete the optional assignment. To take the New Teachers Online Course TOUR, click here. For more information, contact Peter Paul at ppaul@teachersnetwork.org.

Adolescent Literacy
The goal of this online course is to help teachers create life-long readers who are empowered as independent learners. Participants will learn strategies that promote and support adolescent literacy in the contemporary urban classroom. The needs of unmotivated and special needs students will be considered.

Aligning Standards, Curriculum, and Assessment
As you attempt to align curriculum, assessment, and instruction, you must begin by looking at the big picture and finding the over-riding ideas set forth by your district's standards. By thinking about the end result and imagining various levels of proficiency, you begin to define your instructional goals.

Becoming a Professional
Teaching can be an isolating profession. Becoming a true professional involves reflection, engaging in dialogue with colleagues, and developing a portfolio of personal best practices. Becoming a Professional will guide you along the path to true professionalism.

Classroom Management
The most effective teachers actively organize their time, space, materials and students to create and maintain an environment that is truly conducive to learning.

Families as Partners
As the role of the school grows in children's lives, it is increasingly important for families and schools to work together for the welfare of the child.

Identifying Resources
Super-teaching means researching, making contacts, arranging classroom visits, and organizing curriculum related trips. Creative approaches to identifying resources can yield information and free and/or low-cost materials. The best classroom materials should not be confined to the annual book order. This course focuses on the ability of teachers to utilize a variety of resources around them. Employing these resources supports teaching and learning in the classroom.

Strategic Lesson Planning
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." This can be especially true in teaching.

Teaching Methods for Diverse Learners
This course explores the different ways people learn, and how to match teaching methods with individual differences.

Teaching Strategies for English Language Learners
Participants will learn to identify and understand the needs of English Language learners, implement strategies for modifying academic content, and put their new skills into practice.

Balanced Literacy
Balanced Literacy is an approach to reading instruction that incorporates both whole language and phonics. Many of the components of Balanced Literacy, including the Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop, will be explored.

Introduction to Balanced Literacy 1: The Reader’s Workshop
Balanced Literacy is an approach whose goal is to develop lifelong readers and thinkers. It exposes students to the habits of good readers by interacting with many genres and styles of literature. Components of balanced literacy, including the reader’s and writer’s workshop models, will be explored. Creating effective mini-lessons, grouping students appropriately, and planning effective guided reading lessons will be an integral part of the course.

Introduction to Balanced Literacy 2: Assessing Readers
Participants will learn how to create a classroom environment that supports effective literacy instruction for all learners. Both formal and informal assessment instruments will be examined, including running records and the use of miscue analysis to interpret students’ use of the cueing system. Teachers will learn the importance of conducting meaningful conferences to drive instruction.

Balanced Literacy 3: The Writer’s Workshop
The Workshop Model, a model for both reading and writing, contains a three-part structure: the mini-lesson, independent/small group work, and a share session. In the writer’s workshop, time is devoted each day to the process of writing. Students learn how to write by writing. Although this sounds simplistic, the workshop model structures the lessons by providing numerous opportunities for students to see modeled writing, be guided with structured writing, and to apply their skills through independent writing. These stages of interactive writing promote literacy.

Balanced Literacy 4: Building a Community of Writers
Participants will learn how to create a classroom environment that is conducive to writing and supports effective writing instruction for all learners, including struggling writers and English Language Learners. The continuum of skills that good writers possess will be reviewed. As they experience the writing process, participants will create a piece of their own writing. This self-guided course is designed for you, as a writer, to have fun and learn to focus on the skills that you will transfer to your students.

Action Research
There is a recent trend in the number of teachers taking advantage of “action research.” Action research is defined as “a family of research methodologies which pursue action (or change) and research (or understanding) at the same time.”

Introduction to Action Research
This course will enable teachers to explore and acquire the tools of action research so that they may study their instruction and discern interventions to help all children succeed. Participants will review completed action research studies and become familiar with the benefits of action research.

