WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The School of Education at Wilkes University has more than just college students in mind when it comes to learning right now. It's concerned with students in the city around campus and how it can help them and their teachers through the challenges of online learning.
"We have been able to design free webinars to offer to the local teachers and administrators to meet their needs of what they need professionally, right here, right now, at this time," said Rhonda Rabbitt, dean of the School of Education.
Rabbitt says some of the webinars are focused on cultural competence, or aimed at helping students whose second language is English learn online.
"I really worry about those children who are at critical developmental stages of learning, like how to read, so we have another session for literacy online. Cybersecurity is an issue for a lot of people and number one for me is how do you keep relationships first in a virtual environment?" Rabbitt said.
Rabbitt says she was skeptical at first that relationships between students and teachers couldn't be fostered while they are learning from home, but she says video conferencing has changed her mind.
"The whole person is present in that learning environment and if you're not aware of how somebody is feeling, how they're distracted, what their needs are, you won't be able to get to the learning zone."
While people with the School of Education at Wilkes University say their hearts are with the teachers in Wilkes-Barre, the webinars are open to anyone.
With everybody being virtual now, everybody being online, this just seemed like a natural way to go. It's a pilot program and if it's successful, which I think it is because we've already had at least 30 inquiries this morning on the offer, so it may become part of our future."
No pre-registration is required. Teachers who wish to obtain Act 48 credit for the webinars should contact Renee Sipple at renee.sipple@wilkes.edu.
Teachers can find the complete program listing and the Zoom links for each session at this link.