Professional Development Courses

After you have become a teacher or other education professional, you will be required to take continuing education courses to maintain your certified status. At VESi, we work with over 65 accredited institutions to provide you the distance education credits that meet your individual needs from clock hours to graduate credit. For a list of our partner institutions with links to detailed information about the VESi courses they offer, click here. To learn about your state's unique certification requirements, click here.

Advanced Classroom Management
Children as Change Agents©
This course is geared primarily for professionals (e.g., regular or special educators, instructional assistants, school psychologist, counselors) serving children and youths presenting behavior problems in the school or community. This course focuses on cognitive and cognitive-behavioral interventions (often lumped together under the rubric “social skills”) with an emphasis on teaching students how to change and manage their own behavior. Since previous knowledge and understanding of traditional behavioral (operant) concepts and strategies is required, it is strongly recommended that you take an introductory behavior management course to learn the basic terms and concepts of behavior management prior to taking this “advanced” course.

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Attention Deficit Disorder
Information & Interventions for Effective Teaching©
This course will help you achieve a better understanding of ADD and intervention strategies to facilitate positive student change. Taught by Mick R. Jackson MS/ED, this course covers the history of the disorder, accepted methods to assess and identify students with the disorder, and various methods, medications, and strategies that currently used to treat the disorder. And for situations where a student needs services beyond what you can provide in the classroom, you will learn about the referral process for getting help for the student. Reference materials include a list of resources for both teachers and parents who would like more help or information about ADD or ADHD.

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Autism & Asperger's Disorder
Information & Effective Intervention Strategies
This course describes Autism and Asperger's Disorder, including characteristics of these disorders, associated learning styles, communication weaknesses, and various intervention strategies. The course helps you make sense out of why individuals with Autism spectrum disorders act the way they do, and what you can do to enhance more appropriate behavior. This course also lists resources for educators, related service personnel, and parents who want more help or information on Autism and Asperger's Disorder.

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Basic Skills Test Prep Course
Prep Course for Basic Skills Exam
(PRAXIS-PPST, WEST-B, CLAST, ICTS, MTTC)
This course is designed to help you achieve a better understanding of the content and context of your state basic skills examination. The course will thoroughly review and teach the core information in each subject area tested, with added emphasis on test-taking strategies and test-taking time management. This expert instruction has been developed into a specially designed at-home practice program. This complete basic skills prep course has video, study materials, and special handouts to focus your learning on essential content in math, written language, reading comprehension, and essay writing.

Behavior Is Language
Strategies for Managing Disruptive Behavior©
This course is designed to give you a new perspective on student behavior and effective tools to facilitate positive student change. Taught by Mick R. Jackson MS/ED, this course provides a developmental framework to help you understand what students are trying to tell you through the "language" of their behavior. You will learn behavioral techniques and intervention strategies that remediate disruptive behaviors, reduce power struggles while increasing classroom control, reduce your workload, and help prevent burnout. After successfully completing this course, you (and your students) will be better equipped to find and implement creative, effective solutions to behavioral problems.

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Child Abuse
Information & Interventions for Effective Teaching©
Welcome to Child Abuse: Working with Abused and Neglected Children, an interactive computer-based instruction (CBI) course designed to help you identify and effectively teach students affected by child abuse and/or neglect. This course teaches you to recognize the signs of physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect in students. It also discusses the specific factors that exist in families who abuse or neglect their children. A major emphasis in this course is on helping the participant understand the special learning needs of the abused or neglected child and how to meet those needs in the regular classroom. Working with parents and community agencies is also emphasized.

This course meets the child abuse and neglect educational requirement in most states. It is the responsibility of the student to verify the course content with your specific state professional licensing agency to ensure proper credit.

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Drugs & Alcohol in School
Understanding Substance Use & Abuse©
Take this course to gain a more comprehensive understanding of alcohol, drugs, and their influences in your classroom. This course provides a contextual framework for understanding what students may be experiencing either through their own substance use or from the substance use of persons close to them. Taught by Casey Jackson, this course provides a basic historical perspective of substance use along with the biological, psychological, and social factors that comprise the disease of addiction. Upon course completion, you will better understand the complex dynamics that contribute to this biological and social phenomenon.

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Educational Assessment
Assessing Student Learning in the Classroom©
This course is designed to further develop the conceptual and technical skills required by teachers to help them identify their educational goals, and implement meaningful instructional strategies for effective learning by students with special needs. The focus of this course will therefore be on assessment for instructional programming. The course will outline procedures for designing or selecting, administering and interpreting, a variety of informal assessment measures typically used in schools. The presentation of assessment information in an acceptable format to parents and teachers will also be addressed.

