Professional Institute for Educators - Spring 2022
Join our community of educators at UArts. Our courses are taught by faculty who are experts and innovators in K–12 settings. Our classes provide you with tools and resources you can use right away in your classroom.
Our online, hybrid and flexible formats, combined with two seven-week sessions, allow you to find courses that work for you.
Register now—limited spaces remain!
Spring I Courses (Jan. 24 – March 22)
Using BYOD as Mindtools
Does your school or district have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, but you would like to know more about how to optimize this policy in your own classroom or school? Regardless of whether your school or district has an equivalent initiative, this course immerses educators in collaborative lesson design, using a multitude of devices students bring to and explore in class. You will evaluate a range of BYOD mindtools that, when routinely implemented, will enable you and your students to construct your own media-rich understandings of class materials. You will develop strategies and in-class practices around the design of learning environments in the age of BYOD.
Integrating iPad Technology into Today’s K-12 Classroom
The introduction of the iPad brought the power and functionality of a full-size computer system into a lightweight, user-intuitive powerful mobile tablet. Educators have rapidly embraced the iPad to meet computing needs and fill niche roles. In this course, you will discover how iPad technology can increase engagement and unlock vast content. You will use tablets and their applications to explore the development of grade-appropriate lessons across a wide range of subjects and content areas. Consider how the iPad can be a fully integrated professional tool for your classroom, and explore the financial resources for bringing iPad technology into schools and districts.
Digital Citizenship in Today’s K-12 Classroom
Digital technologies are ever-changing and come with a set of risks and rewards for your students. This course will help you lead students in today’s digital environment and includes guidance about the appropriate and safe use of digital tools both inside and outside the classroom.
Understanding How to Teach Diverse Populations
This course is designed to enhance your instructional skills and expand strategies that are essential to working with racial diversity, gender and sexual diversity, religious diversity, and diverse learning needs and styles. You will examine varying cultures and unique student populations based on a diverse society. Structured to present the learner with a foundational knowledge base and accompanying skills related to economic, racial, religious, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, special education, and English language learner diversity, the course is grounded in political and programmatic history as each area relates to today’s classroom.
Spring II Courses (March 24 – May 14)
Engagement Matters: Formative Assessment Using Web-Based Technology
Frequent feedback as part of a formative assessment strategy supports students to do work that they are proud of and motivates them to meet challenges. This course focuses on relevant, real-time, personal and practical feedback, to inform different stages of the learning process. In what ways can you provide feedback that students will build on, understand and use? You will test a host of free technologies that support formative assessment and help create a classroom culture of feedback grounded in student interests, passions and authentic response.
Google for Education, Advanced
Do you use Google Apps for Education in your classroom and want to learn more? Go beyond Docs, Sheets, Sites and Hangouts, and deeper into Google Apps. Explore Google Classroom (which helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and easily communicate with students and across classrooms), Google Expeditions (virtual field trips), Communities (clubs that are moderated and have particular foci), Programs (like Google Teacher Academy) and other resources. This course addresses both day-to-day and longer-term classroom needs and interests using Google Apps.
3-D Printing in the K-12 Classroom
Have you heard about 3-D printing and wondered how to use it in your classroom? Have you tried 3-D printing but are looking for guidance about its sustained use and utility? Some examples of 3-D printing in the classroom include topography, complex molecules, architectural designs, cross-sections of organs, artifacts, prototypes and modified robot parts. In this course, you will learn how to print in 3-D and how to make 3-D printing a reality in your classroom.
Visual Arts for the Classroom: Drawing & Painting Introductory
Drawing and painting are foundational skills for visual literacy and developing an understanding of form, composition, light and color. Working from direct observation, including some figure models, participants improve their perception and technical skills through both drawing media and paint. Create a range of timed pieces in basic drawing media, such as charcoal, pencil, ink and conte crayon, and then move on to more advanced work using acrylic paints. This course considers color theory, composition, painting technique and the overall process.
Visual Arts for the Classroom: Drawing & Painting Advanced
Explore landscape painting at a more advanced level. Working in the field, participants discuss themes inherent in this subject matter, evaluate the effects of light and color, and refine specific techniques. As weather permits, you will work outdoors in the Bucks County landscape with expansive vistas to consider. This course takes into account the immediacy of changing conditions while working en plein air. Participants work from direct observation and consider techniques that achieve desired results. Choice of media may be oil, acrylic or pastel. Topics include media and techniques for the efficient use of time, analyzing composition, color studies, reading weather and light conditions, and basic color mixing. The course’s content and critiques are also applicable to art classroom instruction.
Visual Arts for the Classroom: Drawing & Painting Advanced II
This drawing and painting course provides you with the opportunity to further refine color theory and design concepts using a variety of media at an advanced level. Apply an understanding composition and fluency with materials to work both in the abstract and from direct observation. You will focus on the refinement of a series of pieces, building a body of work that reflects an advanced understanding of techniques specific to the two-dimensional visual arts. You will develop drawing and painting activities to incorporate into projects for the K-12 classroom.