This month, the Penn State College of Education's EdLion Program is offering a new series of online presentations titled "Managing Your Classroom Effectively." The free sessions are offered primarily to college alumni who are elementary and secondary teachers seeking professional development and Act 48 credit hours. The sessions also are open to anyone else, including current students, faculty and staff of the college.
A March 18 session, titled “Universal Design in Learning,” will feature Shirley Woika, assistant professor of school psychology. Traditionally a term used by architects and industrial designers, “universal design” focuses on removing barriers and allowing access to buildings and products to as many individuals as possible, including those with disabilities. Examples of such design features include access ramps, automatic doors and video captioning.
As applied to education, the term “universal design” refers to a framework for designing educational environments that will benefit diverse learners. Diverse learners include students with emotional/behavioral difficulties, attention problems, learning disabilities, limited English proficiency and others. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is not a program or a product. It is a research-based framework and a set of principles to provide all students equal opportunities to learn.
A March 25 session, titled “Classroom Management,” will be offered by James Levin, affiliate associate professor of education and senior Division of Undergraduate Studies programs coordinator. Levin also is co-author with Nolan of the book "Principles of Classroom Management: A Hierarchical Approach."
A previous session, titled “Using The Responsive Classroom Approach as a Framework for Thinking about Classroom Learning Environments,” was held on March 4 and focused on the use of the responsive classroom approach as a way to think about creating and sustaining classroom communities at the elementary and middle school levels. Individuals can view this session archive at http://www.ed.psu.edu/educ/edlion online.
Jim Nolan, Hermanowicz professor of education in the Penn State College of Education, co-presented this session with three teachers from the State College Area School District: Jodi Kamin, elementary teacher and Professional Development School (PDS) co-coordinator; Mardi McDonough, middle school teacher and former PDS co-coordinator; and Deana Washell, elementary teacher and PDS co-coordinator.
All live sessions will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. EST. Individuals who participate in all three sessions will qualify for Act 48 credit hours. All sessions also will be archived online. For more information, visit the Web site listed above.