The UFT’s popular LearnUFT courses, which offer members low-cost opportunities to participate in professional learning while earning Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) hours, will be offered remotely this winter and spring.

LearnUFT’s January 2021 courses will be offered at no cost to members. Beginning in February 2021, the two hour courses will cost $30 for teachers and $15 for paraprofessionals.

Educators will have the opportunity to learn about practical instructional tools and strategies that can be used in both blended and remote classrooms. All courses will take place on the Zoom platform.

UFT members can choose from three initial courses:

1. All About G Suite
Acquire basic knowledge of G Suite tools, explore ideas for using G Suite in the classroom and create an action plan to integrate G Suite collaborative tools in the classroom.

2. Educational Equity: Advocating for Our Multilingual Learners
Build a toolkit of strategies to effectively advocate for multilingual learners and practice using advocacy tools in a school setting while also learning instructional strategies.

3. Second Language Acquisition: Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners
Examine the characteristics of English language learners at each stage of language acquisition and explore effective instructional strategies that support English language learners at each stage of the second language acquisition process.

The latter two courses will offer credit toward the requirement that teachers and paraprofessionals earn 15 CTLE hours in the education of English language learners.

More courses will be offered later in the spring.

Instructors for the courses, which were developed by educational experts at the UFT Teacher Center, are teachers and UFT members themselves.

New York State regulations require all teachers who hold professional certificates and paraprofessionals who hold Level III teaching assistant certificates to collect and track 100 state-approved professional development hours in five-year cycles.

An authorized CTLE provider, the UFT is committed to maintaining the records of its course participants so members can easily provide proof of these CTLE hours if the state audits them.