Closing the Gap: Focusing on Critical Literacy and Math Skills

(Grades K-5) / Flex Course

PDI Course Number: 157T02 / UCSD Course Number: EDUC42528

Course Description

Are you struggling to find ways to identify and reduce the achievement gap you are seeing in your classroom? Do you want to learn how to shift your mindset from a loss perspective to sustainable learning? Teachers across the nation are searching for best practices to close the achievement gap, especially as it applies to the essential skills of literacy and math. Instead of focusing on learning that has been “lost,” the consensus is that there is a need to “slow down to speed up.” This online course is designed to equip K-5 teachers with numerous strategies to help students master essential literacy and math skills by taking learning deeper, not wider, making it sustainable. The course begins by outlining the learning process and discussing several factors that promote deeper learning, or mastery, of content. Teachers will learn that a critical piece of teaching these essential skills is fostering collaborative learning. As the course progresses, teachers will take a deep dive into each essential learning skill as it relates to literacy and mathematics. Numerous strategies to assess and teach each of these critical skills will be provided. Finally, teachers will be introduced to the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework, and they will learn how to promote cross-curricular thinking. Using a strengths-based approach to learning, teachers will understand the relationship between literacy and math and how these seemingly different content areas can be used to leverage one another. By the end of this course, teachers will feel more confident and successful in their quest to embed a variety of evidence-based strategies into their own teaching habits to help foster sustainable learning and promote future college and career success. This course is worth 3 ⅓ semester units/5 quarter units (50 hours of training) from University of California San Diego (UCSD) Division of Extended Studies. For detailed information on university credit, click here.