Christopher Fink

Excellence in Teaching
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 05/04/2022

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

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.
Retention is an issue, and what happens in the classroom is a critical factor influencing a student's decision to stay or go. The classroom environment may be hurting your students' view of the quality of your programs. In this course, you will learn tips and techniques to deal with environmental influences such as your role as the instructor, the classroom, the interactive activities, the support materials, and the sequence of instruction as well as other subtle influences. You will learn to view the environment from the student's perspective to increase your teaching effectiveness and student retention.
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.
Service learning programs help students take their knowledge and skills out of classrooms and labs into community settings enabling them to use critical thinking and problem solving abilities. This course provides information about the advantages of using service learning as a teaching tool while enhancing the growth of students. Implementation steps are covered so participants will be able to make service learning a part of program offerings as well as providing career opportunities for students.
This course will provide you with a basic overview of the background and history of an innovative instructional method called Adaptive Learning (AL). AL is growing in popularity and differs from traditional educational methods as it focuses on individualized, personalized instruction for everyone. With the rise of technology, AL has a definite place in education. This course discusses the background, importance, issues, attitude changes, implementation and future of AL. The advantages outweigh any disadvantages as AL can help create individualized instruction and increase student success.
This course will provide you with a basic overview of the background of an innovative instructional strategy called the Flipped Classroom. This instructional strategy is gaining popularity and differs from traditional instructional strategies. This course will discuss the background, driving factors, benefits, barriers, theoretical grounding, how to prepare to flip your classroom, and the components of the Flipped Classroom. The impact on student learning will also be discussed in addition to instructor preparation and the future of the Flipped Classroom.
Planning Effective and Efficient Instruction provides new and experienced instructors with practical ways to design and deliver learning experiences that establish an environment that facilitates learning. The course summarizes important academic concepts while providing specific strategies for planning lessons, reaching learners, asking questions and assessing student mastery of the course and program objectives.
While educators increasingly use technology in the lab setting, many don’t know where to start when trying to use it during didactic instruction. Furthermore, administrators have a hard time rolling out these initiatives. This course will go through the stages of a solid rollout plan to take advantage of available technologies. It will also discuss how to teach with technology as an enhancement to education, not a replacement. This course helps instructors, administrators and support staff to better understand how to use these tools.
This course covers the impact that personal electronic devices, in this case tablets, have on the delivery of instruction. The course discusses the reasons for using tablets in classroom and lab settings to enhance learning and expand educational resources for students. Strategies are given to enable instructors to see how the use of tablets can assist students in becoming active learners both within and outside of the school setting.
This course will provide you with an overview of various practical applications regarding adaptive learning. Adaptive Learning (AL) is the use of the technology to individualize learning. This course will provide practical information about integrating technology in learning, models of adaptive learning, and the evaluation of adaptive learning.
This course will provide you with an overview of various practical applications for the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom, also referred to as the inverted or reversed classroom, has been implemented in many classroom settings. This course will provide more information about engaging pedagogical models, just-in-time teaching, collaborative teaching and learning, and various components of the flipped classroom.
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.
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.
This course will provide you with an overview of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and help introduce you to this research-based educational framework. UDL helps instructors develop flexible learning environments to accommodate learners’ learning differences. This course will provide a working definition and information pertaining to various components of UDL.
Contrary to some current notions, it is the responsibility of ALL instructors to include literacy development in their instructional planning and delivery, regardless of academic, vocational, or professional discipline. This course defines literacy skills, including new and newer literacies, and describes how instructional planning must include all areas of literacy development for every student. Throughout this course, participants will have an opportunity to apply various strategies and methods in literacy development and understand how to focus on the aspects of literacy that apply specifically to successful students in their discipline.
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.
Career education programs prepare students to perform job tasks successfully in their chosen trade or profession. Providing opportunities beyond traditional quizzes and exams allows students to demonstrate and assess these skills and aids in this preparation. This course focuses on how you, the instructor, can identify and implement alternative assessments that support expected course outcomes and allow students to demonstrate their level of competency for a skill or task.
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.
This introductory course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to create successful online courses, whether for faculty-supported distance education delivery or as a supplement to classroom instruction. You will learn to design and develop online courses that have structural integrity and navigational simplicity with a focus on student-centered learning and intellectual interaction. The course covers various learning activities that are supported in an e-learning environment and describes the typical components of an online course. We will provide you with the media strategies and course design methodologies that will allow you to develop online courses in an effective and efficient manner.
This course will provide you with a basic overview of the background and history of the popular instructional method called active learning. This method differs from traditional educational methods such as the lecture model. Active learning has a definite place in education especially in the online learning environments. It is used to support teaching outcomes like critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills and knowledge acquisition that all instructors wish for their students. However, active learning it calls for a change of attitude on the part of students and the instructor in order to be successful. But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages as it can make students enthusiastic about learning. Learn about this brave new world of teaching and learning for the next generation.