Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)
EC115Integrating Career Readiness Into Your Courses: Part I
This course will provide an overview of career readiness including information and activities that may be incorporated into your courses. This course, which forms Part I of a two-part series, provides details about four specific career readiness skills: critical thinking/problem solving, verbal/written communications, teamwork/collaboration, and information technology applications. Additional thoughts and resources will also be provided to allow you to consider multiple ways to assist students in developing these skills in your courses.
ED102Student Retention Methods
The instructor is the real key to student retention at any educational institution. Instructors must keep focused on student motivation and retention each and every day of class. Developing strategies for retaining students throughout the entire training sequence is both complex and rewarding. All instructors should have the goal of seeing all of their students successfully complete their class. This course helps you reach that goal by helping you to understand your students and use proven motivation and retention techniques to keep them enrolled and engaged in the learning process.
ED103Student Learning and Assessment
Educators work with students who want to learn specific skills that will lead to fulfilling careers. As educational instructors it is our job to help each student to achieve this goal. Just as you may have a particular style of teaching that you prefer, your students have preferred ways of learning. This course will help you to identify the different learning styles of your students so that you can adjust your instruction to better accommodate them. Good teachers also regularly monitor the effectiveness of their instruction by assessing their students’ learning. This course will examine several aspects of assessment including how to create good tests, how to ask effective questions and how to get your students to actively participate in their learning by asking questions themselves.
ED104Class Management Strategies
This course provides methods and techniques for managing students and class activities. We start by reviewing the steps instructors need to follow as they introduce a class to new students. We then discuss strategies to effectively deal with unfocused and challenging students. The course ends by describing common mistakes made by instructors and ways to avoid them.
ED106Enhancing Student Learning
This course provides methodologies and examples to help instructors increase content retention and application by students in need of support. The course starts by covering the skills needed by instructors to be clear communicators. We then discuss ways instructors can become effective in monitoring students and using student groups as learning tools. The course concludes by covering techniques and strategies to instruct diverse learners, including learners with disabilities.
ED110Time and Stress Management for Instructors
Outstanding teachers serve their students by guiding them through their coursework and motivating them to complete program requirements. Instructors at educational institutions are often faced with high stress resulting from heavy teaching loads and limited time. When teachers cannot manage their own time and stress, they cannot fully serve the needs of their students. This course will show instructors how to manage time and stress in their lives and teach some of these skills to their students.
ED112Influencing Student Motivation
This course is intended to offer a practical explanation of how an instructor’s behaviors and choices can influence the motivation of students. It is not intended to be a theoretical or academic treatise about motivation. Module 1 offers useful tips that may help instructors to motivate students. Students’ security and autonomy are described as they influence motivation during instruction, questioning, activities, and evaluations. This is followed by a discussion of how motivation can be improved by enhancing students' sense of autonomy when making assignments, selecting instructional methods, implementing classroom procedures, and developing evaluations. In Module 2, intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are defined and compared. Finally, a variety of "miscellaneous motivators" are offered for instructors to consider.
ED114Questioning in the Classroom
Questioning can be one of the most effective classroom teaching strategies. However, many instructors are not familiar with the techniques and research findings associated with good questioning. This course begins by comparing and contrasting the major types of questions and their most appropriate uses. Some relevant statistics and research findings are presented, followed by a discussion of four effective questioning practices. The course concludes by offering a few tips and suggestions for instructors to consider.
ED120Nonverbal Communication in the Classroom
Studies reveal that as much as 85% of classroom communication is nonverbal. This course consists of eight entertaining modules that include audio tracks, animation and interactivity. Topics include the importance of nonverbal communication in the classroom, as well as our everyday lives. The modules describe the use of body language, effective vocal cues, proper appearance and the effective use of space (proxemics) and time (chronemics). A variety of support materials accompany the modules, including an assessment tool that instructors can use to evaluate their nonverbal skills.
ED130Teaching Students with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Students (both veterans and non-veterans) with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are enrolling in career education in increasingly larger numbers. Instructors need to have a basic understanding of what PTSD is and how it impacts the lives of students. This course covers what PTSD is and the characteristics that students with PTSD may display. In addition, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is discussed as many students enrolling in career education have both PTSD and TBI. Instructional strategies to support the learning of students with PTSD and/or TBI will be discussed and examples given. Participants will also be given sources where they can gain additional insight into how to support the learning of students with PTSD and/or TBI.
ED132Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities
Students with learning disabilities are enrolling in career education at increasing rates as a result of successful interventions and supports provided during their elementary and secondary schooling. This course describes the characteristics of students with learning disabilities and how having a learning disability impacts their learning process. As reading and comprehension is the essence of learning, it is important that instructors be knowledgeable in ways to support students with these learning challenges. Specific strategies for working with these students will be offered, to enhance the engagement and learning success of students with learning disabilities.
ED135Teaching Multigenerational Learners
As students from different generations are enrolling in post-secondary settings today, instructors are presented with the challenge of how to engage, instruct and relate to these multigenerational learners. This course gives profiles of different generational learners and how they engage in the learning process. Content is shared on how to relate to learners of the different generations and how to use students' life experiences as learning opportunities. As technology is an essential part of instructional delivery, strategies are given for building on the abilities of multigenerational students to use social networks, portable media (given the parameters of school policy), and personal interaction. In addition, instructors are given methods that can be used to help students develop the critical thinking and interpersonal skills needed for career success.
ED137Cultural Diversity: Including Every Student
Cultural diversity includes a wide scope of differences. While we plan instruction to meet outcomes that are usually supporting a set of pre-determined standards, instructors are faced with a high level of diversity in every class group. It is important for instructors to be aware of diversity and strive to include every student, regardless of difference, in their learning community. This requires intentional planning and accessible instructional design that includes all students and empowers every student to succeed.
RT101Improving Retention through Timely Intervention
How many times have we said “if we’d only known” as a student walks out the door? No one starts classes planning to fail, but unfortunately problems do arise that present barriers to success. Students are good at identifying these problems blocking their path to success, but they frequently don’t have adequate problem solving and communication skills needed to overcome these problems. This course looks at the effect of stress on attrition, the use of tools to identify and help students at risk, and how to develop an institutional culture that shares responsibility for student success across the entire organization.