How to Use the Internet: Tech Skills for the 21st Century: Block A (3 Credits)
This online course is designed to introduce participants to online resources and strategies for working with the Internet in the classroom. Issues facing educators today, such as student safety on the web and evaluating web sites are also included.

How to Use the Internet: Technology-Based Projects for Students: Block B (3 Credits)
Working with students on technology-based projects can be a challenge. This course leads participants through proven strategies and skills necessary to complete student-centered projects using some of the most innovative resources on the web today.

How to Use the Internet: Literacy & Technology: Block C (3 Credits)
The web is changing the way we communicate, write, and read--it’s even changing what we have come to know as “literacy.” This course examines ways in which digital forms of communication can be utilized to enhance reading and writing across the curriculum.

Technology 3-Credit Self-Guided Courses
Teachers Network’s technology-based 3-credit courses present practical classroom content through non-threatening and hands-on assignments. Participants not only read articles about using technology in the classroom, they create their own sample projects. In these five courses, teachers are introduced to high-quality and cutting edge resources on the web that can enliven learning, motivate students, promote 21st century skills, and align with curriculum.

How to Use the Internet in Your Classroom (3 Credit)
This online course is designed to introduce teachers to online resources and strategies for working with the Internet in the classroom. Teachers will complete several projects throughout the course, and learn tips and techniques for integrating Internet resources and projects seamlessly throughout the curriculum.

Web Tools for the Classroom (3 Credit)
Web Tools for the Classroom introduces teachers to free, dynamic, and interactive resources on the Internet that can enhance their teaching and learning. Participating teachers complete several projects throughout the course, which allows them to acquire technology skills and learn new methods for integrating technology across the curriculum. This is a course designed for teachers who may be comfortable with using technology for personal uses, but may still be unsure how to best put technology to work in a classroom environment.

Making the Most of Web 2.0 in the Classroom (3 Credit)
Making the Most of Web 2.0 in the Classroom is a cutting edge course that introduces teachers to innovative web sites and explores ways to promote 21st century teaching and learning. Teachers discover how to integrate web resources across the curriculum, create hands-on technology projects, and understand how Web 2.0 tools impact student learning, skill acquisition, and motivation.

Expanding Student Literacy Using Technology (3 Credit)
Students are increasingly going online for the vast majority of their reading and writing, but are they truly literate? This course will challenge our old definitions of what it means to be literate by introducing participants to online platforms that expand and increase student literacy skills, such as blogs, wikis, collaborative writing, ebooks, and social networks.

Teaching with Digital Media (3 Credit)
Educators wishing to incorporate multimodal learning into their classrooms need look no further than the web. This course presents participants with online forms of digital media (such as podcasts, video streaming, remixing, audio and video editing) that allow them to differentiate instruction to reach diverse learners, motivate and excite all students, and reinforce curricular content.

NTRP: Practical Classroom Management, Connecting with Families, and Growing as a Professional (3 Credits)
Incorporating Teachers Network very successful repertoire of online courses dealing with these topics, students will learn about proven classroom management techniques; working with families as partners; and learning how to grow professionally.

Classroom Management
The most effective teachers actively organize their time, space, materials and students to create and maintain an environment that is truly conducive to learning.

Families as Partners
As the role of the school grows in children's lives, it is increasingly important for families and schools to work together for the welfare of the child.

NTRP: Successful Lesson Planning , Aligning Standards to Curriculum & Assessment, and Identifying Key Professional Resources (3 Credits)
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This three-credit course delves into how to do plan lessons strategically to ensure success in the classroom; learn how best to align standards, curriculum, and assessment for the 21st Century; and, locate the resources needed to support this work.

Strategic Lesson Planning
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." This can be especially true in teaching.

NTRP: Adolescent Literacy, Teaching English Language Learners, and Reaching a Broad Spectrum of Diverse Learners (3 Credits)
With literacy as a focus of all these courses, participants will learn strategies to create life-long readers who are empowered as independent learners. Participants will also identify the specific linguistic, and social needs of English Language Learners. Further, as every person learns in different ways, this course focuses on preparing teachers to maximize students’ very diverse learning styles.

