Mary Ann Johnson

This unique course is designed for teachers to take advantage of any experiential opportunity that inspires. As educators, we continually adapt, grow, and evolve our curriculum to meet the needs of our students and community. As reflective practitioners, we often ask our students; What moves you? What do you want to learn more about? What are you getting stuck on? What are you wondering? Rarely, however, do we make space to pause and consider this for ourselves.

Want to learn about the most up-to-date research-based practices for how to teach children (PreK-2) to read? Do you have students in your class that are struggling readers and aren’t sure how to help them? Have you heard buzz words like the science of reading, heart words, sound walls and want to learn more? Teach in a balanced literacy format but want to include important elements from the Science of Reading? This is the class for you!

When your students describe math, do they say things like 'boring,' 'stressful,' and 'frustrating'? Do you wish they would say things like 'exciting,' 'interesting,' and 'engaging'? Math classes and curriculums lack in helping students make the connection between math done in the classroom and math in the real world. In her text Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms, Tracy Zager explores how to make math class more like mathematics in the real world.

Discover how big ideas such as risk-taking, mistakes, challenges, questions, reasoning, and more play a role in the math classroom. You will be surprised how easy it is to implement these strategies in the classroom, and you will see how much your students will grow as mathematicians!

This course is appropriate for educators who teach math in grades K-6.

Text: Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms by Tracy Zager. Amazon price: New: $52

This unique course is designed for teachers to take advantage of any experiential opportunity that inspires. As educators, we continually adapt, grow, and evolve our curriculum to meet the needs of our students and community. As reflective practitioners, we often ask our students; What moves you? What do you want to learn more about? What are you getting stuck on? What are you wondering? Rarely, however, do we make space to pause and consider this for ourselves.

Whether a family, student group, classroom or school, every group has a culture which is the invisible but powerful influence that affects peoples’ felt experience as well as group outcomes. 
When a group taps into these three skills: build safety, share vulnerability and establish purpose, they feel happier; they know they can navigate the challenges presented to them. 
Do you know groups who would like to take their performance to the above and beyond? If so then come along and explore more about how that might happen with The Power of Group Chemistry.
 

How can we best prepare our students emerging from the pandemic to meet the challenges of our times? Social and emotional learning is finally entering the spotlight around the country. But where should students' social and emotional unfolding begin? Of the dimensions of SEL -- building awareness of themselves and others, and developing the skills of relationship, decision-making, and self-management -- the first foundation stone is their discovery of themselves. Designing ongoing strands of curriculum and instructional methods to help students develop self-knowledge is the focus of this course.

The focus on standards and tests crowds out students' self-discovery at a time when young people more than ever need to know what they stand for and be ready to act for the greater good. This course prepares intrepid elementary, intermediate and secondary language arts teachers to design learning experiences to help their students understand themselves by reflecting on their lives to date, discovering what they value, and deciding how they wish to make a difference in the world. 

Building on research into the developmental needs of young people, and my own classroom research on deepening the experience of learning, you'll learn ways to design your students' self-discovery into the reading, writing and conversation strands of your courses. For many students, this self-discovery culminates in a life-changing classroom community rite-of-passage called the Personal Creed Project.

The key to student success is not how well they perform on standardized tests or their ranking in school, but their ability to work hard, struggle, and persevere until they accomplish a task. Learn how to instill grit in your K-12 students through relationship building, challenging tasks, goal setting and active reflection. Students should perceive mistakes as an opportunity to grow. When taught in the classroom research suggests grit may have an impact key to long term success and happiness.

Climate change, school shootings and political gridlock are indicators of world change. It is good teaching to involve ourselves and our grade 5-12 classrooms in being aware, caring and making a difference. You will explore a variety of critical issues and a variety of web sites including Facing the Future, Awakening the Dreamer and more. Your students will learn that it brings heart and meaning to their lives when they advocate for positive change in their community and in the world.

Today's students differ greatly from each other and their learning needs vary more dramatically than ever! These differences are wide ranging and are being identified earlier. Such classroom disparities require all educators to think differently about teaching and learning; educators have been differentiating for ages. This class is intended to move you from where you are now (beginner, proficient, advanced) in the process of differentiation, to the next level essential for success.

The book for this course introduces you to the most typical student types and how best to work with them such as: the Good Kids, the Rebels, the Perfectionists, the Invisibles and more.  With each introduction, there will be ample information on what is needed and how to work best with that student.

Poor social skills are the leading reason why people lose jobs, according to Labor and Industry research. While educators know the importance of social skills, schools do not provide adequate training in this area.