Children of Poverty

Participants look closely at the impact of poverty on learning and the brain. This course explores how educators can meet the needs of children in poverty with the goal of providing classroom environments that develop emotional, social, and academic success. Using the professional text, Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen, and through ongoing discussions, participants understand the nature of poverty, effective strategies for best practice, and the issues that drive change within schools impacted by poverty.

Through demonstrations and discussions, participants learn, co-construct and implement a variety of reading, writing and talking strategies in their classrooms throughout the course. PLN’s frameworks, The Four Lenses of Learning and The Five Reading Writing Talking Processes, provide the foundation for this course as participants explore ways to increase learning for students of poverty. Assignments include a final project and ongoing reflective journals that focus on classroom try-outs and professional readings.