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Functional Analysis
Introduction to Completing Behavior Assessments©
This interactive course will help you achieve a better understanding of Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and Positive Behavior Support (PBS) strategies that you can use to facilitate positive student behavior. Because the results of FBAs often lead to proactive intervention, this course is particularly useful for educators who work with students with disabilities. This course includes an overview of the hierarchy of assessment procedures used to conduct FBAs, and details the procedures and treatment packages that can be implemented based on the results of functional analyses. Particular emphasis is placed on reinforcement-based interventions and dimensions of reinforcement.

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Inclusion
Working with Special Needs Students in Mainstream
Classrooms©
This interactive course is designed to help special and general educators gain a better understanding of inclusion, one of the current educational reform movements that advocates educating students with disabilities in the general education classrooms. Upon course completion, you will be able to define key concepts and terms, identify and describe federal legislature and court cases, and list and describe the federal definition of students entitled to special services. This course will also help you identify the roles and responsibilities of educators in providing special services to students educated in inclusive classrooms

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Infant and Toddler Mental Health
Issues and Information for Educators©
This course is designed to help educators achieve a better understanding of infant and toddler mental health, child development, and strategies that can be used to promote positive relationships with children and their families. This course provides information that will help the learner understand and identify his or her role as a child care provider, educator, and early childhood professional. Infant and Toddler Mental Health provides research-based information on child development, attachment, temperament, and curriculum. This course also lists resources for both teachers and parents who would like more help or information about infant and toddler mental health.

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Learning Disabilities
Practical Information for Classroom Teachers©
This course describes diverse theoretical approaches to handling learning disabilities in the classroom. Taught by Dr. Bob Pillay, this course lays the foundation for sensitive, appropriate assessment and evaluation of students. In addition, this course covers program planning and implementation, stresses the importance of a close, positive partnership with parents or alternative caregivers, and explores methods for ensuring that the home-school axis is effective and meaningful. You will also learn about major trends and unresolved issues in the field of learning disabilities.

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Reading Fundamentals #1
An Introduction to Scientifically-Based Research©
The purpose of this course is to improve your knowledge of science and the scientific process. This is the first course in a three-course series.

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Reading Fundamentals #2
Laying the Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction©
Designed to lay the foundation for effective reading instruction, this course will teach you about the elements of effective instruction and the importance of reading instruction.

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Reading Fundamentals #3
This course will focus on learning to read, reading to learn, and an introduction to reading assessment. As part of these key areas of reading instruction, the five elements of effective reading instruction will be highlighted, including definitions, implications for instruction and future directions.

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Talented and Gifted
Working with High Achievers©
Talented and Gifted Education provides information on the history of the exceptional in relation to education, current law, and accepted methods for referral, assessment, and identification of these students. The course also covers major program models and methods of differentiating instruction to meet the rate and level of learning of those students identified. The course gives you an understanding of ways to meet the affective needs of the gifted and talented student in the regular classroom. This course also lists resources for teachers and parents who would like more information about the talented and gifted.

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Teaching Diversity
This course is designed to give you the knowledge, tools and dispositions to effectively facilitate a diverse classroom. This course will help you understand and identify differences in approaches to learning and performance, including different learning styles and ways in which students demonstrate learning. An emphasis in this course will be on understanding how students' learning is influenced by individual experiences, talents, disabilities, gender, language, culture, family and community values. You will be challenged to apply knowledge of the richness of contributions from our diverse society to your teaching field.

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Traumatized Child
The Effects of Stress, Trauma and Violence on Student
Learning©
This course is designed to help classroom teachers, school counselors, and other educational personnel gain strategies to reach and teach students who have been affected by stress, trauma, and/or violence. Participants will learn the signs and symptoms of stress and trauma. Participants will explore how stress, violence, and trauma affect a student's learning, cognitive brain development, and social-emotional development. The short and long term consequences of being exposed to stress, trauma, or violence, as well as the social and family causes, will be reviewed. Participants will learn the dynamics of domestic violence and community violence. The educator's role in the intervention and prevention of violence will be discussed.

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Understanding Aggression
Coping with Aggressive Behavior in the Classroom©
Understanding Aggression includes topics on violence, aggression in the classroom, youth gangs, aggression in sports and on television, how drugs and alcohol play a role in aggression and violence, and "hot spots" that tend to breed aggression and violence The course helps school personnel become more aware of the causes of aggression and ways to evaluate aggression and intervene before the aggression turns to violence in the schools. The course also speaks about aggression in our communities through driving, dating, sports, television, music and how these issues are dealt with in modern society.

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Violence in Schools
Identification, Prevention, and Intervention Strategies©
This course is designed to give you a better understanding of school violence and increase your intervention strategies. Taught by Dr. Michael Sedler, this course provides an overview of violence and the motivational purposes behind aggression. The correlation and impact of the media, community, and family upon violence is investigated. You will learn identification and intervention approaches to working with out-of-control behaviors. In addition, you will receive information about the national resources available for both parents and teachers. Upon successful completion of this course, you will have a better understanding of violence and the motivations behind the use of violence, as well as specific strategies to minimize the occurrence of violence in a school and community.

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