PBS TeacherLine Aligns Courses To Common Core State Standards!(Jan 2012)
Professional development courses and resources designed to help educators during transition to new standards
As states implement Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics, educators face substantial challenges adapting their instruction to match the new framework. The standards have been approved in 45 states and the District of Columbia, and many districts are planning to implement strategies in the upcoming school year that migrate instruction, curriculum and assessment to the new standards. To help educators prepare for upcoming changes, PBS TeacherLine has aligned its online professional development courses with Common Core State Standards.
The alignment means that PBS TeacherLine reading/language arts and mathematics courses provide professional development training and resources that help teachers develop lessons and deliver instruction based on Common Core State Standards and meet students’ individual needs. Teachers can better gauge student progress in mastering the standards and modify instruction to address weaknesses and accelerate achievement.
A Great New Resource: PBS LearningMedia (Sep 2011)
PBS LearningMedia™ is a NEW media-on-demand service developed for educators that provides EASY access to classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted, multi-platform digital resources including videos and interactives perfect for the Interactive Whiteboard, plus audio and photos, and even in-depth lesson plans. You can search, save, and share with ease. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia™ is FREE for educators.
With PBS LearningMedia, you can:
Explore innovative digital content
Creatively engage learners of all ages
Transform teaching and Learning
Discover another reason why
PBS is the #1 source of educational media for students and teachers! Register today!
As outlined below, the SC Department of Education has approved several TeacherLine courses for credit towards their Add-On Online Teaching Certificate.
ONLINE TEACHING
This is an optional add-on certification that is intended to enhance an educator’s skills and knowledge beyond that required for traditional teaching and to prepare the individual to teach classes within an online environment. Individuals who wish to add Online Teaching to an existing certificate must meet the following requirements.
Bachelor’s degree
Initial or professional certificate at the middle, secondary, or preK–12 level
Minimum qualifying score(s) on the content area examination(s) required by the State Board of Education
Specialized preparation (required courses)
Required Course:
Approved TeacherLine Course:
Facilitating Online Courses Effectively
TECH522:
Online Facilitator Training I: Mastering the Skills of Online Teaching
Effective Online Course Management
N/A
Elective Courses (select two courses from the list below):
Elective Course:
Approved TeacherLine Course:
Approaches and Tools for Developing Web-Enhanced Lessons
TECH195:
Graphic Organizers for 21st Century Learning
or
TECH145:
Teaching with WebQuests
Classroom Assessment Enhanced by Technology
N/A
Differentiating Instruction to Accommodate Learning Styles
INST120:
Creating Units to Support Differing Learning Styles
or
INST180:
Differentiated Instruction
Using Digital Portfolios to Foster Student Learning
N/A
Learning and Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools
TECH330: Communicate and Collaborate Online
or
TECH315: Cooperation and Collaboration in the 21st Century
or
TECH345: Developing Understanding with Dynamic Media and Digital Storytelling
South Carolina Online Resources
N/A
* TeacherLine courses that are comparable to multiple elective courses:
TECH300: The Computer for Personal Productivity
TECH410: Capstone I: Developing a NETS•T Technology Portfolio
TECH415: Proficient Use of Technology with the NETS•T
Waiver Provisions:
Coursework listed above may be waived and certification in Online Teaching granted for teachers who have successfully taught three online courses through an accredited educational institution or professional development program within three years of application (URL or access to current online courses required). *All coursework listed above will be offered online by the South Carolina Department of
Education (SCDE) for graduate credit in conjunction with selected colleges or universities. Additional courses options may be added as needed by the SCDE.
FREE Global Climate Change Lessons from PBS and NASA (Jun 2011)
To help meet the demand for better science instruction in the nation’s schools, PBS TeacherLine has teamed up with NASA to offer a series of free, self-paced professional development modules around the topic of global climate change. These three- to five-hour online modules are intended to increase teachers’ knowledge of the science behind global climate change and give them classroom resources to share with their students.
Sample modules available:
Introduction to Earth’s Dynamically Changing Climate
How is the Earth’s climate changing? Within the mainstream scientific community the fundamentals of global warming and climate change are no longer in question and increasing evidence shows that human activities play a significant part in contributing to this change. Examine evidence of climate change from different parts of the Earth’s system and consider what it means to live on a planet with a dynamically changing climate.
Earth's Warming Climate: Are We Responsible?
