Teaching is an incredibly complex job. There’s so much to learn and so little time to perfect your skills. You have to learn as you go, and there’s a whole lot out there that can help you do it — so much that it can be overwhelming. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had one reliable guide to start with?
Teaching 101 is that guide, a collection of self-paced, on-demand online courses that will give you the tools you need to teach with confidence.
The Courses
Mastering the Lesson Plan is the first and most in-depth course in the Teaching 101 suite. In this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of lesson planning. Using a backward design approach, I’ll take you step by step through the process of writing clear, measurable objectives from a set of standards, designing assessments that directly measure those objectives, and then building a set of engaging learning experiences that meet students where they are and teach them the knowledge and skills they need to reach your instructional goals. This course is scheduled for release in August 2024.
The New Teacher Survival Guide is a mini-course designed especially for teachers who are brand-new to the profession. In this short course we’ll show you how to set up your room, how to establish some basic classroom procedures, what to do on the first few days of class, handling some common problems, how to find your people, and what to do if you’re starting in the middle of the school year. A vastly improved and updated version of my New Teacher Checklist is included along with lots of much-needed pep talks. This course will be ready in Fall 2024.
Classroom Management will explore strategies for creating a classroom environment that is respectful, efficient, and productive. Key topics will include (1) studying your own beliefs, biases, and mindsets, (2) building and nurturing relationships with and between your students, (3) establishing, maintaining, and recalibrating classroom procedures and norms, and (4) handling common classroom management problems. This course will be ready in late 2024.
Fine-Tune Your Teaching Delivery is a mini-course for teachers who have the basics down and are ready to polish and perfect their delivery. This short course will dig into topics like timing, effective modeling, getting better student participation, the skillful use of silence, how word choice impacts your teaching, how to create academic safety, and more. This course will be ready in 2025.