The significance of effective online courses for teachers cannot be debated. If non-teaching professionals must constantly improve their knowledge, imagine how much more a teacher must! Every teacher should strive to improve, not because they are inadequate, but because they can be so much better. The training teachers get from online courses assists them both in the classroom and in their personal lives.

Furthermore, teachers may find greater job satisfaction due to these courses. They provide educators with the information and techniques required to be more impactful in their jobs. It also keeps them accomplished and motivated. Teacher development courses can also assist teachers in developing new connectedness and networking opportunities.

What is Teacher E-learning?

E-Learning uses electronic technologies to acquire educational content outside of a conventional classroom. It usually refers to an entirely online course, program or degree. In essence, an online graduate credit course for teachers encourages, energizes, and improves your classroom teaching practice. These online courses also help you advance in your profession by creating an active learning environment online. This means a teacher can learn many necessary teaching skills without stepping a toe out of their houses for regular in-person training. How awesome! All thanks to technology. 

Do I Need Advancement Courses for Teachers?

Yes! With all emphasis, you do! Teaching goes beyond just forming a lesson note and transferring it to students. There are other teaching skills that you must develop to stand out or be successful in your priceless career. Here are some skills you can acquire by taking a physical or an online graduate credit course for teachers;

• Being taught how to open a lesson with powerful strategies

• Customizing the textbook for the class

• Gaining knowledge of how to incorporate group activities into lessons

• Using effective questioning strategies and resources in the classroom (e.g., video)

• Methods for providing students with performance feedback

• Understanding how the process of second language learning works

• Understanding how your roles shift depending on the type of learners you are teaching

• Recognizing the various types of decision-making that occur during lessons

• Examining your language teaching theories and principles

• Gaining an understanding of different teaching styles

• Identifying students’ perceptions of classroom activities

Several other teaching skills were not mentioned above. However, these skills do not suddenly appear when you become a teacher. You must deliberately strive for excellence by learning these skills. With technological advancement, you have no excuse for lacking these teaching skills. There are several online courses for teachers that you can use to boost your skill and meet the standard of the present-day educational system.

5 Ways Teachers’ Online Courses Enhance the Lessons of Teachers

A teacher’s primary goal should be to instill a love of learning in students while assisting them in their pursuit of self-improvement and development. But how can a teacher go about this without being trained? Taking an online graduate credit course for teachers will help you in this and many more. Below are discussed ways by which teachers can use online courses to enhance their lessons; 

1. Learning Important New Teaching Techniques

A desire to learn and broaden your skill set is most likely the motivation behind your desire to pursue continuing education through online teaching courses.

This mindset can help you get the most out of your teaching experience. When teachers learn new teaching strategies through online courses, they can return to the classroom and modify their lecture styles and curriculum design. This is done to meet the increasing needs of their students. 

An online education course may provide you with the following skills:

• Increased comfort with technology 

• Insight into working with students with special needs

• improved collaboration skills by collaborating with other teachers

2. Improving Their Organizational and Management Skills

In addition to classroom preparation, teachers spend significant time on student evaluations, curriculum planning, and other paperwork. Online courses for teachers can assist teachers in better planning their time and staying organized. This improves teacher productivity and frees them up to spend more time on students rather than just books.

3. Get to Know Other Education Professionals and Collaborate With Them

Networking is a major part of every career, although networking may not always be emphasized in the teaching profession. But for education professionals, it is a crucial part of overall progress in personal development and the classroom experience.

You can build a sense of community and discover fresh learning methods by networking with other education professionals in innovative online graduate courses for teachers.

4. Teachers Gain Industry Knowledge and Insight

Students assume that teachers will be specialists in the subjects they teach. Online graduate courses for teachers ensure that teachers are prepared to answer any question posed by a student. Professional development programs will also enable teachers to broaden their subject knowledge in various areas. The more advanced courses a teacher receives, the more knowledge and insight they gain into the industry.

5. Increased Motivation 

The grind of teaching easily burdens teachers. Professional development allows teachers to break out of their routines and become students rather than teachers. It keeps educators motivated because they know they will receive the professional help they require to become better teachers. After all, professional development builds up the skills of teachers who want to be education leaders. Also, teachers need to learn from other experienced leaders to be effective leaders in the future.

Concluding thoughts…

There is never a bad time to consider professional development in your work. The best way to guarantee your professional growth as an educator and the academic growth of your students is to invest in yourself. As far as you have breath in your lungs, there is something to learn. 

This means; the way of self-development is never-ending. These are not different in the teaching career. Taking teaching classes online increases your effectiveness as a teacher in the classroom. Teaching is more than just paperwork, as was made evident earlier. To be more successful in your career as a teacher, you must possess certain skills.