Human activity, including burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and other landscape changes, have increased the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Explore the relationship between increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the record of global temperature on long and short time scales by examining both instrumental data and proxy climate data from ice cores.
Going Local with Global Warming
Climate change is local and global. Examine recent temperature data for local areas and understand the significance of recent temperature records as evidence of a warming climate. Make climate change science more relevant to students through examining local data.
The Climate Change Skeptic’s Argument: Natural Solar Cycles or Human Activity?
The patterns of contemporary climate change we see are the result of natural factors or processes operating in or on Earth’s dynamic climate system as well as the impact of human activity. Examine Total Solar Irradiance data and evaluate whether contemporary global climate change can be explained by the variable energy output of our nearest star. Explore ways to introduce interactions of the dynamic climate system into your classroom.
Learn to effectively guide student learning, based on data from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ performance assessment of mathematics teachers. Focusing on key instructional aspects such as student profiles and a “focal” student approach, classroom culture focused on mathematics learning, aligning goals with instructional methods, and checking for understanding during lessons, this course helps 6th- to 12th- grade teachers accomplish mathematics goals.
Note: Course 1 (MATH512: Achieving Learning Goals through Accomplished Mathematics Instruction) will be a helpful, but not required, precursor for this course. This course is facilitated by National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in mathematics.
This is a complete rewrite of the former TECH195 course - known as the "Inspiration Course".
Graphic organizers are a tool for 21st century learning that can support critical thinking and problem solving; communication; collaboration; and creativity and innovation. Learn how to help students organize ideas, convey complex concepts, progress through the writing process, and develop mathematical and scienti?c thinking skills with graphic organizers. Learn to create and use electronic graphic organizers across the curriculum for all grade levels to develop students’ 21st century skills.
Learn to inspire elementary students by integrating engineering principles in your PreK- 6th grade classroom. This course will familiarize you with the engineering design process and development of model eliciting activities, which will help you engage students with hands-on, problem-solving engineering activities. You will learn how to effectively integrate engineering into your science and math curriculum to meet national standards and why it is important to pique children's interest in engineering at a young age. Throughout the sessions of the course, you will engage in a model eliciting activity (MEA), which is a strategy for integrating engineering principles into the classroom. As you work through this sample MEA, you will design an original model eliciting activity that aligns with your curriculum and pilot it in your classroom. This activity will require your students to develop hands-on solutions for a client and then test the model they developed.
This course was produced in collaboration with Purdue University.
INST342 Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress (Grades 3-12), 45 instruction hours
Primary sources provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic, social, scientific, and political thought and achievement during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during that period. Bringing young people into close contact with these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects from the Library of Congress can give them a very real sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era and can contribute to a new understanding of the present. Teaching with primary sources can facilitate student engagement, the development of critical thinking skills, and the construction of knowledge, while bringing the content to life.
This course will demonstrate how teachers can help students construct knowledge, think creatively, and develop information fluency necessary for success in the 21st century through analyzing primary sources from the Library of Congress. With its rich core of over 15.3 million digitized items, including manuscripts, maps, photographs, and sound and video recordings from throughout the U.S. and the world, and its extensive teaching materials, the Library of Congress is uniquely positioned to help educators discover new strategies for building their students' capacity to think critically about the world around them.
Analyzing primary source documents in the classroom with students engages them in the learning process. For the course project, learners will create a lesson plan that integrates the use of digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress. They will also implement all or part of the lesson in the classroom or with a group of students.
Classroom Link-Access to students recommended.
This course was produced in collaboration with the Library of Congress.
PBS TeacherLine earns FULL ISTE NETS•T Alignment (Sep 2010)
This past summer has been a busy one for us, including earning the FULL alignment to all the ISTE NETS•T 2008 standards for our PBS TeacherLine / ISTE Capstone Certificate Program. We are the ONLY organization to be fully aligned to both the Seal of Alignment for Development and Seal of Alignment for Assessment!
New Science Course: Introduction to Biotechnology (Sep 2010)
SCIE570: Introduction to Biotechnology (Grades 9-12, 30 instruction hours)
In addition to increasing the learner's awareness and understanding of biotechnology, this course focuses on teaching strategies and the use of media in teaching biotechnology concepts effectively at the high school level. Learners explore the basic concepts of biotechnology, examine the common tools and techniques of biotechnology, and learn how to incorporate biotechnology into the classroom to increase students' awareness of the industry and career opportunities. Through the readings, videos, discussions, and assignments, learners in this course will have multiple opportunities to develop content knowledge about biotechnology and its applications. Learners will experience a media-rich environment, as their students ideally would in their own classrooms.
