Iowa Public Television

PBS TeacherLine Wins Two Prestigious Awards!
In April of 2007, TeacherLine was awarded the Best Online Instruction Solution CODiE Award by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and the 2007 21st Century Best Practices in Distance Learning Award by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA).

PBS TeacherLine Expands in Iowa
In June of 2007, IPTV was awarded an additional grant from the US Department of Education through PBS to expand the reach of PBS TeacherLine online professional development courses in Iowa. The grant allows all Iowa educators to register for TeacherLine courses through Grant Wood, Prairie Lakes, Northwest, Green Valley and Heartland Area Education Agencies.

Meet the TeacherLine Facilitators
A large part of the success of PBS TeacherLine courses is due to experienced, local facilitators who not only know the course material, but are skilled at teaching online. Meet Iowa's TeacherLine facilitators to learn more about the guiding forces behind the courses!

Michelle Ahrenholtz

Mary Carpenter

Tina DeYoung

Nancy Janney

Karen O'Loughlin

Theresa Presley

Diane Royer

Summer 2008 Course Offerings
June 16-July 25

MATH Fostering Cooperative Learning in Elementary Math (Grades 1-5) Facilitator: Nancy Janney Highly-developed collaborative and critical thinking skills are what your students need to meet standards and perform in high-stakes testing. Expand your collection of strategies for sharpening these skills using classroom technology. Discover activities designed to support collaboration and problem solving within the curriculum while addressing National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards.   Enabling Students with Special Needs to Succeed in Math Class (Grades 4-8) Facilitator:To Be Arranged Make mathematics accessible and understandable for all students, including those with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates equity so that, whenever possible, students with disabilities learn in the same classrooms and with the same curricula as their peers. In this course, you will learn how to adapt your own curricula and work with special needs teachers to help your students succeed in the classroom. As your final task, you will develop a plan that builds accessibility strategies into your daily teachings.   SCIENCE Science and the Living World - Special Collection: Teachers' Domain, produced by WGBH Boston Facilitator: To Be Arranged A topic immersion course on Teaching Elementary Life Science. Explore the essential question of how to use processes of scientific inquiry to learn and teach about the living world. Examine the characteristics common to all organisms and learn techniques to surface your students' prior knowledge and understanding.   Motion and Forces in Your World - Special Collection: Teachers' Domain, produced by WGBH Boston Facilitator: To Be Arranged A topic immersion course on Teaching Elementary Physical Science. Look at examples of motion in the world to understand how and why things move. Explore concepts of motion, force, speed and acceleration, and investigate ways for your students to identify and build upon prior knowledge.

READING/LANGUAGE ARTS Children's Authors on the Web/Sites that Motivate Students to Write Facilitator: Michelle Ahrenholtz Connecting with authors motivates students to read and write. In this course, learners will explore author studies and learn how to use technology to introduce the idea of "authorship" to their students. Learners will explore author Web sites and other Internet sources in order to build a collection of resources that introduce students to a variety of genres, as well as encourage students to experiment with communicating in different forms with others.   Teaching Reading in the Content Areas Facilitator: Tina DeYoung This course is designed to give you strategies for teaching reading in the content areas and information on how to use reading strategies for all students in grades 3-12. You will explore learning environments that promote effective reading and learning, specific skills and knowledge that students need in order to read content material effectively, and strategies to help students become more effective readers and independent learners. You will also plan learning experiences that encourage students to access prior knowledge, set a purpose or target for reading, organize ideas, select appropriate strategies to make meaningful connections, summarize and take notes, and reflect on what they have discovered through their reading.

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES Inquiry-Based Learning in the Classroom Facilitator: Diane Royer Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method that invites students to explore a question or problem, to make discoveries, and thoughtfully investigate those discoveries in their search for knowledge. Through a dynamic combination of text, video, interactive activities, and online discussion, learners explore the main components and discover the value of inquiry-based learning.

Creating Units to Support Differing Learning Styles Facilitator: Karen O’Loughlin Unlock the secrets to developing a curriculum that meets the learning needs of different types of students. Create a cross-curricular unit that integrates technology to support learning, and plan lessons that address the different ways that your students learn. Activities will help you build flexibility into your lesson plans, enabling you to integrate your new knowledge into your instruction.

Utilizing Technology in Creating a Problem-Based Curriculum Facilitator: To Be Arranged Apply new strategies to develop your students’ problem-solving skills. Discover how technology can enhance their ability to state problems, pose questions, find answers, and, ultimately, approach learning as a continuous interaction with their world. Then, select a problem for your students to solve and craft a lesson plan that demonstrates the learning process.

TECHNOLOGY Teaching and Learning with Graphic Organizers Featuring Inspiration © Facilitator: Mary Carpenter Electronic graphic organizers can help students organize ideas, convey complex concepts, progress through the steps of the writing process, and develop their mathematical and scientific thinking skills. Address different learning styles by presenting information in a visual format that shows the connections between concepts. Learn to apply such electronic graphic organizers as Inspiration© across the curriculum, throughout all grade levels, at learning stations, and in computer labs. Expand and enhance student thinking and learning for presentations and personal productivity.

All Iowa teachers are eligible to take locally facilitated PBS TeacherLine courses for professional development or graduate credit through the following AEAs: