• Please sign-up for your course(s) thru X2.  https://ma-lowell.myfollett.com

      Steps to registering for your course in X2 can be found here

     

    Working in partnership with Fitchburg State University (FSU), the Lowell Teacher Academy (LTA) is offering for Summer 2019 the graduate courses listed below.  These courses are for all teachers as well as paras with a Bachelor's Degree.  The courses may be taken for PDPs (67.5) or for three graduate credits.

    If you wish to take a course for PDPs, there will be a $150 charge.  As a convenience, the $150 PDP fee will be deducted automatically from your 2018-2019 Tuition Allowance of $1,000.  You will need to sign a reimbursement approval form for the PDP transaction at the first class. 

    The cost of taking a course for graduate credit (3 credits) is $295.  Please note the $295 fee for the course will be paid directly to FSU on the first day of class either by check or credit card, so be sure to bring one or the other to class.  

    Attached is a Reimbursement Packet.  The "Employee Course Reimbursement" form will need to be signed by your principal prior to taking the class.  Please hold on to this form until the end of the semester.  When you receive your grade, you will then follow the instructions in the packet for course reimbursement. 

    In addition to the $295 fee payable to FSU, there is a $50 Instructor Fee to help defray costs.  As a convenience, the $50 Instructor Fee will be deducted automatically from your 2018-2019 Tuition Allowance of $1,000.  You will need to sign an approval form for the Instructor Fee transaction at the first class.

     

    Creating a Positive Learning Environment

    Location: Morey School
    Days/Dates: July 8 - 12, 2019
    Time: 8:00 - 4:00
    Instructor(s): Donna Bejaniance

    Description:  This course will focus on deepening understanding and expertise in building a community of learners and developing self-awareness and self-control in students so that academic achievement is well supported by pro-social development. The course will also examine the integration of instruction and management into the planning and implementation of lessons.  Readings from research literature and current practice will frame discussion, inquiry, and analysis of the complexities of building a positive classroom culture as well as serve as comparison points to their classroom and school's current management and discipline systems. In addition, problem-solving, readings, and video clips will give teachers the opportunity to probe underlying principles and acquire strategies to empower all students to become more respectful, effective learners and meet high expectations. Teachers will use Lowell's current curriculum materials to apply course concepts and strategies in job-embedded assignments.

     

    Differentiated Instruction

    Location: Morey School Library
    Days/Dates: July 15-19
    Time: 8-4
    Instructor(s): Kate Garabedian

    Description:  Differentiation is an approach to teaching that advocates active planning for and attention to the diverse needs of students in classrooms, in the context of high quality curriculums. This course will focus on how to accommodate the different ways that students learn by differentiating at least four classroom elements based on student readiness, interest, or learning profile: Content what students need to learn or how the student will get access to the information; Process –activities in which the student engages in order to make sense of or master the content; Products-culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what she/he has learned in a unit; Learning environment  and affect  - the way the classroom works and feels.  The course will also address the links between Differentiation and Learning Profiles, Brain Research, Language Acquisition, and Teacher Inquiry.  Readings from research literature and current practice will frame discussion, inquiry, and analysis of the complexities of teaching urban students.  Areas of specific study will include special education, second language learners, gifted and talented, technology and rubric design.   Course participants will create a differentiated unit of study to use in their teaching.

     

    Mentoring in a Community of Learners

    Location: Butler School
    Days/Dates: July 22- 26, 2019
    Time: 8:00 - 4:00
    Instructor: Karen Walton

    Description:  This course is framed by the theoretical and historical foundations of mentoring as well as interactive learning opportunities that will help mentors bridge theory to their mentoring practice. The course focuses on the conceptualization of mentoring as a support, both personal and professional, and challenge educational inequities and assumptions about teaching and learning, for new special education teachers as well as mentors. In course sessions, candidates will discuss, observe, role play, analyze, and reflect upon a range of mentoring strategies and skills that will become embedded in their work with special education mentees. In addition, course candidates will gain understanding of the topics addressed in the new teacher course, Teaching Students with Special Needs in an Urban Setting, in order to effectively address the mentees’ learning needs. This mentor preparation course is designed to equip the special educator mentors to meet the increased demands new special educators are faced within terms of teaching students not only with diverse linguistic, educational, cultural backgrounds, and social economical but also social emotional challenges. More importantly mentors will provide them with immediate supports, strategies, and understandings of the wide spectrum of disabilities and behaviors that students possess in urban classrooms today.

     

    Cambodian Ceramics and Culture

    Location: Middlesex Community College/Pyne Arts
    Days/Dates: August 5-9, 2019
    Time: 8:00 am – 4:00 PM
    Instructor(s): Jacqueline Miller & Guest Artist Yary Livan

    Description: This is a 37.5 hour course that will involve candidates working in Studio to explore advanced approaches to working with clay and creating technically and aesthetically advanced sculptural work.  Candidates will learn traditional Khmer ornamentation and create unique designs of their own by combining basic joinery methods and exploring qualities of clay and its three dimensional potential.  Candidates will learn when and how to fire green ware: learn to load, seal and operate, close down the wood fire kiln and gain insight into glaze outcomes as influenced by kiln conditions. In addition, candidates will gain an understanding  Cambodia its Culture, population, geography and how real life Cambodian families exist in America today.