As part of a new partnership between PBS TeacherLine and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), this new mathematics course focuses on knowledge packages (sequences of skills and knowledge required to master complex subjects), understanding and setting mathematics goals, and defining and assessing evidence of student learning for each type of goal.
This research-based course draws upon data from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standard's performance assessment of mathematics teachers teaching grades 6-12. As a professional, teachers are always on the alert for ways to improve their practices, from techniques and approaches for a particular topic to general habits and mindsets that permeate everything they do. This course uses the framework of National Board Standards for Accomplished Teaching to focus on the critical aspects of teaching mathematics. The sustained and reflective nature of the course gives teachers a rich opportunity to examine their own practice in the context of professional teaching standards and to identify how their practice impacts student learning. While teachers often find engaging activities and want to include them in the classroom, accomplished teachers focus on student learning goals and how to demonstrate that students have, in fact, achieved those goals. The emphasis is on what students learn, rather than what students do.
To accomplish mathematics goals teachers must also explore and understand the interplay of factual, procedural, and conceptual goals in their lessons, as well the prior skills and knowledge a student needs to understand the lesson, and what the student will later do with the skills and knowledge learned in the lesson. In this course, you'll look at what kinds of learning goals you have for a lesson, how those different types of goals connect with each other, and how you will show evidence of student achievement of those goals. In doing so, you can ensure that you're letting the mathematics lead the development of a lesson -- and not the other way around.
Note: Course 1 is a helpful, but not required precursor for Course 2: Guiding Student Learning (available soon). This course is facilitated by National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in mathematics.
New
Research Reveals PreK-12 Educators Increasingly Value and Use Digital
Media (Jan 2010)
ARLINGTON,
Va., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new national research
report, "Digitally Inclined," compiled by Grunwald Associates
LLC for PBS, teachers are making significant progress in adoption
of digital media and Internet use. These findings clearly signal
widespread changes in both early childhood and K-12 education, including
more effective individualized instruction.
Grunwald
Associates LLC, the independent research and consulting firm, which
conducted the study under a grant from PBS, released the findings
today from their annual survey on educators' use of media and technology.
PBS is sharing select findings from the 2009 survey conducted by
Grunwald, which has been examining educators' media use for PBS
since 2002, to provide information about both instructional needs
and trends to education leaders, policymakers, and the media industry.
This year's survey includes data collected from pre-K educators
for the first time.
"The significant
increases in the usage, frequency and access to digital media in
the classroom over the past several years, along with the research
showing that integrating multimedia and technology into instruction
can boost student achievement, is driving our strategy to produce
the most effective media for learning," said Rob Lippincott,
senior vice president of education for PBS. "We're especially
pleased that PBS emerged as the number one source of educational
TV and online content among pre-K teachers in the survey."
(See
the link above for key findings from the survey and more information.)
PBS
TeacherLine Partnership with NASA Press Release (Nov 2009)
Climate change -- one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and
a major concern to young people -- is the focus of upcoming
online professional development courses and teaching resources from
PBS TeacherLine® (www.pbs.org/teacherline)
and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
PBS
TeacherLine, the premier provider of online professional development
services for preK-12 educators, has been awarded funding from the
NASA Global Climate Change Education grant, totaling nearly $600,000,
to help educators engage students in critical lessons on climate
change, while teaching science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM) concepts.
Through our
project, "Teaching Climate Change (TCC):K-12 Online Professional
Development from PBS and NASA", PBS will develop two fully-online,
facilitated, graduate level professional development courses focused
on climate change. The courses will be delivered via the existing
PBS TeacherLine infrastructure.
One course will
target teachers of grades 5-8 and the other will be for teachers
of grades 9-12. Both courses will enhance teachers' content
knowledge of climate change, provide guidance about teaching climate
change using effective STEM instructional techniques, and facilitate
the integration of NASA data, models and other NASA resources into
classroom instruction.
The grant runs
from August 1, 2009 through July 31, 2012.
Marilyn Stansbury,
director of education for Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), said
this is just the beginning of this partnership.
