Archives: February, 2012

There’s still time to enroll in spring eLearning for Educators professional development courses! There are many courses to choose from. Check out the following courses:

Differentiating Instruction in Online Courses

Reach every learner by tailoring your instruction to address students’ unique learning styles. You’ll develop differentiated components for your own online course by creating practical assignments and by modifying content and assessments.

The Connected Writer: Using Blogs and Collaborative Tools to Improve Student Writing

Embrace blogging as a way to enhance your students’ writing and to reach your own curriculum goals. Writing platforms like blogs, wikis, and forums inspire opportunities for collaboration, peer review, and critical thinking that traditional writing assignments cannot.

Using Models to Understand Fractions

Learn to use a variety of mathematical models like Cuisenaire rods and pattern blocks — both virtual and “hands on — to teach fractions to your 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders. This course offers alternative ideas for fraction instruction and is founded on the belief that students can come to understand fractions in a number of different ways.

Teaching Writing in the Elementary Classroom

Participants will explore how to teach their students about the traits of good writing through mini-lessons and writing workshops, and how to use established criteria to evaluate writing. Participants will also recognize that writing is a process and consider how to organize instruction to guide students through the stages of that process.

Crossing Cultures I: Self-Awareness

This course will help you improve your effectiveness in interacting with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. By learning intercultural theories, including a cultural value framework, you’ll gain a greater awareness of your own cultural background, as well as acquire tools to interact appropriately and effectively with people from a variety of cultures.

Reading, Writing and Research: Integrating Literacy across the Curriculum

Explore reading and writing skills instruction and information literacy concepts, and learn to effectively integrate these skills into the teaching of other subjects.

LEARN NC’s best-practice articles are now aligned to the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards, making it easier than ever before to find exactly what you need. These articles contain a wealth of information on a variety of topics, including classroom management, differentiated instruction, and teacher leadership. Are you looking for something specific? Try browsing by keyword on the right-hand side of the best practices page.

Looking for a creative way to teach fluid dynamics concepts in your middle school math or science class? Three hands-on, inquiry-based lesson plans addressing this topic have been published in the unit “A mathematical model to describe fluid behavior” This unit is provided by the Kenan Fellows program.

Students delve into the topic of natural frequency by observing and calculating oscillations of pine trees and dowel rods. They also work with the formula for frequency and discover applications for irrational numbers in the real world using data collected during the activities.

In another lesson, exploration of the radii of vessels in leaves introduces students to Murray’s law (the equation that models an efficient fluid transport system). Throughout this activity, students become familiar with cubes and cube roots.

Finally, students learn about density, viscosity, and the Reynolds Number. Active inquiry engages students in the concept of viscosity and the various ways we encounter it in our daily lives. They also learn how to find the Reynolds Number of a fluid and how to use it effectively in a scale model to better understand real-world phenomena.