professional development

On May 1, online course provider Coursera announced a new partnership that will allow teachers worldwide to take its online courses for free. Courses available to teachers include such topics as introductory teaching, student engagement and successful classroom tactics. So far, 28 courses are listed in the online catalog and will begin each month starting in June and running through November. Classes range from four to 12 weeks long, depending on the course. “We want to help K-12 students by helping their teachers,” Coursera Co-Founder Andrew Ng said, in a statement. “Many schools just don't have the resources to provide teachers and parents the training and support they need. By providing free online courses on how to teach, we hope to improve this.” Some of the courses that will soon be available are: “First Year Teaching – Success from the Start,” and “Integrating Engineering into Your Science Classroom.” The partnership is a collection of U.S.-based universities including the College of Education, University of Washington; Curry School of Education, University of Virginia; Johns Hopkins University School of Education; Match Education’s Sposato Graduate School of Education; Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.; Relay Graduate School of Education; and University of California, Irvine Extension. In addition to partnering with universities, Coursera partners with other educational institutions and museums. I am hoping this will allow my content specialty teachers the support and training they have asked for. I AM KEEPING MY FINGERS CROSSED THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT! I found this out on the School Leadership website, one of the beswt resources on the web. You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Educating-Teachers-via-Free-Online