Throughout history, human beings have inherently been social animals.  Our social and emotional well-being are naturally nurtured through making and maintaining human connections.  Unsurprisingly therefore, students’ learning automatically benefits when they feel a human connection with the key people around them – family, peers and of course, teachers.  As I often find myself saying to parents, if students are unhappy (and this is usually to do with a lack of quality human connections), then their learning is stifled.

One need not look far for established research into the importance of human connection for successful teaching and learning.  Work from the child psychologist, Led Vygotsky, in the 1920s and 1930s for example, was firmly rooted in social constructivism, which stresses the significance of both culture and social environment in the way in which we relate to the world around us; it is the systems and processes we employ to build knowledge from our understanding (MacBlain, 2014).  In other words, learning takes place through relationships with others, supported by conversation and language.

Importantly, this means that if a student does not admire or respect the teacher, s/he is far less likely to lean into difficult tasks, be enamoured with the subject or respond well to critical feedback – all natural outcomes from successful teaching.  The rousing TED Talk by educator Rita Pierson (2013), for instance, makes clear this value of human connection for students.  As Rita Pierson eloquently puts it, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like”.

Successful teaching requires the ability to connect with and facilitate connections between other human beings.  It is also necessary for teachers and school leaders to build and foster congenial relationships across the school community, with colleagues and parents.  In this way, ideas are shared, support networks are formed and a spirit of camaraderie becomes the norm – all of which benefits teaching and learning.

A related idea to growth mindset and human connection is that of mindfulness.  By its nature, mindfulness practice can help to break the pattern of habitual, self-limiting, and ‘fixed’ mindsets about ourselves and our students.  I do certainly believe that mindfulness can serve as a very effective tool both for helping us to take control of our own inner voice (and consequently, mindset) while also, in the process, helping us to master our emotions .  In the bigger picture therefore, mindfulness practices such as relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and other methods, can help to foster human connection.

In fact, for quite some time now, there have been a vast array of mindfulness interventions and initiatives around the world in education.  Some notable examples include the ‘Mindfulness in Schools Project’, ‘Mindful Schools’, ‘MindUP’ and ‘Smiling Mind’.  At the time of writing, mindfulness has also been introduced as an official subject in several hundred schools in England in an effort to teach children about the importance of looking after their mental health.

These moves reflect recognition of the fact that mindfulness practice can be an important part of successful teaching as well as the overall health of students.  Recent scientific advances, for instance, allow us to see that the parts of the brain associated with such positive emotions as happiness, empathy and compassion actually become stronger and more active as people engage in mindfulness practice (Williams et al., 2001).  Studies also show that mindfulness helps us with the regulation of emotion, attention, thought and behaviour (Jennings & Siegel, 2015).

However, I am aware that there exists some confusion and misconceptions related to mindfulness, which I would like to clear up.  Often, for example, mindfulness can be confused with meditation.  While there is certainly overlap between the two terms, there are some important differences, which should be clarified.

According to the authors of ‘Mindfulness – a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world’, Mark Williams and Danny Penman state that,

‘Mindfulness is about observation without criticism; being compassionate with yourself… In essence, mindfulness allows you to catch negative thought patterns before they tip you into a downward spiral.  It begins the process of putting you back in control of your life.’ (Williams & Penman, 2011, pp. 5)

In other words, mindfulness is both the state itself of mastering emotions and it is the tool to achieve this mastery.  As a form of meditation, mindfulness is about focusing on being in the present, such as focusing completely on eating soup, taking in its scent, warmth, and taste and letting go of unwanted emotions from your mind in the process.  In this way, you are monitoring, in real time, your experience, and doing so in a nonjudgmental way.

My personal journey and understanding of mindfulness began back in 2009, when I went to northern India to do a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat.  Up until that point, I had, like most people, become accustomed to distraction.  For the first time ever though, all that distraction was quite literally taken away – no mobile phone, no one to talk to, no reading material – literally nothing to do except attend scheduled meal and meditation times.  The experience was an arduous one; even by the end of the 10-days, I never really felt that I had been able to meditate successfully.  Instead, I would just close my eyes, try to concentrate on my breath and then be bombarded with thoughts darting back and forth – thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future.  I could not escape them.  When those 10-days were finally up, I felt it had all been a waste of time and I had achieved nothing more than a disdain for meditation.

Since then, however, I have gained a new understanding of this experience.  For a start, the experience taught me just how powerful and repetitive our thoughts can be.  Most of us, most of the time are operating unconsciously on autopilot; our minds are dragged around from one thought to the next like wild horses.  As Williams and Pennman (2011, p. 9) explain, when we feel even a little unhappy (which is perfectly normal), our thoughts rush in, trawling through memories to find those that echo our emotional state.  This can draw us into an emotional quicksand because our state of mind is intimately connected with memory.  One thought or feeling triggers the next, and then the next.  Before long, the original thought – no matter how fleeting – has gathered up a raft of similar thoughts and you have become immersed in a particular feeling.  This was certainly the experience that I felt in India.

