Course Descriptions

• Do you feel like you're hitting a ceiling with regard to how much your students are retaining, understanding, and learning?
• Do you find that your students aren’t deeply invested in what happens in your classroom — the content, the routines, and the classroom practices?
• Are you exhausting yourself to teach your students everything they need to know, but still see them falling short of achieving mastery?
• Do you want to conquer an evaluation model that emphasizes student centered instruction?

This course provides an in-depth exploration of tried and true student centered instructional strategies, all closely aligned with modern research on teaching and learning.  Whether you're searching for new practices to engage your students, to achieve the highest levels on your teacher evaluation rubric, or to simply evolve your craft, this course represents a shift into 21st century instructional design for veterans and rookies alike.

During this course, we will:

• Define “student centered learning”
• Review current research on student centered instruction
• View and compare lessons (in VR)
• Utilizing modern evaluation frameworks to organize our exploration of student centered learning across all elements of teaching and learning:
  • Planning and Preparation
  • Classroom Environment
  • Instruction
  • Professional Responsibilities
• Planning & Preparation: Practices and strategies
• Classroom Environment: Practices and strategies
• Instruction: Practices and strategies
• Professional Responsibilities: Practices and strategies
• Authentic task: view this lesson, and act as an instructional coach. Target student centered learning practices.  What do you tell the teacher? What recommendations do you make? Etc. (There could be a template that’s filled out to do this activity, and completed exemplar of this to view as well.)
• Authentic task, domain 3 / INSTRUCTION: Find an old teacher centered lesson plan, and transform it into something student centered.  Include a before and after.
• Authentic task: Domains 1, 2, or 4: Select a student centered practice or routine that isn’t already in place, and develop it in a manner that’s customized for your classroom.  If you want a trampoline for this activity, find three customizable templates attached … (1) Communicating with parents, emails activity; (2) … (3) … (Do these belong here, or should this culminate with “Student Centered Learning Toolkit.”

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