This course is designed to provide students with the necessary technical skills required for the classroom teacher of the twenty-first century. The course will orient students to contemporary frameworks for technology education and introduce students to technology based tools and media that support instruction, extend communication outside the classroom, enhance classroom management, and perform administrative routines more effectively.
- Teacher: Monica Johnson
A survey of information regarding children with special needs including possible causes and characteristics of exceptionalities, educational intervention, available resources, referral processes, and the advocacy role and legislative issues. Regularly scheduled observations of children are required. This course considers children with special needs from a critical perspective, drawing on element of disciplines such as disability studies and social justice. We will approach special needs and disability as an interaction between individual factors (such as the nature and severity of impairment, personal strengths and abilities), and structural factors (such as attitudes of others, abling or disabling environments).
- Teacher: Holli Forrest
This required core course, a blend of both online and in-person class time, offers a thorough historical and philosophical examination of Montessori's view of physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of human life and development. A prerequisite or co-requisite to all other courses, this course introduces the program’s rigorous standards in writing, discussing, and presenting.
- Teacher: Connie Laufersky
Participants will integrate foundational principles and strategies for leadership in the classroom and managing the environment. Among the techniques and topics for managing time and classroom behavior are the four-step passage to abstraction, control of error, ground rules, The Great Period, CORA, fuzzy sequencing, and the use of student notebooks.
- Teacher: Heather White
An introduction to children’s literature, values of literature, genres of children’s literature, the qualities of classic and current children’s literature, and methods to integrate literature into the preschool and elementary Montessori classroom. The Montessori view of fiction, fantasy, and realistic literature and children will be explored.
- Teacher: Monica Johnson
This is an introduction to the historical, cultural, and philosophical foundations of modern education, public, charter, and private, including Montessori education. Students will reflect upon and critique their own educational experiences and articulate their own beliefs and values about teaching, learning, and schooling. Students will also examine current and historical roles, expectations, stereotypes, and characterizations that define teaching, especially Montessori teaching, as a profession.
- Teacher: Connie Laufersky
This class will explore professional development strategies for teachers. Like young students, teachers move through different stages of professional development. The students will use reflective methods of actively conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating. They will discuss and understand five major aspects of guide’s professional growth – intellectual, physical, didactic, moral, and spiritual.
This course provides an introduction to research methods and exposition. Students will acquire fundamental skills in developing and conducting research through the creation of an effective research question, how to write a review of the literature, and develop an understanding of the principles of quantitative and qualitative research methods. In addition, students will gain an understanding of principles of data analysis, interpretation, and presentation of results.
- Teacher: Julie Small
This foundational course introduces and develops a frame of assumptions for strengths-based philosophy, as well as creates a framework for dealing with students from a strengths perspective. Originating from the fields of positive psychology, this course will familiarize students with elements of Seligman’s theory of Positive Psychology, Clifton’s Strengths perspectives, and Purkey’s Invitational Theory. Students will develop a new paradigm that will provide a differentiated lens to observe and evaluate students. The underlying assumption being that all students have talents and potential strengths that can provide a mechanism for performance excellence. Leaders are charged with assisting students in the discovery, development, and application of these strengths