Some years later, in 2012, I discovered – without realising it at the time – mindfulness meditation.  I had embarked on The Camino de Santiago, a long pilgrim route stretching across Europe to the town of Santiago in Spain.  Over the space of just a couple of weeks, I walked almost 200-miles – more than I had ever walked in such a short amount of time before.  Unaccustomed to such long walks, my feet quickly became covered with blisters and upon my arrival at Santiago, I had tendonitis in both ankles.  I did, however, love the experience.  During those log walks, I would get into a rhythm and become acutely aware of my surroundings – including the sights, sounds and smells of the experience. In other words, I was experiencing the very essence of mindfulness meditation.

The state that I had unsuccessfully been trying to reach through Vipassana meditation was a state of mindfulness.  While mindfulness is involved in most forms of meditation, mindfulness is itself a form of meditation, which simply requires you to remain aware and present in the moment.  Rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, mindfulness encourages awareness of your present surroundings – as I experienced on The Camino de Santiago.  In a state of mindfulness, we are no longer operating on autopilot and instead have a space of mind that gives us the ability to pause before reacting mindlessly.  The beauty of mindfulness, however, is that it is something we can practice almost anywhere – including in the classroom.

If a teacher is not mindful of what they are doing, the classroom environment can be a setup for stress-related health problems:

‘Under pressure, some students become disruptive, distracted, and even defiant, and teachers may become anxious, frustrated, embarrassed, and hopeless.  From this perspective, it’s easy to see why teachers are burning out and students aren’t learning.  The stress response is derailing our teaching and students’ learning.     

The idea of applying a mindfulness-based approach to supporting teachers’ well-being make perfect sense.  Furthermore, if we could give teachers the skills to better manage these social and emotional demands, the classroom climate would improve and so would student behavior and learning.’ (Jennings and Siegel, 2015, xix)

Mindfulness has not only been shown to benefit social relationships (Karremans et al. 2017), but it can also be practised specifically in the context of social relationships (Kok and Singer, 2017).  Being mindful while interacting facilitates effective communication (Burgoon et al. 2000).  Specifically, this is known as interpersonal mindfulness.  According to Jennings and Siegel (2015, pp. 6-7), interpersonal mindfulness involves the development and practice of the following behaviours:

• Listening with full attention to others
• Present-centred awareness of emotions experienced by oneself and others during interactions
• Openness to, acceptance of, and receptivity to others’ thoughts and feelings
• Self-regulation: low emotional and behavioural reactivity and low automaticity in reaction to the everyday behaviours of others
• Compassion for oneself and others

It is not difficult to see how such qualities can be invaluable to the school-context, when dealing with students, parents and colleagues.  When we encounter a disruptive child, an enraged parent or an obnoxious colleague for example, we can sense and observe our own emotional states without becoming reactive or impulsively acting on them.  In this way, we achieve a state of equanimity and are in a much better position to teach successfully, as our ability to handle difficult situations improve.  For further information and practical exercises to develop your mindfulness practice, I highly recommend ‘Mindfulness for Teachers’ by internationally recognised leader in the field, Patricia Jennings.

References

Burgoon, J. K., Berger, C. R. & Waldron, V. R. 2000. Mindfulness & interpersonal communication. Journal of Social Issues. 56(1), 105-127.

Jennings, P & Siegel. 2015. Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom. 1^st Edition. W. W. Norton & Company.

Karremans, J.C., Shellekens, M.P., & Kappen, G. 2017. Bridging the sciences of mindfulness and romantic relationships: a theoretical model and research agenda. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(1), 29-49.

Kok, B. E. & Singer, T. 2017. Effects of contemplative dyads on engagements and perceived social connectedness over 9 months of mental training: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 74(2), 126-134.

MacBlain, S. 2014. How Children Learn. London: Sage.

Williams KA, Kolar MM, Reger BE, Pearson JC. 2001. Evaluation of a wellness-based mindfulness stress reduction intervention: A controlled trial. American Journal of Health Promotion.  15: 422–432.

Williams, M & Penman, D. 2011. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Piatkus.

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As a computing coordinator, I am always looking for useful ideas to enhance the computing curriculum.  One of the best online resources I refer to is The Barefoot Computing project, which is an initiative in England to help teachers to teach the computer science elements of the new primary computing curriculum. Funded by the Department for Education and run by the British Computing Society, Barefoot Computing provides some excellent free teaching resources to help enhance computing lessons.

