Archives: Online courses

March is STEM month at LEARN NC. To celebrate, we’ve lowered the tuition for two of our online courses, Elementary Science Learning and Middle Grades Science Learning, to only $75. These courses are great opportunities to inexpensively earn CEU credit and acquire skills that can make a difference in your classroom. Course details are below.

Elementary Science Learning – begins March 22
Science is fundamentally about the process of making sense of phenomena in the natural and social world. In this course you will think about the scientific process and how it applies to teaching science in the elementary classroom.

Middle Grades Science Learning – begins March 22
This course intends to engage teachers in investigations of Science, the Nature of Science, and Practices that scientists use to make sense of phenomena in the world. Each of these things are at the heart of the Nature of Science and Inquiry Strands of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

LEARN NC has several online math and science professional development courses beginning in March. Whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school, this is a great chance to earn CEU credit and acquire skills that can make a difference in your classroom. Here’s a list of the upcoming courses:

Modern Math Teaching – begins March 3
In this course, we will examine specific failings of current mathematical instructional models and, over a fast, three-week course, develop useful solutions to those problems using, among other things, multimedia and a classroom culture of curiosity.

Biodiversity in Your Backyard – begins March 9
Designed especially for teachers of elementary-aged students, this course will expand your life science content knowledge with material aligned to the NC Standard Course of Study. You will have two classrooms during this course — this interactive, online classroom and your own backyard!

Elementary Science Learning – begins March 22
Science is fundamentally about the process of making sense of phenomena in the natural and social world. In this course you will think about the scientific process and how it applies to teaching science in the elementary classroom.

Middle Grades Science Learning – begins March 22
This course intends to engage teachers in investigations of Science, the Nature of Science, and Practices that scientists use to make sense of phenomena in the world. Each of these things are at the heart of the Nature of Science and Inquiry Strands of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study: Science 2004 (NCSCOS).

Getting Ready for Algebra by Using Virtual Manipulatives – begins March 24
Learn how to use virtual manipulatives and other technologies to help students become proficient, successful algebra students.

K-12 Chinese language instruction in North Carolina has grown at a rate that is more than double the national average. Not surprisingly, the fervor to study Chinese has created an incredible demand for Chinese language teachers. North Carolina has turned to distance education as a solution for addressing both needs. While the number of face-to-face Chinese language programs is increasing, online courses in Chinese language instruction make it possible to involve students across a greater geographic region, thereby extending the reach of Chinese language instruction.

This was the message shared with K-20 educators from around the U.S. and China recently at a meeting held in Washington, D.C. by the Asia Society. The focus of the meeting was “Creating a Supply of K-12 Chinese Language Teachers.” Bobby Hobgood presented the North Carolina model for developing online Chinese language courses now being offered through the North Carolina Virtual Public School. Particular emphasis was given to how LEARN NC prepared Chinese language teachers to develop and teach levels 1-4 and AP Mandarin language courses. Specifically, teachers took courses from the Carolina Online Teacher (COLT) program, collaborated with an instructional designer, attended LinguaFolio training, participated in Learning Management System (LMS) training, and collaborated with outside groups like the Mandarin Online Advisory Board and the Confucius Institute at N.C. State University.

LEARN NC has several online professional development courses open for enrollment this semester. Please review a PDF version of the LEARN NC Online Professional Development Catalog for Spring 2010. This easily shareable document contains information about courses that start in the coming months, and includes in-depth information about initiatives like LEARN NC’s Carolina OnLine Teacher Program.

What’s new

As you peruse the catalog, you’ll notice that in each course description you can quickly see which of the new North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards a particular course addresses. For example, a quick glance at The Civil Rights Movement in Context reveals that it addresses Standard III: Teachers know the content they teach, Standard IV: Teachers facilitate learning for their students, and Standard V: Teachers reflect on their practice. For teachers, this removes the confusion about how they can align their development to the new state standards.

To register for LEARN NC professional development courses, please visit the Open for Enrollment page. For detailed descriptions of course offerings, please look over the course catalog for Spring 2010. As teachers strive to make sense of the new state standards, LEARN NC online professional development can help guide the way.

LEARN NC Online Professional Development Catalog – Spring 2010

LEARN NC is seeking educators in a variety of subjects who are interested in becoming online professional development instructors. Interested teachers should apply by January 19 at 5 p.m.

In conjunction with the national e-Learning for Educators program, LEARN NC will import a series of online professional development courses into the North Carolina e-Learning for Educators course catalog. e-Learning for Educators and LEARN NC will then offer these courses online beginning in September 2010, as well as make them available for local use by schools and school districts.