"We will
continue to work together to find ways we can provide high-quality,
low-cost professional development opportunities for Georgia teachers,"
Ms. Stansbury said. "We are excited to launch this new partnership
with the Georgia Department of Education and the state's educators."
Superintendent
Cox said school systems can use federal Title 1 or stimulus funds
to pay for educators to take TeacherLine classes. More information
will be sent to schools this week.
PBS
TeacherLine is now a Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) PD
Affiliate (Aug 2009)
The Partnership
for 21st Century Skills is the leading advocacy organization focused
on infusing 21st century skills into education. The organization
brings together the business community, education leaders, and policy
makers to define a powerful vision for 21st century education to
ensure every child's success as citizens and workers in the 21st
century by providing tools and resources to help facilitate and
drive change.
The Partnership
for 21st Century Skills Professional Development Affiliate Program
equips individuals and organizations with resources and assistance
in integrating 21st century skills into their professional development
practice.
PBS
TeacherLine Products Receive High Quality Rating from Government
Review Panel (Aug 2009)
As a U.S. Department
of Education Ready to Teach grantee, PBS TeacherLine participates
each year in the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) product
assessment process. We are pleased to announce that in early July
2009, PBS received notification that PBS TeacherLine received the
highest rating possible, "High Quality," on both of the
products that were submitted for review. The GPRA review is a rigorous
evaluation through which the U.S. Department of Education brings
together experts in online education to closely assess the products
and progress of the Ready to Teach grantees.
This year, PBS
TeacherLine submitted two products. The first was a professional
development module from PBS TeacherLine Peer Connection, our online
resource and collaboration tool designed to aid Teacher Leaders
in their role assisting teachers and providing professional development.
The second product was "TECH 330: Communicate and Collaborate
Online," our online, graduate-level course for K-12 teachers
interested in exploring the power of the Web and learning about
using the most current technologies to engage students and increase
academic achievement.
Both
the numerical ratings and the accompanying narrative were very positive.
Regarding Peer Connection, one reviewer noted: "The rater found
this to be very detailed and useful for teachers in coaching, resource,
mentoring and other PD roles. The materials were of high quality
and up-to-date, providing the teacher leader with a virtual tool
box of materials. It also addressed many of the essential skills
that are needed to perform the job. The ease of use of the product
makes it very worthwhile."
Regarding the
online course, one reviewer said: "Yes, this course does exactly
what it is intended to do through its many activities in making
the novice instructor proficient in using online tools to collaborate
and communicate in the virtual classroom. Again, this course can
be used by novice to more advanced users and can even be a refresher.
The skill sets can be used beyond the online community."
PBS
TeacherLine’s New Summer Alumni in Good Company (Aug 2009)
PBS
TeacherLine has garnered the highest number of national enrollments
for its Summer 2009 term, more than any other term since its courses
were released nationwide five years ago. Cumulatively, more than
41,000 educators have completed PBS TeacherLine courses to improve
their skills, gain continuing education units and graduate credit,
and advance their careers.
In a survey
PBS TeacherLine conducted of its alumni in late 2008, 88 percent
of the 1,225 respondents said they have been able to incorporate
the instructional strategies from the course(s) in their classroom
practice, and 83 percent said there had been a positive impact on
student learning because of instructional strategies acquired through
the course(s).
PBS TeacherLine
received a Best in Tech 2008-2009 award from Scholastic Administr@tor
magazine for Professional
Development Resources. The award was presented at the
2009 International Society for Technology in Education’s National
Education Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington D.C. Every award
winner chosen as the Best in Tech has been handpicked and carefully
evaluated by expert administrator-level reviewers for technology
solutions, not just products.
“The NEA
Academy was founded to meet the needs of teachers and education
support professionals by providing effective, efficient, and economical
professional development courses from leading providers, like PBS
TeacherLine,” said Mark Stevens, vice president of Professional
& Web Solutions for NEA Member Benefits. “This agreement
signals our commitment to bringing the best professional development
opportunities—at a discount—to our members.”
PBS
TeacherLine Wins Two Prestigious Awards (2007)
PBS
TeacherLine is the winner of:
the
prestigious 2007 CODiE Award for "Best Online Instruction
Solution" presented by the Software and Information
Industry Association (SIIA); view the press
release
the
2007 21st Century Best Practice Distance Learning Awards
by the USDLA; view the press
release
