Professional Development
NC-NET Academy Course Schedule
Spring 2023
Moodle Mastery 102
January 6 – 30, 2023
Early enrollment opens December 12.
Open enrollment begins December 14.
Open enrollment is now available.
Format: This is a 4-week facilitated course with weekly objectives and discussions.
Course completers earn a professional development badge and stipend.
Moodle Mastery 102 is the second course in the Moodle Mastery series. Moodle Mastery 102 will teach and model Moodle tools and strategies to assist with pacing and self-regulated learning. You will practice using tools and techniques to help students regulate their time in the online setting and methods to pace students. Additionally, the course covers advanced gradebook setup, Moodle quiz creation, and discussions forums.
Professional Development Strand – Start Teaching Today!
New-to-Teaching CTE Instructors Scheduled Cohort Section with Capstone Project
Session: CTE Program Cohort
January 20 – February 24, 2023
Early enrollment opens December 13.
Open enrollment begins December 15.
Open enrollment is now available.
Format: A 5-week asynchronous course with weekly objectives and discussions and a facilitated capstone project in Week 5. CTE faculty cohort will be enrolled in all five courses. Completers earn a professional development badge for the strand and a stipend.
What Do I Need for the First Day of Class?
January 20 – 27, 2023
How Do I Create a Positive Classroom Climate?
January 27 – February 3, 2023
How Can I Enrich the Learning Experience?
February 3 – 10, 2023
How Do I Know What They Know? Incorporating Authentic Assessment Practices
February 10 – 17, 2023
CAPSTONE PROJECT: Ready, Set, Go! Next Steps for Instruction
February 17 – 24, 2023
Cyber for CTE: Professional Development for Non-IT Instructors
March 31 – April 24, 2023
Early enrollment opens March 1.
Open enrollment begins March 3.
Format: This is a facilitated 3-week course with weekly objectives and discussions.
Course completers earn a professional development badge.
While responsibility for cybersecurity may technically fall within the IT department, cyber awareness and cyber safety are for everyone. How can you help keep your college system secure? What kinds of cyber incidents are happening to companies in your discipline? In this course we will explore the hidden world behind your keyboard, programs, apps, and smart devices and learn how to prevent electronic intrusions and information theft.
Enriching Courses by Crossing Content Boundaries
Enrollment by CTE Program Cohort
March 10 – April 21, 2023; final projects due April 30
Early enrollment opens February 20.
Open enrollment begins February 22.
Format: This is a facilitated 7-week course with weekly objectives, discussions, and a capstone activity in Week 6. Course completers receive a professional development badge and stipend and may have their final project featured on the NC-NET website.
Career and technical courses offer the ideal integration points for concepts from math and science or for cross-pollination with applications from multiple program areas. In this course you are asked to bring both your technical expertise and your creativity to the instructional design process. This course is designed to open the door to greater student engagement and content understanding by building on existing student interests. You will select from a variety of proven strategies (e.g. case studies, project-based learning, workplace scenario problems) to use as the foundation for your capstone lesson. Collaboration with your colleagues in the course is welcomed.
Habits of Happy Teachers: Perspectives on Thriving in Education
April 15 – May 19, 2023
Early enrollment opens March 29.
Open enrollment begins March 31.
Format: This is a 5-week facilitated course with scheduled weekly objectives and discussions.
Course completers earn a professional development badge and stipend.
Teaching has always been a demanding field, requiring intellectual curiosity, creativity, and stamina. The Covid epidemic and all the restrictions and adaptations it required of the educational environment stressed faculty and students in a multitude of ways. Excitement and motivation for teaching and learning is still in recovery mode. This course provides opportunities for reflecting on our experiences, drawing inspiration from our colleagues, exploring habits that promote wellness, and regaining our “spark.” You will come away with fresh perspectives on educator social-emotional support, stress management, motivation, supportive relationships, successful habits, and much more!
Professional Development Strand – On-Demand Courses— Employability Skills for Student Success in the Workplace
Format: This strand consists of self-paced courses. Self-enroll at any time and participate as time permits.
Completion of each course conveys a professional development mini-badge. Completers of all three courses earn a badge for the strand.