Teaching Methods for Diverse Learners
This course explores the different ways people learn, and how to match teaching methods with individual differences.

Professional Teachers Program
Course for Instructors

Facilitator Course
Based on our highly successful model, Teachers Network presents this training for new facilitators to prepare them to instruct our online courses. Over a term of six weeks, and comprising just 15 hours, new facilitators will be introduced to both our interactive course environment and the content they will be teaching. These training modules are conducted by veteran educators who are experts in e-learning. New facilitators will learn how to motivate collaborative learning among educators, encourage peer-to-peer interaction, and to tailor course content to meet their local standards and needs. Courses are asynchronous to accommodate busy schedules and are designed in the Moodle format, one of the leading and most powerful platforms for online course management.

Adolescent Literacy Across the Curriculum
Middle and secondary school teachers observe that many of their students do not have adequate literacy skills to succeed academically, but few have an understanding of how to best support literacy development within their specific course content. In this course, participants will learn best practices that promote and support adolescent literacy in the contemporary urban classroom. They will implement research-based instructional strategies in their classrooms that support student understanding of subject matter, and differentiate instruction to address the diverse cultural, linguistic, social, and emotional needs of adolescents. Middle and high school standards and performance objectives are specifically addressed. This course will provide a variety of adaptable resources.

Balanced Literacy in Action
This course will help participants learn how to create a classroom environment that supports effective literacy instruction for all learners. The components of balanced literacy, including the readers’ and writers’ workshop models, are explored. Creating effective mini-lessons and holding meaningful conferences to drive instruction will be an integral part of the course. Both formal and informal assessment instruments will be examined, including running records and the use of miscue analysis to interpret students’ use of the cueing system. Teachers will explore and share techniques that analyze various assessments and differentiate instruction to ensure that all learners are considered, including struggling readers and English Language Learners.

Balanced Literacy Part 2: Writer’s Workshop
In this course, you will learn how to create a classroom environment that supports effective writing instruction for all learners, including struggling writers and English Language Learners. According to teacher Miriam Bissu, “The writing workshop model enables the teacher to provide a supportive environment in which young writers feel safe enough to take risks in the course of applying their learning about writing. An important part of the program is establishing a community of learners who respect their work and the efforts of others.” This course explores the components of the writer’s workshop with attention paid to creating effective mini-lessons and holding meaningful conferences. Both formal and informal assessment instruments will be examined in order to improve planning for differentiated instruction. Participants will share their analyses of children's texts to identify anchor texts that can be used to model writing. Participants will also develop one piece of their own writing through the writing process.

Develop Partnerships with Families, Find Resources, and Become a Reflective Professional
This self-guided course will provide you with a variety of ideas that you can adapt to your needs. From working with families and identifying numerous resources to discovering best practices followed by experienced professionals, you will discover tools of the trade to enrich your teaching experience.

Maximizing Student Achievement through Classroom Management (Secondary)
This course will help secondary school teachers learn about a variety of resources and best practices to help manage their classrooms and promote student achievement. The focus will be on both effective prevention as well as intervention approaches with the goal of maintaining a classroom environment suitable for teaching and learning. The elements of a well-managed classroom will be examined. Elements include students who know what is expected of them, materials that are stimulating, accessible, and differentiated, and teaching methods that are appropriate to the students' learning styles and needs. Additionally, components of effective teaching, including time management, consistency, and motivation, will be discussed.

Maximizing Student Achievement through Classroom Management (Elementary)
This course will help elementary school teachers learn about a variety of resources and best practices to help manage their classrooms to promote student achievement. The focus will be on both effective prevention as well as intervention approaches with the goal of maintaining a classroom environment suitable for teaching and learning. The elements of a well-managed classroom will be examined: elements include students who know what is expected of them, materials that are stimulating, accessible, and differentiated, and teaching methods that are appropriate to the students' learning styles and needs. Additionally, components of effective teaching, including time management, consistency, and motivation, will be discussed.

