Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute
Winter 2012 Course Offerings
Becoming a (Better) Reflective Practitioner
Instructor: Kevin Giddens
As teachers, our day to day classroom experiences have the potential to be one of our most powerful resources for continued professional development. However, just having the experience and then casually thinking or talking about it isn’t enough. We need to be able to look systematically at our experiences, generalize our beliefs and assumptions and take responsibility for our actions. Reflective practice is a means of systematically and constructively talking, thinking and writing about our teaching and our students’ learning. It’s a way of using our daily experiences in the classroom as tools for professional and personal growth. It’s a way of unveiling our practice in order to better understand the complexities of our field.
Whether you’re a seasoned reflective practitioner or a novice, this course will allow you to gain new insights, share experiences and stretch how you think about your teaching practice. Course participants will read about and critically discuss reflective models such as those proposed by Argyris and Schön, Kolb, Rolf and Johns. Through online discussion of personal experiences and readings, participants will explore their own and their classmates’ beliefs and ideas about reflection. By using their current teaching contexts participants will experiment with a variety of existing approaches to reflection such as action research, teaching journals, blogging and teacher development groups. As a final project, participants will develop their own personal approach to reflective practice and a plan to sustain their practice long term.
By the end of the course participants will be able to:
- Be familiar with a variety of models for reflective practice.
- Use approaches such as action research, journaling, blogging and teacher development groups to reflect on their teaching.
- Systematically look at their teaching practice, generalize their assumptions and beliefs and be willing to make meaningful changes to their practice.
- Articulate a plan for sustained reflective practice.
- Provide feedback to classmates on their reflective process.
This course is ideal for teachers already involved in reflective practice who want to share ideas, build on their existing knowledge and meet like-minded professionals. It’s also appropriate for teachers who are interested in beginning a process of reflecting on their current teaching practice.
Dates: January 16 – February 24, 2012, Cost: $400
1.5 CEUs (Continuing Education Units)
Teaching 6 - 8 Year Olds English as an Additional Language
Instructor: Zhenya Polosatova and Radmila Popovic
Many English language teachers complete TESOL foundation courses prepared to work with adult English language learners, and find themselves also teaching classes of young learners. While teaching young learners is incredibly rewarding, teachers are unprepared for the demands and challenges associated with students who are still in the process of learning reading, writing and many other skills in their home or first language and who are often not aware of the need to lean an additional language.
This course offers participants the opportunity to enhance their practical classroom skills when teaching 6-to-8-year-old children in English language classrooms. Designed to support participants’ building effective approaches and techniques appropriate to this age range, the course will focus on research-based understanding of the developmental stages which are part of this age range and how this information affects teacher choices and decisions in helping their students’ learn in each of the four skill areas.
The course will address the following questions:
- Who are these students?
- What can they do? What is probably not appropriate for students in this age-range?
- How can I best support their learning an additional language?
- How can I maintain discipline in my classroom?
- How can English become their favorite subject now and in the future?
Dates: January 16 – February 24, 2012, Cost: $400
1.5 CEUs (Continuing Education Units)
Compassionate Communication
Instructor: Mary Scholl
What would it take to make life better for learners, educators and administrators in the classroom? What can we do to improve student and teacher performance, reduce conflict and enhance relationships? Compassionate communication, also referred to as Non-violent communication, offers a useful paradigm and tools for educators and students in both our learning and our teaching.
This course is designed to develop awareness, knowledge of the main components and skills of compassionate communication, and the ability to put them into practice in the classroom setting.
Participants will read a variety of sources related to compassion, empathy and the role that they play in learning and education. They will be required to experiment with the concepts presented, keep a reflective journal about their experience and share some of what they are learning and thinking about. Participants will be expected to give and receive feedback from peers as well as from the facilitator. The final outcome of the course will be both a reflection on their learning and a plan for application in their own context.
Dates: January 16 – February 24, 2012, Cost: $400
1.5 CEUs (Continuing Education Units)
Teaching Grammar in Context
Instructor: Radmila Popovic
Teaching grammar is a topic that polarizes opinions and brings up strong feelings. Excessively glorified by some and fiercely attacked by others in endless discussions and debates, grammar teaching is often reduced to a false dichotomy: whether it is essential in the second language classroom, or not needed at all. The aim of this course is not to persuade course participants to join this or that warring camp. Rather, they will be invited to focus on a different question: how should grammar be taught so that it supports language learning?
In this course, participants will be invited to explore the following questions:
- How to provide ample opportunities for learners to engage with grammar points in a meaningful way in their teaching contexts
- How to tailor grammar instruction to meet the needs of the students
- How to integrate grammar instruction with teaching language skills
- How to vary grammar instruction to cater to various learning styles
- How to use technology to enhance grammar learning
- How to provide corrective feedback
- How to assess grammar competence
Dates: January 16 – February 24, 2012, Cost: $400
1.5 CEUs (Continuing Education Units)
Phone:
877.257.7751
802.258.3312
TTY:
802.258.3388
Fax:
802.258.3316
Mailing Address:
PO Box 676, 1 Kipling Road
Brattleboro, VT 05302 USA