Ofsted’s National Lead Inspector for Computing, David Brown, delivered an extremely useful presentation at the launch event for the Barefoot Computing project last year.  Although I work internationally (and don’t need to worry about Ofsted), I feel that the information provided is relevant to anyone serious about computing education in schools.  David shared his advice about what Ofsted expects from schools delivering the computing curriculum, and this advice is divided across four areas:

pupils’ achievement

teaching

the computing curriculum

leadership

These are also the general areas evaluated during an Ofsted inspection to assess the overall effectiveness of a school.  I have paraphrased this advice in condensed form with my own reflections underneath.

Achievement in Computing:

– pupils demonstrate excellent understanding of important concepts in all three strands of the computing curriculum and can solve challenging problems

– pupils make highly effective use of a wide range of age appropriate hardware and software

– pupils show positive attitudes towards the subject and working constructively with others

– pupils show high levels of originality, imagination, creativity and innovation in their understanding and application of skills in computing

Seymour Papert developed the idea that the best way to construct knowledge and understanding, is through the construction of something shareable, outside of a student’s head.  In other words, when pupils are consciously engaged in making things for others, learning happens most effectively.  The collaborative and sharing functionality of the web certainly makes this very easy.  Pupils can now use software like Scratch or Google Apps for Education for example, to create their own programs and digital content, and then share this with the rest of the world.  This interaction made possible is probably the greatest benefit of the Web for educational use.  This is exciting because it increases the potential for students to achieve greater levels of success than would otherwise be the case.

Teaching in Computing:

– it is informed by excellent subject knowledge and understanding of developments in computing pedagogy

-teachers have a high level of specialist knowledge and facilitate active learning in computing, which ensures pupils’ achievement

– it is rooted in the development of pupils’ understanding of important concepts; it enables pupils to make connections between individual topics and to see the ‘big picture’

– lessons address pupils’ misconceptions very effectively; teachers’ responses to pupils’ questions are accurate and highly effective in stimulating further thought

– teachers communicate high expectations, enthusiasm and passion about computing to pupils; they challenge and inspire pupils to produce the best work they can

– teachers use a very wide range of innovative and imaginative resources and teaching strategies to stimulate pupils’ active participation in their learning

One of the most effective teaching interventions identified by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is feedback.  Digital technologies certainly facilitate more opportunities for feedback.  Feedback given to pupils who post their work online for instance, provides scaffolding in which they can build on their knowledge base.  In this way, learners work within what Vygotsky (1978) would call their ‘zone of proximal development’.  (This dynamic, incidentally, is at the heart of a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning).  Computers of course, can also provide immediate feedback.  In programming, there is a very tight feedback loop – it’s usually obvious whether the code runs as it should do or not.  Encouraging learners to grapple with bugs in code (rather than solving the problem for them) can be a very effective way to help them develop their computational thinking.

The Computing Curriculum:

– an imaginative and stimulating curriculum is designed to ensure learning for all pupils

– the curriculum is broad and balanced with all three computing strands covered well

– the contexts in which computing is taught are relevant to pupils’ lives

– links with other subjects in the school are productive in strengthening pupils’ learning in computing

– pupils are expected to use their computing knowledge, skills and understanding in realistic and challenging situations

– pupils’ have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe when using new technologies

– rigorous curriculum planning ensures the subject makes an outstanding contribution to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Most of the old ICT curriculum is still present in the new computing curriculum.  One of the strengths of the former curriculum was the creative, practical projects that pupils could take on.  As highlighted in David’s advice, this is something that we can improve upon with the new curriculum, which includes a lot more rigour.

Leadership of Computing:

– leadership is informed by a high level of subject expertise and vision that has a clear impact on the performance of teachers and the learning outcomes for pupils

– there is a strong track record of innovation in computing

– subject leadership inspires confidence and whole-hearted commitment from pupils and colleagues

– continuing professional development is well-targeted and thoroughly evaluated for its impact; it includes up-to-date training for teaching staff

– computing has a very high profile in the life of the school and is at the cutting edge of initiatives to raise pupil progress

– access to computing equipment is outstanding, and the school is likely to have promoted the use of mobile technologies; the computing infrastructure enables pupils and staff to have very good access to their work and to the school’s learning resources at all times, and contributes to pupils’

– there is an age-appropriate e-safety curriculum that is flexible, relevant and engages pupils’ interest; that is used to promote e-safety through teaching pupils how to stay safe, how to protect themselves from harm and how to take responsibility for their own and others’ safety

– rigorous e-safety policies and procedures are in place, written in plain English, contributed to by the whole school and updated regularly.

The key here, I would say, is for leadership to provide professional development opportunities to improve the confidence and expertise of staff delivering computing lessons.  In doing so, computing can hold a very high profile in the school and be more likely to benefit from proper policies and procedures in place.