Course Description
Designed for the teacher who wants to create authentic experiences for their students, this course provides the opportunity to develop individualized instructional activities for the classroom based on personal experiences. Bring the nuances of different or foreign cultures into your classroom by having your students solve real-world issues you have observed firsthand in your travels. Capture [WM II1] their interest with true stories and artifacts from your travels, then allow them to perform research individually or in groups to discover and propose solutions or ways to improve geo-specific problems. Develop a set of topics or projects students can choose from to select the assignment that resonates most with them. Create activities that will help them see the problems through your eyes, as someone who has seen them firsthand, and then let them immerse themselves in the issue. Once your learning objectives have been met, submit your travel journal, slide presentation, and write-up over the project results for evaluation.
Integrate your travel study experiences into your educational setting. Opportunities are available across all teaching grade levels, disciplines, and subjects or topics. Designed for busy teachers like you, you will get up to 6 months to complete your coursework requirements, and extensions are always granted upon request.
Overview of Requirements
1. Define your travel objective(s): When registering for this course option, you will be required to provide a short description of your travel objectives, and how you plan to create and implement your learning experiences into your program. You may also utilize previous travel experiences for this course option as long as the materials developed are relevant to your curriculum or programs.
2. Create a Travel Journal with times, academic points of interest, and activities relating to your travel experiences and objectives. Your travel journal will document the effort and time that you dedicate to the process of completing your coursework requirements and learning objectives.
Whether you spend time brainstorming, researching, reading, typing, writing, watching educational videos and films for ideas, constructing visuals, putting together new Powerpoint Presentations or rubrics, you are able to document all the professional time you have invested amplifying and enriching your professional needs.
3. Develop a 25-30 slide PowerPoint or Google presentation (per credit) to demonstrate the professional outcomes of your travel experience, and implement what you have learned directly into the learning process of your students.
1 credit = 30 Slides
2 credits = 60 Slides
3 credits = 90 Slides
4. Complete a 1-2 page write-up: A minimum one to two page write-up describing utilization and/or professional application of material developed.
*Additional course guidelines, formatting requirements, and information will be provided upon course enrollment.
Completed courses are letter graded and will appear on an official transcript from University of the Pacific, Benerd College. An Official Transcript with your final course grade(s) is available from Pacific upon successful completion of coursework. The course ending date that will appear on your transcript will reflect the date on which your completed coursework was reviewed and graded.
Teacher Friendly Course
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:
- Evaluate your travel experiences to discover ways to connect them with personalized activities for your classroom that will enhance student learning.
- Review the objectives mastered by your individual students to identify specific areas of the curriculum to enhance with information, materials, or activities from your travel experiences.
- Select the learning objectives you would like to support with your travel experiences.
- Create a 25-30 slide PowerPoint or Google presentation to supplement your curriculum and enhance the students’ learning of your selected objectives, OR to demonstrate the professional outcomes of the inclusion of the materials from your travel experiences into your curriculum.
- Develop activities, based on your travel experiences, that will personalize learning for your students, make the lessons “hit close to home,” and cause your students to care about the peoples whose information or problems comprise the lesson rather than just learning facts from a page.
- Integrate the new materials into your lesson plans and/or presentations.
- Engage students in meaningful activities, based on your travel experiences, that personalize their learnings and support authentic learning experiences.
- Consider the effectiveness of personalizing activities in helping students meet targeted learning goals.
- Speculate on how the personalized activities served to enrich your curriculum.
- Reflect on the professional development experiences, specific to your future growth.
Course Includes
- 4 Sections