Courses

LEARN NC will select 1-2 teachers to import and teach six-week courses in each of the following subjects:

• Classroom Management
• Project-Based Learning
• Visual Literacy Strategies
• Differentiated Instruction
• Probability as a Decision-Making Tool
• Using Blogs and Collaborative Tools to Improve Student Writing
• Fostering Learning with Digital Portfolios
• Working with Students with Cognitive Disabilities
• Creating and Using Meaningful Rubrics

Benefits

Selected teachers will receive free tuition for LEARN NC’s Carolina Online Teacher program, allowing them to earn certificates of completion in online instructor training. Training will begin in late January for all selected participants.

Teachers will also receive a stipend of $200 when they have finished teaching the first section of their online professional development course, which will begin in September 2010. Teachers may have the opportunity to teach additional sections of their course for additional pay.

Some courses will require the creation of additional content, for which teachers will receive additional stipends of up to $500.

About the process

Selected teachers will learn to become online instructors through a series of online courses in LEARN NC’s Carolina Online Teacher program. The training, which begins in late January 2010 and extends through the summer, will require 3-5 hours per week.

How to apply

Please send a cover letter, resume, and professional writing sample to Ross White. In the cover letter, please specify the course(s) you are qualified to teach, highlighting relevant experiences in that area. Applications must be received by January 19 at 5 p.m.

About LEARN NC professional development

To date, more than 5,000 teachers have earned renewal credits and improved their practice through LEARN NC online professional development courses. In addition, we’ve trained nearly 700 teachers as online instructors, one of the fastest growing areas in schools today.

I’ve been eager to learn more about the new North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards currently being piloted around our state. Upon first glance, I realized that these standards along with the evaluation rubric they support, represent a significant change in how teachers will be evaluated. More importantly, they represent the knowledge, skills, and dispositions truly needed by the teaching profession if we hope to prepare 21^st century learners.

In case you didn’t know, the standards were developed in alignment with the North Carolina State Board of Education’s mission and goals, informed by other evaluation instruments, including the Teachers’ Working Conditions Survey, the School Executive and Superintendent Standards, a variety of evaluation instruments, Program Approval for Schools of Education, professional development, and 21^st century skills and knowledge standards. They represent the intersection of the standards for teacher preparation, professional development, and student achievement. (See the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards Commission’s vision statement).

We recently aligned LEARN NC’s professional development course collection with the new standards to provide professional development and other education resources to North Carolina teachers during the transition to these new standards.  You can now access the standards and aligned professional development courses from the main menu of the LEARN NC website.  A link in the navigation bar leads you to the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards and Aligned Resources.

Why new standards?

Teaching and learning are fluid processes. Both must reflect the dynamic nature of information and changes in the needs of learners. The new standards reflect new thinking about the role of teachers in the teaching/learning process.

Like the superseded Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument (TPAI), the new standards have been incorporated into an evaluation rubric and organized into standard “elements” or criteria that clarify the intent of the standards. The rating scale for this rubric identifies teacher progress along the following continuum: developing, proficient, accomplished, and distinguished.

How can LEARN NC help?

This alignment process involved a thorough review of all 51 LEARN NC professional development courses. Some were found to support more than one standard. For example, all include activities that promote teacher reflection (Standard V: Teachers reflect on their practice); 96% include strategies and background information that align with Standard IV: Teachers facilitate learning for their students; and more than half address Standard III: Teachers know the content they teach. The collection also includes 17 courses that align with Standard II: Teachers establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of students, and nine that support Standard I: Teachers demonstrate leadership.

Our staff continues to identify opportunities for new course offerings that will further address teachers’ needs relative to the new standards.

The alignment of professional development courses to these standards is only a start.  We are in the process of aligning our best practices articles to these standards, and will be finished by summer 2010.

Course collection review data summary

The following table identifies the percentage of LEARN NC courses aligned to the standards at the standard level:

Course indicator alignment

Key topics and concepts that constitute the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards were identified as indicators for describing the width and breadth of the course collection. A course was included in the number count when it demonstrably addressed one or more topics through the development of knowledge, skills, or dispositions. Of the 33 key topics and concepts identified, the following indicators represent those most often addressed by the 51 teacher professional development courses in this collection:

Subject area and topic area alignment

The current collection of courses supports the work of teachers in certain subject areas, providing an opportunity for content-specific professional development in the four major subject area disciplines. The collection also addresses important topics in education that span grade levels and subject areas. The following subject and topics reflect areas of concentration in the current course catalog:

We’re excited to introduce this new resource to support you as you become acquainted with these standards.  We hope that you will find it useful and will share your thoughts for other ways we can support you during the transition to a new way of thinking about your work.  We look forward to your comments here!

