Equitable and culturally responsive teaching practices raise the level of rigor and maximize potential for all learners. In this course you will explore the role of teacher as curator to reflect on your learning environment that accepts, appreciates, and advocates for cultural differences and social justice. Participants will explore and brainstorm problems focused on instructional and social equity. They will navigate and design culturally responsive resources, structures, and teaching practices to address bias in and beyond the classroom. This course will position participants to leverage students’ culture, language, and life experiences into rigorous academic achievement.

Syllabus

1. Establish working definitions of equity, bias, and social justice in the classroom
   Develop strategies and structures for prioritizing a culturally responsive classroom through needs-identification, resource-access, and tuned-facilitation
   Develop learning activities through a culturally relevant lens to meet cognitive levels and learning styles
   Design opportunities for students to learn in an environment that promotes executive function through structures and facilitation
   Explore facilitation strategies to build and maintain relationships and trust with students
   Brainstorm problems to address social justice and equitable access and opportunity issues within the students’ neighborhood

Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

The 2020 School Year changed the way we look at education. How can you ensure that each of your learners is able to access learning and succeed in any learning environment? The teacher’s role as a facilitator of learning has become more relevant than ever. Explore strategies to help students navigate their learning environment to build academic resilience, accelerate student learning, and support social emotional learning and executive functioning. This course will help you rethink instruction to prioritize differentiation and scaffolds that will meet all learners’ needs.

Syllabus

1. Explore and develop strategies to help students manage and self regulate in any learning environment (inclusion, self contained, or other).
2. Gain strategies and structures to support differentiated student engagement
3. Explore graphic organizers and other scaffolding tools to engage students in the learning process and develop executive function.
4. Develop purposeful opportunities for students to self assess and reflect, as well as to support students’ executive function and social and emotional learning.
5. Create structures and protocols to support students during collaborative activities and develop the 5 competencies of SEL.
6. Explore opportunities to build a learning community with parents, caregivers, aides, and/or paras to create an optimal learning environment

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

How will schools catch up with the curriculum after the spring closing of schools? How can teachers make the most of their time with students to cover a lot of curriculum. It all comes down to Power-Standards: those standards that drive the mastery of other standards. It’s all about starting with the end in mind, which is typically application of learning, building a “felt need” for students to learn, and then providing differentiated learning activities toward achievement.

Syllabus

1. Deconstruct your standards to identify the power-standards.
2. Develop maps to relate your power-standards to related content
3. Generate related problems to drive instruction through the power-standards.
4. Develop lesson plans to start your year

Participants in this course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, It’s Not What You Teach But How as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Explore the structures and strategies you can use to gather formative assessment data to drive instruction that is targeted for increased student achievement. Design formative assessments for use with your students.

Syllabus

1. Developing formative assessments across four categories: temperature gauges, breakpoint assessments, student-­directed assessments, and comprehensive assessments
2. Using formative assessment data to differentiate classroom activities
3. Using formative assessment data to drive facilitation of instruction
4. Designing formative assessment grids to allow participants to easily collect and track assessment data while moving about the room and facilitating instruction

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Explore how executive function supports the critical life skills of conscious control, engagement, collaboration, empowerment, efficacy, and leadership. Develop activities and strategies for classroom use, as well as targeted facilitation to improve students’ executive function.

Syllabus

1. Understanding the six levels of increasingly complex life skills that depend upon executive function
2. Identifying activities and structures that build executive function focused around the critical six levels of life skills
3. Understanding how teacher facilitation builds the executive function skills around the critical six levels of life skills
4. Designing structures for the classroom to create a culture of executive function
5. Developing tools for teacher facilitation to create a culture of executive function

This course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, Building Executive Function: The Missing Link to Student Achievement as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

In this course, participants will leverage choice and technology to provide students with the ultimate differentiated learning environment. They will develop differentiated digital activity lists rooted in rigorous instruction that offer multiple ways to learn and apply content. Participants will explore autonomy, purpose, and mastery as motivators in all learning environments. They will design differentiated activity lists to put students in charge of their own learning, creating a structure that allows students to make decisions within a structured framework. Making informed decisions is an essential life skill that teachers can support with intentional classroom practices.

Syllabus

1. Exploring ends-based teaching as a foundation for differentiation.
2. Understanding the difference between learning and practice activities.
3. Connecting student choice and voice to empowerment and academic achievement.
4. Exploring UDL strategies to consider cognitive levels and learning styles when developing learning and practice activities for anywhere, anytime.
5. Building a differentiated digital activity list to provide students choice in how and when they engage in learning and practice activities.
6. Exploring the role of the teacher in an environment that empowers students to take more responsibility for their learning.
7. Exploring the role of technology to leverage opportunities for differentiation in differentiated digital activity lists.
8. Developing instructional videos and activities to support differentiation in digital activity lists.

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Deepen your knowledge of the power of problem-based learning in the classroom with a focus on implementation strategies. Design differentiated activity lists with multiple ways for students to learn, develop content facilitation grids and questions to support student-driven learning, and implement four types of formative assessments throughout the PBL unit. Note: Participants will apply course content to a previously created Problem-Based task and rubric.

Syllabus

1. Designing activity lists that offer students required activities, choice activities (offering more than one way to build a concept or skill), and optional activities (offering extension opportunities to those who are advanced) from a brainstormed scaffold for learning
2. Developing facilitation grids, laying out skills and concepts to assess student learning as the teacher facilitates instruction.
3. Designing facilitation questions to move students to higher-order thinking.
4. Understanding the role of the Four Types of Formative Assessment to support progress monitoring and growth.
5. Creating a transfer task as a venue for students to apply, or “transfer,” their learning from an authentic PBL unit to a new real-world context

Watch IDE Corp.’s YouTube video “What’s the difference between project-based learning and problem-based learning?“.

This course will use your choice of Dr. Nancy Sulla’s books, Students Taking Charge In Grades K-5 or Students Taking Charge In Grades 6-12 as a resource. Only one is required. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Throughout history, major events have disrupted the norm to produce innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged students, teachers, and parents to identify new ways to provide “schooling” via remote connections. No one could have imagined that schools would close for months, leaving students to learn at home based on remotely delivered lessons. The pandemic was a wake-up call for schools: to be prepared to provide high-quality instructional experiences through structures and strategies that work as well at home as they do in school, such that students can learn anywhere, anytime. This course will help you rethink your instruction to foster academic resilience, facilitate learning acceleration, and ensure achievement and social emotional learning for all students. You will explore structures and strategies to support an innovative learning environment that works regardless of where students are, allowing students to learn anywhere, anytime.

Syllabus

1. Explore the unique nature and nuances of instruction that promotes learning anywhere, anytime
2. Map out plans and begin to design resources that promote the following:
   1. Student engagement
   2. Content delivery
   3. Executive function
   4. Social and emotional learning
   5. Assessment
3. Gain strategies and structures around 7 Attributes of a Hybrid Learning Environment.
4. Explore strategies and structures for addressing the needs of students with special needs, those who struggle academically, and English Language Learners.
5. Build knowledge of the capabilities of your district’s remote learning platform.
6. Explore opportunities to advance learning acceleration through purposeful facilitation strategies.

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.