Online CEUs / Professional Development Courses for Teachers

TeachWisely - Online Professional Development Courses for Teachers:
Fresno Pacific University's Continuing Education program offers online professional development courses for teachers across the United States and serving in several countries in either international schools or Department of Defense schools. These courses are WASC accredited (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) and teachers who complete them earn official transcripts for salary advancement. Fresno Pacific University is a trusted name in professional development and has been offering courses for over thirty years.

Continuing Education Units / Professional Development Courses for Teachers:

Teacher Burnout: Prevention & Recovery
Over half of U.S. teachers report that their morale is low, and more teachers than ever are leaving the profession within the first five years in the classroom. This course provides you with some practical help to avoid or recover from teacher burnout by providing ideas to reduce workload, organize resources and space, create boundaries, and practice healthy habits of thinking.

This course is useful for K-12 teachers in the classroom, those aspiring to enter the teaching profession, and those working in school administration roles.

Teach Like a Pirate Book Application
Some teachers are like pirates, sailing the seven seas in search of adventure and treasure. Their classrooms are places of intrigue and wonder, laughter and learning. Sound impossible? In his book, Teach Like a Pirate, Dave Burgess builds his case for being a teacher that is dedicated to increasing student engagement through whatever means necessary.

He covers topics like increasing your passion and enthusiasm for teaching, learning to take risks, presentation skills, keeping the attention of your students, and several chapters of effective hooks to use when teaching. This book study will provide you with an opportunity to evaluate your own teaching style with fresh eyes and rekindle your passion and purpose for teaching. This course is available for 1 or 2 units.

Watercolor Sketching for Students
Take your students on an artistic adventure into the world of watercolor sketching on location. Learn techniques of seeing and capturing perspective, proportion, color, and mood, like the impressionist artists of the 19th century. Help your students not only develop the technical skills of sketching but grow in their understanding and appreciation of the value of creating art on location, capturing life as it happens. Although this course has been primarily designed to enhance art instruction, and aligned with NCCAS standards, teachers of all disciplines will find it personally enjoyable and applications can be made to nearly every subject. Your instructor is an avid sketcher himself, and his watercolor sketches have appeared in publications including The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabi Campanario and The Art of Watercolor magazine.

Gamification in the Classroom
Learn the strategies of gamification as you search for the Ruby Gale, a lost pirate ship laden with treasure. This course is designed like a game to give you the tools to take gamification into your classroom. Gamification strategies not only increase student motivation, but maximize interaction with the content, resulting in deeper understanding. Discover practical ways to incorporate game-design elements into not only the content, but into classroom routines as well. Gamification strategies can enhance classroom community through cooperative engagement and group problem-solving. For many students, incorporating gamification elements into the classroom is a game-changer!

How We Learn: The Great Courses Series
The How We Learn course offers teachers detailed insights and secrets into the mechanics of learning. The course is designed to help you maximize the learning process and help your students not only master specific material but become even better life-long learners. Researched-based learning theory will give you the tools you need to apply this knowledge to your classroom.

Mentoring New Teachers
According to educator Rick Smith, being a new teacher is like trying to fly a plane while building it. If you've ever been a first-year teacher, you know exactly what that means. There are times you feel like you are frantically trying to attach the wings before the aircraft goes into a tailspin. All new teachers need someone they can count on for encouragement and support. That's where you come in. You don't need to have ten years of teaching experience to be a mentor teacher; you just need to know some practical ways to help. This course will prepare you to be a positive influence on a new teacher, as well as cover significant topics like cognitive coaching, adult learning theory, and self-reflective practices.

Helping Children Succeed Book Application
Adverse childhood experiences, neglect, poverty, divorce, and other childhood stresses have radically changed school culture in the past ten years. In his most recent book, Paul Tough gives educators and care-givers practical, research-based ideas and suggestions for strengthening the non-cognitive skills in students like persistence and grit, relationship building, and developing a growth mindset to support social emotional learning (SEL). The pressures of standardized testing without an infrastructure of a healthy, nurturing school climate will only further frustrate students. Teachers and care-givers need to develop strategies of developing environments where students can build healthy attachments to adults and peers.

Teach Like Finland Book Application
Finland is well-known around the world for its excellence in education. In this best-seller, Timothy Walker shares 33 simple strategies for making your classroom a more joyful learning environment. The strategies he shares are intended to not only produce happier and more successful students, but teachers who enjoy their job more, use their time more efficiently, and have a healthier approach to education. This course is beneficial to educators at every level, and can be taken for either one or two units.

Sketchnotes for Comprehension
Visual note taking is one of the best ways to learn and process new information. Sketchnotes for Comprehension is not a course for artists or those who want to become artists. It is a course for those who want to improve or teach others to improve in the skills of taking better notes. Through this course, you will learn the foundations of how to teach your students to take notes that will help them organize and retain information in a fun and powerful way.

Formative for Innovative Educators
Formative! has now partnered with Google for Education, and is part of the G Suite Marketplace. It is one of the most powerful and free online tools available to classroom teachers. You will create custom formative assessments for your students that will allow you to easily assess and provide immediate feedback to your students in real time. With Formative you can upload and transform documents, create quizzes, incorporate video content and images, and add links to articles, but the real power of Formative is the ability to see the progress of each of your students at the same time and quickly provide support.

Biblical Worldview Integration
For teachers in Christian schools, this course provides both ACSI's Christian Philosophy of Education (CPoE) requirement and educational studies hours for renewal of ACSI certification. This course is intended to provide teachers with the tools necessary to help students and teachers evaluate their own worldview and determine if their actions are in line with their beliefs.

Year-Round REGISTRATION:
Teachers can register for courses at any time of the year and there is no application process. Courses are offered for 1-3 graduate level semester units and are completed at your own pace. Some courses can be completed in as short as 2 or 3 weeks, but students have up to one year to complete the course work. Some courses require an inexpensive text book that can be purchased online. Contact us today for more details on how to register for your preferred course/s.