Bobby Hobgood
bhobgood@learnnc.org Read the rest of this entry »

The capstone course for the Carolina Online Teacher program — the Practicum in Online Teaching — is now open for enrollment. Eligible participants can begin their practicum in the Spring semester of 2010.

The practicum is designed to be a guided first step into the virtual classroom, with help from expert online instructors. LEARN NC will be there to support you, reinforcing the best practices you learned throughout the COLT program, and addressing your questions and concerns.

Mentoring

Based on the course you teach, LEARN NC will find you a mentor from the COLT faculty. Online mentoring will consist of structured conversations via phone and email. Your mentor will also spend time in the course itself to offer advice where appropriate.

Requirements

• You may teach or adapt a shared course from the LEARN NC catalog, or you can create your own course.
• Your course must run a minimum of five weeks, with a maximum length of one semester.
• The course must be fully online. While we recognize the educational value of hybrid courses (courses where the class meets both online and offline), they are outside the focus of the COLT program.
• Though LEARN NC uses Moodle as its online learning management system, you are not required to conduct your practicum experience on Moodle. We encourage you to use whatever learning management system (LMS) is favored by your school or LEA.

Admission

• Admission is on a rolling basis.
• You must notify LEARN NC 30 days before your proposed start date.
• If you are creating your own course, it must be completed thirty days prior to scheduling your practicum.

For full details, please visit the practicum course description. If you have further questions about the practicum, please contact Bill Ferris.

LEARN NC is seeking educators to teach science professional development courses in the spring of 2010. We need one elementary teacher and one middle-school science instructor to teach Elementary Science Learning and Middle Grades Science Learning, respectively.

About the courses

Both Elementary Science Learning and Middle Grades Science Learning focus on the scientific process and how it applies to teaching in the classroom. These courses will provide a framework for understanding the nature of science and scientific inquiry, as well as help teachers engage students in authentic scientific inquiry.

Benefits

Selected teachers will receive free tuition for LEARN NC’s  Carolina Online Teacher Program, a certification track for online teachers. Training will begin October 19 to have instructors ready to teach beginning in March. Teachers will also receive a stipend of $200.

How to apply

Please send a resume and a writing sample to Ross White. Applications must be received by October 7.

About LEARN NC professional development

To date, more than 5,000 teachers have earned renewal credits and improved their practice through LEARN NC online professional development courses. In addition, we’ve trained nearly 700 teachers as online instructors, one of the fastest growing areas in schools today.

Supplement your district’s existing mentoring efforts online by offering LEARN NC’s virtual mentoring courses in English I and US History. By offering LEARN NC virtual mentoring experiences locally, schools can increase their mentor teachers’ capacity to help fledgling educators adapt to their new career.

Why virtual mentoring?

Mentoring is a proven way to increase teacher retention. By starting a virtual mentoring program in your LEA, teachers across your district can form a professional learning community of instructors teaching the same subject, each sharing his or her successes, challenges, and unique perspective on how to confront instructional issues. In addition, virtual mentoring participants receive access to a fully developed course curriculum aligned to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study to use as a year-long course template or a reference for individual lessons.

Get started

LEARN NC virtual mentoring courses are available to North Carolina educators who have completed LEARN NC’s Moodle Training. If you have completed Moodle Training, please request a copy online by going to our course copy request page. The registrar will then provide you with information on how to access your virtual mentoring course.

In tough economic times like these, when schools are sacrificing courses, books, and jobs, professional development for teachers is easy to ignore. Now, though, is precisely when teachers need staff development most.

This fall, LEARN NC is committed to providing cost-effective professional development offerings for North Carolina educators. Several courses are available for less than $75 per participant, and most LEARN NC online courses cost $150 or less.

LEARN NC’s online courses, which are aligned to North Carolina Educator Technology Competencies, NETS, and INTASC standards, eliminate travel expenses and substitute-teacher costs normally associated with staff development. Online professional development allows teachers to participate at a time and place most convenient to them, and collaborate with colleagues via a variety of easy-to-use electronic forums.

For detailed descriptions of course offerings, please visit the Open for Enrollment page, or download the PDF version of our Fall course catalog. As you strive to accomplish more with less this year, LEARN NC professional development can help you make the most of your greatest resources–your teachers.