Maintaining Teacher Certification

As I end the last class that I signed up for to maintain my teaching certificate, I would like to reflect on my experiences in these classes the last few months.  I took three classes during this time:  Diversity, Reading, and Exceptional Children.

The Diversity class was a face-to-face class that met every day for one week, and the class was as diverse as the subject matter.  The instructor offered modes of instruction that I'd never tried but have incorporated into my classroom, such as assigning each student as a subject-matter expert, giving the students materials they need, and asking them to present to the class.  

The Exceptional Children class was an online class that served as a comprehensive review of the laws and current practices that both protect and nurture students who fall outside of that term "regular."  I was impressed with the instructor's organization and with the pace of the course.  There were a few students who seemed to forget that everyone in the class is a teaching professional; they'd respond to posts with negative comments, such as "I am worried for your students" because of the teacher's interaction with students, completely undermining the point of the exercise we might have been working on.  I'll review the book that we used in the reading class in my next blog post.