Michael Amos

Excellence in Teaching
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 01/07/2026

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

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.
This introductory course covers the essential roles of a teacher and the competencies required to be a successful instructor in an educational institution. Proven techniques and strategies for planning and preparation are presented and discussed. In addition, the course offers effective methods for conducting the first class meeting and delivering course content. This course provides a solid foundation for new instructors and serves as an excellent refresher for more experienced instructors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This survey course provides an introductory discussion about how good soft skills help instructors to be successful. A distinction is made between hard skills, soft skills, people skills, and workplace behaviors. Selected soft skills are listed for various categories of businesses and industries, including the teaching profession. Two studies are referenced that highlight skills that are frequently cited in the literature. One study was published in 1997, while the other was conducted specifically for this course in 2024. Selected tips are offered for improving one's soft skills. Numerous hyperlinks are included that direct the reader to a variety of online enrichment materials, including a few online instruments that help individuals learn more about their own soft skills.
This course is an overview of a variety of ways in which educators can integrate technology and web resources into instructional courses, in order to engage learners and promote collaborative learning. A variety of strategies are included in this course to enhance the use of technology so it becomes an integral part of ongoing instructional practice. In addition, numerous links are provided to enable participants to gain more insight into how technology can be explored, secured and utilized in their courses.
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.
The term "Competency-Based Instruction" (CBI) is emerging as a new and preferred approach to education and the management of education. CBI is currently being evaluated at all levels of education, from K-12 to higher education and beyond. In traditional higher education it is referred to as CBE (Competency-Based Education) as it relates to specific competency-based programs. This course explores the topic in terms of the various characteristics of competency-based teaching and learning and highlights the most commonly agreed-upon benefits for students. The course also addresses the teaching approaches required to support a competency-based learning environment most effectively.
This course covers the different roles that culinary arts instructors play in the instructional process. The content provides rationale, strategies and methodologies that beginning as well as experienced culinary arts instructors can use in their classes and kitchens. Instructional best practices are discussed and examples given that will expand the knowledge base of culinary arts instructors as they prepare lessons. This course covers student centered instruction and information about the impact of student learning preferences on instructional planning and delivery.
This course will explore the field of gamification and the way that gaming and gaming elements have come to impact our everyday lives, and can improve our courses. Focusing on easy-to-implement concepts, this course will help you to begin utilizing gamification elements to increase learner engagement and motivation, and increase overall student success. The goal of this course is to help develop a better understanding of the topic and produce tangible resources to help implement plans, strategies, and ideas at your school. In addition to lecture videos, possible resource links, and assessments, you will be able to utilize the Journal and Learning Activities.