Effective Workplace Communication
Available April 28
Effective workplace communication requires a set of skills—verbal communication, active listening, professional writing, and awareness of nonverbal communication—that can be taught or reinforced in college courses. This course will help you expand your course content to include opportunities for students to demonstrate expected workplace communication protocols for presentations, interviews, and professional emails that are equally helpful in their college courses.
Critical Thinking for the 21st Century
Available May 12
Our students have millions of resources for answering simple questions at their fingertips. But memorizing or searching the internet is not very intellectually stimulating and the knowledge gained is not likely to stick in any meaningful way. What if we took a page from the healthcare, criminal justice, or automotive syllabus and challenged our students with problem- or case-based learning? In this course you will learn how to teach critical thinking processes such as analysis, application, synthesis, and reflection and develop activities for students to practice using them.
Collaborative Problem-solving
Available May 26
Collaborative problem-solving calls upon both effective workplace communication and critical thinking and adds teamwork to the mix. Whether students love working in teams or hate it, they can’t avoid it. In nearly any workplace setting—fire station, clinic, manufacturing plant, restaurant—students will eventually work as a team to think creatively and practically to resolve issues. Learn how to lead them through the team formation, action, and debrief processes and most importantly, how to resolve disputes that sometimes arise.
Professional Development Strand – Start Teaching Today!
On-Demand Courses for New-to-Teaching CTE Instructors
Format: This strand consists of self-paced courses. Self-enroll at any time and participate as time permits.
Completion of each course conveys a professional development mini-badge. Completers of all four courses earn a badge for the strand. Please note: Stipends are not awarded for participation in these self-paced courses.
What Do I Need for the First Day of Class?
Self-enrollment is now available , you can find instructions at the bottom of this page.
You’ve been hired for your professional experience and subject-matter expertise but have never taught. Now what? If you are unsure about where to begin, this is the course for you. You will have access to tips and tools that will help you launch your successful teaching career. The other courses in this strand will then help you take it to the next level.
How Do I Create a Positive Classroom Climate to Support Adult Learners?
Self-enrollment is now available, you can find instructions at the bottom of this page.
Learning environments play a key role in establishing classroom climate. Both physical and online classrooms need to optimize positive student interaction with the content, each other, and the instructor. In this time of both human and computer viruses, safety is a fundamental consideration. You will also want to consider how socio-emotional factors impact adult learning. How does providing frequent communication, setting clear expectations, and practicing inclusivity help you build a supportive, respectful climate? This course is designed to help you examine the total learning environment through your students’ eyes.
How Can I Enrich the Learning Experience? Making “A-ha!” Happen
Self-enrollment is now available, you can find instructions at the bottom of this page.
Student engagement with the concepts they are learning provides more “a-ha!” moments (and content retention) than memorization plus testing or other low-engagement teaching methods. What you might not know is that it makes teaching more fun when you are the facilitator not just the content provider. Hands-on learning is a natural fit for career and technical education but hands-on is only part of the active learning toolbox. In this course you will be introduced to a range of student engagement strategies and will select 1-2 to integrate into your teaching practice.
How Do I Know What They Know? Incorporating Authentic Assessment Practices
Self-enrollment is now available, you can find instructions at the bottom of this page.
While our students take myriad assessments over their educational career, they probably only remember the summative, high-stakes tests—like those for professional certification or licensure. But formative, low-stakes tests (and other assessments) provide useful snapshots along the way that can tell us what students understand right now and whether they are likely to be able to build on that knowledge in the future. In this course, you will learn how to develop assessments that create a natural feedback loop for your teaching practice, providing opportunities for concept clarification and student referral to additional resources.
Self-Registration and Enrollment Directions for Self-Paced Courses
Step One: Create an account here.
*Note – The registration system is only open to North Carolina Community College System email accounts, i.e. Jane@alamancecc.edu.
Step Two: Enroll in the selected self-paced course(s).
*Note – Facilitated courses are not available for self-registration and enrollment. Only self-paced courses are available for self-registration and enrollment.
Questions? Please email academy@nc-net.info for additional information.