Tech & Learning - June 2008 - (Page 48)

MAKING THE GRADE Educational partnership brings high-quality online professional development opportunities to Clark County School District Teachers Finding innovative ways to provide quality professional development to improve student achievement and retain teachers is foremost on Kevin Nielsen’s mind. Nielsen is the Program Facilitator at the Clark County Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), collaboration between the Clark County School District (CCSD), the Clark County Education Association (CCEA), Touro University-Nevada and other institutions of higher education. CTE approves and provides professional development options for Clark County teachers looking to enhance their education while earning graduate credits that apply towards salary increase in their district. Educators may advance on the pay scale by completing two 18-Graduate Credit Programs through partner universities that have been approved by the CTE. CTE was tasked with finding The company that consistently surfaced in his research was Knowledge Delivery Systems (KDS), a provider of award-winning online professional development courses for K-12 educators in high-interest topics, such as Differentiated Instruction, Classroom Management, School Leadership, English Language Learners, Students with Learning Disabilities, Gifted Education, Literacy and Mathematics. Nielsen immediately realized that this was the exact type of offering from which his partners at Touro University-Nevada would benefit. High-quality and interactive online professional development opportunities fit right into Touro University-Nevada’s vision of “educating caring professionals to serve, to lead, to teach.” In Kevin’s opinion, KDS offers “phenomenal programs that are teacherfriendly, loaded with relevant content that teachers are thrilled to implement immediately.” He quickly set up a meeting between KDS, Touro University-Nevada and CTE. That meeting set in motion what he describes as “the most successful partnership” that he has launched to date. As a facilitator of online courses at Touro University-Nevada, David Garner, Associate Professor at the School of Education, has been pleasantly overwhelmed by the positive response to KDS Courses from teachers. “At Touro University-Nevada, we have teachers who have taught for nearly 30 years telling us that KDS courses opened their eyes to new ways to affect student learning,” remarked Garner. SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF TECH&LEARNING dynamic and comprehensive professional development offerings that would attract teachers to the program while motivating them to further their continuing education. Kevin spent hours researching quality professional development options for teachers in Clark County. In order to meet the schedules of busy educators, he specifically sought professional development courses that were offered online. He was also looking for courses that covered topics that were relevant and critical to the mission of improving student achievement. Garner attributes much of this to the valuable content of KDS Courses, as well as the fact that teachers are not just watching experts lecture, but they are experiencing the experts teach in real classroom settings. He noted that many participating educators have remarked how easy it was to apply the practical methodologies learned through KDS Courses to what they were actually teaching in their classrooms. “These are some of the best professional development courses I have ever participated in,” Garner states. In fact, Touro UniversityNevada has been so pleased with the partnership that they have asked to join KDS in creating new course content as part of their full online Master’s Degree program for teachers throughout the State of Nevada. The success of the partnership is clear at CTE as well. Nielsen remarked that he has been extremely impressed by the “flexibility and willingness shown by KDS to meet the needs of our organization.” According to Kevin, since partnering with KDS and Touro University-Nevada, CTE has seen significant increases in the number of teachers registering for online courses. He attributes this burgeoning popularity to the timely professional development offerings, which feature the unique combination of world-renowned lecturers and flexible online access to accommodate the demands of a busy teacher’s schedule. For more information about KDS, please call 1-800-728-0032, or visit: www.kdsi.org http://www.kdsi.org http://www.kdsi.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - June 2008

Technology & Learning - June 2008 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends They Said It: What Tech&Learning Insiders Are Writing Online Junket Justifiers Back Office Business Students of the World Unite! Get Small for Fall Summer Reading for School Leaders They Can Hear You Now What's New - NECC Highlights and More Leader of the Year Profile

Technology & Learning - June 2008

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