The Heritage Institute is launching a series of interactive video classes on the Zoom platform offering useful tips and strategies for teachers during these challenging times. Each session will be one hour.  Topics covered each weekday during the weeks of April 20th, and 27th.

Humans have an incredible capacity for happiness but many hold tight to negative thinking. This limits growth, an ability to find passion or motivation, and quite simply, an inability to see the opportunity in tomorrow. It’s important to understand the science behind your evolutionary bias for hanging on to negative experiences. Did you know, there is a specific part of your brain, the amygdala, that is responsible for how you respond to situations and experiences?? Neuroscience has shown our ability to concentrate on happy thoughts depends the amygdala response. The goal of this course is to teach you how to train your mind to cultivate happiness and recognize when the brain is lying to you.

This course meets OSPI's STEM requirements

When mathematics is taught with real-world lessons, students develop long-term conceptual understanding. The challenge for K-8 teachers is where and how to integrate these lessons. The three pedagogical practices of Problem-based learning, Project-based learning and Inquiry around five foundational skills for mathematics are key concepts. You will learn to create tasks rooted in a real-life connection to these concepts. Research suggests that a strong foundation in these areas is key for math success. $5 material fee due to instructor after registration

Classroom culture is a mysterious mix with no recipe and yet it is the special sauce for a happy curriculum and student learning. Refresh your teaching as you learn more about enhancing a culture of thinking in your pre-K-12 classroom. Review the 8 familiar forces which focus students on learning vs. work and build a supportive matrix with your colleagues while you do it. Text $16 at Amazon.

Google is currently offering schools a hosted solution for their email, calendar, documents, websites, and chat through Google Apps for Education, an integrated communication and collaboration cloud-based network. Email storage and search tools that help find information fast.

How did the world become so unequal with some societies developing more quickly? Help your students understand these big questions by using the Pulitzer-prize winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel. Learn how geography and natural resources enabled some countries to advance technologically.