The NEA Foundation Launches New Online Courses to Support Educators
Washington, DC (PRWEB) June 04, 2014 -- To equip educators with the impactful tools they need to lead and transform their profession and public education, the NEA Foundation has created and is sharing a set of open-sourced online courses. The courses were created to provide union and district leaders, and the education sector, with skills and knowledge to support and inspire effective labor-management collaboration necessary for systems change.
“The evidence is clear. Effective education policy and practice can more likely be achieved if the wisdom, experience and expertise of educators at the frontlines of practice is systematically brought to the table,” said Harriet Sanford, President and CEO of the NEA Foundation. “For teachers and unions to be a part of the key decisions that will shape the future of the teaching profession, they must have knowledge and capacity on issues of teaching and learning. These courses are designed to help build both their knowledge and leadership skills.”
The courses evolved out of the NEA Foundation’s work with local union, district, and community teams and are designed to support their collaborative efforts on locally-defined strategies to address teaching and learning issues. Both are sustained by the Foundation’s guiding principle: strong partnerships, among local education unions, school districts, and community organizations, are a powerful force for improving student performance and a vehicle for shared accountability and systemic reform.
The 16 courses now available were developed with input from experts in the field, including Dr. Susan Moore Johnson (Peer Assistance and Review); Dr. Kathleen Skinner (Redesigning Our Work and Teacher Hiring), and Learning Forward (Effective Professional Learning for Educators).
The courses offer ways to ensure better collaboration among education stakeholders and provide a forum to strengthen schools through team-based problem solving. The research-based knowledge and approaches provided in the courses are intended to help build leadership, teacher-led professional growth, and to lay the groundwork for transformative and positive union-district collaboration.
Although they were created with NEA leaders and their district counterparts in mind, the online courses are available at no cost to anyone interested in deepening his or her leadership capacity and knowledge base in order to improve school-wide collaborative efforts.
Posted courses include:
- Leading and Sustaining Reform
- Collaborative Problem and Solving Action
- Facilitating Effective Labor-Management Teams
- Effective School-Community Collaboration
- National and International Forces Affecting Public Education
- Federal and State Policy Environments
- Power, Influence, and Public Education
- Effective Professional Learning for Educators
- Teacher Evaluation
- Teachers Unions and Education Reform
- Peer Assistance and Review (PAR)
- Historical Role of Teachers Unions
- Strategic Compensation
- Redesigning Our Work: Policies, Practices, Contracts, and Agreements
- Teacher Hiring, Placement, Retention, and Tenure
- Brain and Learning
The NEA Foundation will continue to work with educators and experts to update and maintain all of their courses to ensure educators can maximize their usefulness.
ABOUT THE NEA FOUNDATION
The NEA Foundation is a public charity supported by contributions from educators' dues, corporate sponsors, and others who support public education initiatives. We partner with education unions, districts, and communities to create powerful, sustainable improvements in teaching and learning. Visit http://www.neafoundation.org for more information.
Carrie McCloud, The NEA Foundation, http://www.neafoundation.org, +1 202-822-7806, [email protected]
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