The Motivated Teacher

EDZU 9914 (3 credits / 45 hours)

Location: Online
Instructor: Kyle Black

Start Date: 07/31/2024
End Date: 08/20/2024

Course Syllabus

This course is for any teacher that wants to continue, maintain and/or grow their love, enjoyment, passion and motivation for their profession for the remainder of their career. Teachers taking this course will reflect on the tremendous impact they have on their students’ lives. Teachers need this reminder regularly to reinforce the noble work they do each day. They will learn strategies and new ideas to stay motivated and passionate professionally throughout their teaching career and will reflect on ways to apply them to their own lives. They will learn how to balance their work and life to stay healthy and happy. They will learn the realities of teacher-burnout, how to identify it, and how to combat it quickly. In the end, teachers will create a Motivation Maintenance Plan as a reference to stay on the right track. Why is this course vital? How would you like to be at the end of your teaching career? Pleased, positive and passionate? Or exhausted, irritated and burnt-out? You know what the answer is. Most have experienced colleagues or teachers from their childhood on both ends of this spectrum. The choice is yours, but you need to be prepared to combat obstacles that will arise and come out stronger. A happy and passionate educator results in a more content and rewarding life for the teacher, and a more beneficial experience for the students. It’s a win-win situation.

Teachers enrolled in this course will...

Know

• The positives and negatives of teaching, and how the positives outweigh the negatives
• How to identify if you need a refreshed motivation for teaching
• Statistics related to teacher-burnout

Understand

• The influential role a teacher can have on children
• Strategies to create work/life balance (meditation, yoga, exercise, nutrition, handling stress, getting enough sleep, and more)
• Strategies to combat teacher burn-out (positive relationships with colleagues, remind yourself why you love teaching, be more creative with lesson planning, work/life balance, have a stress outlet, pursue another degree/certification, anticipate ups and downs, and more)

and Be Able To

• Create a Maintaining Motivation Plan Reference Sheet with reminders of strategies of how to stay motivated/passionate and to combat burnout
• Reflect on the positive impact you have as a teacher on children’s lives
• Discuss motivating quotes related to the teaching profession