Instructor Detail - University of North Dakota

EDL 2900: VIR: Classroom Management for All Teachers

Teachers today play several different roles-they are guides, mentors, managers, and facilitators. They are not only responsible for the academic growth of their students but also create positive learning environments that enable every child to thrive, both intellectually and socially.
January 1, 2024 to January 1, 2026

EDL 2900: VIR: Instructional Strategies for Students with Disabilities (SWD)

Teaching students with special needs can be both rewarding and challenging, even on the best of days. Students with disabilities (SWD) have unique requirements, learning preferences, strengths, and social skills. This course explores a range of special needs, how they manifest in the classroom-including neurodevelopmental conditions like ASD and ADHD. Differences in communication for children with such conditions, as well as their common struggles and challenges are discussed.
January 1, 2024 to January 1, 2026

EDL 2900: VIR: SCIENCE of READING: Assessment Strategies for Reading

Assessment is a key aspect of teaching methodologies. It helps teachers monitor their students' progress over time, identify the strengths and weaknesses in their understanding and skills, evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices and curriculum materials, and inform important educational decisions. It is not without its challenges: time constraints and the need to avoid biases in student evaluations and align them with standards can make it difficult for teachers to properly assess their students.
January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2026

EDL 2900: VIR: SCIENCE of READING: Instructional Practices in Reading

Mastery of instructional practices in reading provides teachers with the necessary tools to deliver high-quality instruction. New research on the Science of Reading (SoR) is shaping how schools are approaching literacy education. Emphasis on explicit and systematic teaching methods is now a core aspect of teaching students to read.
January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2026

EDL 2900: VIR: SCIENCE of READING: Reading Foundations

Reading is a crucial life skill: it equips children with the ability to communicate, think critically, navigate the world independently, access information, and acquire knowledge from multiple sources. Effective reading instruction is based on a range of needs, the complexity of language, developmental variation among students, continual assessment and adjustment. In this course, educators learn to implement evidence-based structured literacy practices that can transform students into master readers. The course provides an overall understanding of Science of Reading (SoR) and how it influences the classroom with a focus on systematic and phonetic reading instruction.
January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2028

EDL 2900: VIR: SCIENCE of READING: Reading and Writing in Content Areas

Content area reading and writing enables students to engage with subject-specific materials effectively. By developing strong reading comprehension and writing skills, children can better understand complex concepts and theories, and think critically about the information they encounter. The new research on the Science of Reading (SoR) is shaping how we teach students to understand content across subject areas. This course is a spotlight on reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction across subjects.
January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2028

T&L 2900: VIR: Academic Interventions

This course introduces teachers to STEM and student-centered learning to create and implement a standards-based curriculum. Teachers are guided to customize classroom instruction so that students develop the skills they need to survive in today's knowledge-based world.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Child Abuse Prevention

Protecting children is the role and responsibility of every teacher. Educators taking this course examine professional behaviors and boundaries while becoming aware of red flags that might indicate a child is being abused.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Cognitive Skills - Understanding Learning Challenges

Teachers in this course explore how learning is influenced by cognition and ways in which the brain may be built up to strengthen academic achievement for all learners including making learning fun and challenging.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Cohesive Classroom Communities

A teacher's role can be summarized as 'the provider of learning.' However, within this seemingly simple phrase are intricate responsibilities that can often be challenging. This course helps teachers recognize key warning signs and navigate mental health issues to build safe classroom environments.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: ELL & ESL Instructional Strategies

Today's classrooms are quite diverse. This self-paced course is completely online and helps educators understand the influence second language acquisition has on learning and how to promote effective interaction between ELL students and their classmates.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Ethics in Education

How do you set strong boundaries with students in the age of social media? How do you report abuse or misconduct effectively? How do you minimize instances of plagiarism in the era of AI? As teachers, we experience a myriad of ethical dilemmas every day in the classroom, and it can often be challenging to navigate them effectively.
January 1, 2023 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Money for Classrooms

This course will help teachers to maximize their classroom budget and raise funds for innovative ideas and projects. Teachers will learn to create effective budgets, write grants and create fundraising campaigns while connecting with community stakeholders to support educational endeavors in the classroom.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Pedagogy Essentials

This course combines education and theory with classroom practice and is designed to provide teachers the background knowledge and resources to use technology and research findings that improve their quality of instruction and enhance students' motivation and performance.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Peer Coaching and Evaluation

This course explores research-based strategies in peer teaching and professional development adopted and embraced by schools across the country. Cognitive Coaching is a model that can help teachers advance both personally and professionally while bringing about growth through 'supervision, mentoring and cognition.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Preparing College Ready and Career Bound Students

There are big gaps between school, college and careers, and if these are not addressed, students may struggle to transition from one to another. Teachers in this class can help students excel outside the classroom and in their future endeavors.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Raising Academic Achievement

Teachers learn to identify students who are struggling academically and address academic interventions for support. This course helps teachers gain skills in improving curriculum and implementing inquiry-based learning to increase academic achievement.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Reading Across the Curriculum

Reading should be a meaningful activity that is focused on comprehension and results in understanding. When students struggle with a specific subject matter the underlying reason may be under-developed reading skills.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: SCIENCE of READING: Systemic and Phonemic Reading Instruction

Reading requires proficiency in a range of skills from phonemic awareness, understanding context, asking questions, to analyzing types of text.
January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2028

T&L 2900: VIR: Standards and Communication in Teaching

In this course teachers explore challenges to incorporating standards and discover strategies to help overcome obstacles in alignment and assessment. Partnering with parents impacts educational outcomes and the practical ideas, strategies and exercises in this course provide educators with the means to build parent relationships that garner support as they successfully explore and implement standards.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Standards in the Classroom

Teachers in this course explore approaches to instruction, assessment and evaluation that they can implement in their classroom. This course focuses on practices teachers can use to promote student motivation and self-learning while decreasing and eliminating behavior issues.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Students with Disabilities

While it is certainly challenging to teach all students effectively, this is very much a real possibility. Sharing a research-based framework that accommodates every learner and provides practical strategies to add elements of flexibility in teaching presentation, student expression and meaningful engagement, this course helps teachers understand and strive to meet every student's potential for academic excellence.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Teachers in Leadership

Teachers are natural leaders and this course helps participants to use the action research tool as a school improvement approach as well as for individual professional development and to build strong professional learning communities.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Teaching Online for the Classroom Teacher

In this course on "How to Teach Online for the Classroom Teacher," teachers go through the process of preparing to teach online while also being introduced to tools and resources that can be useful when teaching online.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Technology for Student Learning

Teachers in this course learn to transform a traditional classroom into one that uses technology and embraces classroom engagement. Teachers learn how to critically consider apps and software, specific implications of use and educational impact prior to implementation with students.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Technology for Today's Classroom

This course highlights the advantages of using technology as both a resource and a tool for educators in their classrooms. The class helps teachers enable safe implementation of technology in classrooms and prevent misuse while promoting effective learning through practical ideas and steps that educators and students can take to ensure safety when online.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Understanding Special Learning Populations

Educators in this course learn to modulate teaching to ensure reaching each and every child. This course helps teachers understand students with Autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and giftedness as well as how to enhance learning for of these types of students.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

T&L 2900: VIR: Visual Aids in the Classroom

Visuals in the classroom enable both showing and telling. Today, visuals are at par with words in daily communication. Using bulletin boards is not a new teaching idea but this course delves into the details of creating effective and attractive classroom visuals. Teachers look at creating different types of visuals to ensure student participation.
January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2026

Instructor/Facilitator: Ellen Paxton

Classes or Events by this instructor or facilitator