Fisher Offers Online Education Training for Teachers

This summer, teachers will have the opportunity to learn best practices in online education thanks to a new four-week training course developed by St. John Fisher College.

When COVID-19 closed schools in mid-March, teachers had to be nimble, flexible, and creative in transitioning to remote learning. The new training, Online Teaching and Learning in the K-12 Classrooms, will sharpen their use of technology and prepare them for any modality of teaching for the fall.

“We know that there was a disparity in terms of how prepared teachers were to teach remotely, so we designed this course to provide a baseline level of competency and technology skill set. The course will also help teachers develop concrete lesson plans and activities that they can use in their classrooms this fall,” said Dr. Joellen Maples, interim dean of the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education.

Maples, who created the training in collaboration with Katie Sabourin, the College’s education technologist, said the course is applicable to primary and secondary school teachers. “We intentionally set a broad focus on best practices in online teaching design, regardless of age or discipline,” she said.

The course is comprised of four modules that can be completed separately or as a full series. The modules cover online design, strategies, and methods for content delivery and assessment, tools that foster interaction among students, and technology tools available to teachers. The modules are intended to be completed in five hours, and include asynchronous interactive work, a Zoom session with Maples, and participation in discussion boards, allowing the cohort to build community and share and learn from each other. The course is housed on Fisher Next, the College’s learning management platform, which offers an array of professional development and continuing education programs.

Completion of four-module series will earn participants 20 Continuing Teacher Learning Education (CTLE) credits, each individual module totaling five CTLEs. At the conclusion of series, participants will receive a certificate of completion from Fisher.

Each module is $75; the four-module series is $270. Fisher alumni can receive 10 percent off using the coupon code FISHER-ALUMNI. Register online at https://next.sjfc.edu/pdc. For questions, email Dr. Joellen Maples at jmaples@sjfc.edu.