Strategic Lesson Planning and Aligning Standards, Curriculum and Assessment
Without a plan, it is difficult for teachers to succeed. A quality plan needs to take into account short-term planning (What am I going to teach today?), medium-range planning (What are the goals for my unit plan?), as well as long-term planning (How does today’s lesson fit into the annual goals for my students?). In addition to planning curriculum, teachers must account for the individual needs of their students, their varied learning styles, the physical layout of the classroom, availability of materials, push-in and pull-out programs, unexpected events, and myriad other factors.

Teaching Methods for Diverse Learners
People learn differently. How you learn depends on your physical ability, your environment, and your talents and interests. Everything you learn is first perceived through your senses and is processed based on your intelligences. For example, when students have to explain a new concept, one may choose to draw a picture, another to write about it, and yet another may discuss it with peers or an adult. People are born with relative strengths and weaknesses. Teachers need to use the students’ strengths to aid in learning while developing the weaker areas.

Teaching Positive Social Skills to Students
This course is designed for those teachers who are interested in exploring methods of improving the social competency of their students, and infusing their classrooms with a positive, effective environment. You will be examining the social traits and skills students need to become productive members of our classrooms and society. In addition to the materials developed by teachers, for teachers, you will be using free Web resources that have been selected as most valuable for educators. I hope that you will find the materials interesting, and the assignments thought-provoking and relevant to your teaching. At times you will be asked to implement a specific activity in your classroom. I suggest that you read ahead on the syllabus so that you may plan accordingly.

The Special Education Student in the Inclusion Classroom
The Special Education Student in the Inclusion Classroom focuses on the legal and civil rights of special education students. The course offers strategies to deal with various behavior management and academic issues. Models of team teaching and classroom strategies to differentiate instruction are presented that can improve outcomes for both special and general education students in the inclusion classroom. Participants will learn the components of the IEP and its use as a tool to set goals and structure planning to improve student achievement.

Facilitator Course
Created for Moodle.

Instructors Course
Being developed for USD Moodle format.

Videos Online
Registrants may view Successful Teaching Practices in Action videos produced by Teachers Network

Video: Getting Kids to Read

Video: Real Math

Balanced Literacy in Action: Secondary
Developed for secondary school teachers.

Balanced Literacy in the Secondary School Classroom 1: The Reader’s Workshop
Balanced Literacy is an approach whose goal is to develop lifelong readers and thinkers. It exposes students to the habits of good readers by interacting with many genres and styles of literature. Teachers employ the components of balanced literacy, including the reader’s and writer’s workshop models, to differentiate instruction. Creating effective mini-lessons, grouping students appropriately, and planning effective guided reading lessons will be an integral part of the course.

Balanced Literacy in the Secondary School Classroom 2: Assessing Readers
Participants will learn how to create a classroom environment that supports effective literacy instruction for all learners. Both formal and informal assessment instruments will be examined, including running records and the use of miscue analysis to interpret students’ use of the cueing system. Teachers will learn the importance of conducting meaningful conferences to drive instruction and meet the needs of all learners.

Balanced Literacy in the Secondary School Classroom 3: The Writer’s Workshop
The Workshop Model, a model for both reading and writing, contains a three-part structure: the mini-lesson, independent/small group work, and a share session. In the writer’s workshop, time is devoted each day to the process of writing. Students learn how to write by writing. Although this sounds simplistic, the workshop model structures the lessons by providing numerous opportunities for students to see modeled writing, be guided with structured writing, and to apply their skills through independent writing. These stages of interactive writing promote literacy and can be adapted to all content areas.

Balanced Literacy in the Secondary School Classroom 4: Building a Community of Writers
Participants will learn how to create a classroom environment that is conducive to writing and supports effective writing instruction for all diverse learners, including struggling writers and English Language Learners. The continuum of skills that good writers possess will be reviewed. As they experience the writing process, participants will create a piece of their own writing. This self-guided course is designed for you, as a writer, to have fun and learn to focus on the skills that you will transfer to your students.

National 3-Credit Technology Courses

Web Tools for the Classroom

Making the Most of the Web

How to Use the Internet in Your Classrom
TBD