Building Learning Communities to Support

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to develop educator understanding for and application of high leverage practices and classroom tools that optimize academic, social emotional, and behavioral success for all learners including those who need additional and intensified support. With a focus on creating learning spaces where all students feel Rightfully Present with a deep sense of belonging, this course dives deeply into the constructs that will support the creation of positive, safe-enough-to-be-brave learning communities so that all students can successfully navigate their own and others’ Zones of Proximal Development. We will explore the underpinnings of relationship as the foundation of establishing healthy learning communities; explore the potential of technology to allow for new kinds of communities to be formed; and apply course constructs and ideas to support and engage marginalized populations including those students who experience disability. Students will also reflect on teaching methods that fully engage learners in the content with the use of evidence-based teaching practices, focusing especially on those practices found within a collaborative problem based learning community - the Critical Skills Classroom. Participants will adapt and translate their seminar experiences to the work they will do in their own settings.