Course Description
As educators, we have often put in extra hours to enhance our curriculum with additional instructional activities to supplement a new or evolving curriculum; adapted “boxed” activities to make them better suited to our grade level or demographics, geographical area, or specific student needs; and strengthened our curriculum with materials or knowledge from personal experience. This course is designed to provide educators like you the opportunity to earn professional development credit for the extra work and effort you invest in developing instructional activities that are both motivating and appropriate for your students and classroom. In acknowledgement of the fact that much of your work is done above and beyond the call of duty, you can earn 1 hour of graduate-level semester credit per 5 activities, completed on your own time, that you developed and implemented in your classroom. Earning credit is actually the easy part: just develop 5 different teacher-made instructional activities and implement them in your classroom (which you’ve probably already done!), and then submit a time log documenting time spent developing your activities (outside of professionally paid hours) and samples of your final work for evaluation.
About University of the Pacific
University of the Pacific, established in 1851, is California’s oldest private chartered university and is fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
The credits offered are post-baccalaureate, graded, graduate-level semester units of credit, provided directly through University of the Pacific, Benerd College. They are specifically designed to meet the needs of educators for Salary Advancement and Recertification. The credits/units are acceptable where local districts approve and applicable to state licensing where authorized. We always encourage you to check with your employer for acceptability of these credits/units. Course participants are responsible to determine acceptability of these credits for their intended use. Each graduate-level semester credit is equivalent to 15 hours of academic involvement.
Course Objectives
Upon successful mastery of this course, you will be able to:
- Identify specific learning goals and objectives that you want to supplement with new instructional activities.
- Create five classroom-ready instructional activities that target specific learning goals and objectives and will engage students in a meaningful learning process.
- Integrate the new activities into your lesson plans and presentations.
- Reflect on how the activities served to engage students and strengthen the learning process.
- Reflect on the professional development experiences, specific to your future growth.