Instructional Paraprofessional

Hours: 64 / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

Instructional Paraprofessionals play an important role in the classroom. This course gives an overview of the role the paraprofessional plays in the assisting the teacher and the students and how the teacher and paraprofessional can work together to create effective learning environments. The course will cover how to manage the classroom, characteristics of learners and how to support them and ways to improve instructional effectiveness.

Students will:

• Identify the role of a paraprofessional in the US Educational System.
• Explain how to create an inclusive classroom.
• Describe best practices in working as a team member with your supervisor.
• Describe characteristics of effective instruction.
• Identify characteristics of a well-organized classroom environment.
• Explain how individual characteristics of student might affect how they learn.
• Identify laws that affect paraprofessionals.
• Identify ethical professional behavior.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: What is a Paraprofessional?

In this lesson, you will learn about the role of the paraprofessional in education. The nature of the work is explored, along with the history of paraprofessionals in the classroom.

Lesson 2: Communicating in the Classroom

This lesson is about collaborating in education. Topics will include working under supervision and working within a larger team. The educational team consists of more than just the paraprofessional and the supervising teacher. This lesson identifies those other members of the team and how they can be involved in collaboration for more effective outcomes.

Lesson 3: Inclusive Education

Lesson 3 will cover the meaning of inclusive education in a larger arena that includes special education. You will explore the facets of special education and how to create an inclusive environment were students of all abilities are supported.

Lesson 4: Effective Instruction

In this lesson, you will learn strategies for providing and assisting with effective instruction. This includes presuming competence in our most vulnerable students and supporting students with cognitive disabilities. You will also learn about how to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of instruction.

Lesson 5: Social and Behavioral Supports

In this lesson, we will explore the ways to support students emotionally and socially. Not all supports for students are academic. Some students will need support to become independent workers and thinkers.

Lesson 6: Classroom Management

This lesson focuses on ways to promote effective behavior with classroom management. This includes how rules are enforced, consequences for inappropriate behaviors, ways to recognize appropriate behaviors, and time management in the classroom.

Lesson 7: Laws and Ethics

Working with children is a highly regulated profession and so there are a lot of laws, ethics, and professional best practices that must be followed in the classroom. This lesson will focus on those federal, state, and local laws that may affect paraprofessionals.

Lesson 8: Self-Care

This final lesson is about exploring ways and tools for self-care. It is impossible to continue to care for others when you are overwhelmed or fatigued. This lesson will provide some tools for being mentally prepared for helping others every day.

All necessary course materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.