The Teacher Assistant program is designed to provide students the knowledge and skill development needed to assist the classroom teacher in inclusive educational settings with children and youth. The program combines theory and practical application for elementary and secondary age students in the K-12 school system.
Please click on the name of a course to see more information about it.
Child Development
This course focuses on the development of children from conception through adolescence. We will look at different types and ways development happens. Development is a life long process. This course includes a broad background in developmental theory, the emphasis is on applications.
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Adolescent Development
This course will help you understand the challenges many adolescents face and why. Adolescents will go through many changes and that can be trying for them, you, and families. You will learn helpful techniques of communication to use and share with your students and families. Adolescents need to be appreciated for the diversity of themselves, their families, communities, and cultures that all work together to help make them who they are.
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Child Guidance
This course focuses on positive, authoritative child guidance, based on principles of developmentally appropriate practice or DAP. You will explore the different approaches to guiding a child through different experiences while learning the best guiding technique to ensure the experiences will be positive ones.
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Health and Safety
This course provides an important framework for looking at health promotion in early childhood settings. You will find health information and support essential for professionals who interact with children.
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School Age Children
This course offers a logical progression of experiences and suggestions for creating an optimum environment for school age children. Concepts that will be examined are the characteristics of school age children and optimal learning conditions for this age group. You will also view ways to help you learn how to help children in various competencies throughout different stages of childhood.
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Autism
This course will help explore the many complexities of Autism Spectrum Disorders. You will review some characteristics associated with ASD. You will discover many strategies to help teach communication, self monitoring, and social skills. You will also explore many ways to help manage challenging behaviours you may discover in children with ASD.
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Children with Exceptionalities
Children are not characterized by their exceptionalities. Rather, an understanding of each child's strengths, abilities, and developmental needs is used as a basis for inclusive program planning. This program focuses on an approach to support, encourage, and respond to the developmental needs of all children. Information is provided to enable providers to feel comfortable teaching children with special needs and to be successful in including (integrating) them into childcare education programs and classrooms.
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Working with Families
To better understand the needs of the nuclear family, this course aims to help child care providers meet the needs of diverse families. More and more families need help from many perspectives to remain healthy and keep stress levels low. Roles of mothers and fathers are always changing and childcare providers need to know how to foster positive communication for all situations. We are all responsible for children and families.
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Observation and Assessment
This course will provide knowledge of how to observe children while you are also paying close attention to what to observe. You will learn to maintain a close relationship between observing, understanding what one observes, and improving the curriculum and environment.
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Communication
Communication is not a collection of techniques we use on others, it is a process we engage in with them. This course will look at differences and similarities between male and female communication; both verbal and nonverbal. It will also provide skills for effective communicating skills, both sending and receiving. Improving communication skills is important for this field of study.
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Professional Development
Assignments and discussions will help to explore ethical dilemmas for thos that will care for children. This is a course for self-reflection studies that will help guide you to a greater understanding of your own beliefs. We will examine and discuss various policies, procedures and guidelines associated with your program.
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TA Study
This course encompasses many concepts of the Teacher Assistant Course; family, communication, positive guidance, health and safety, and adolescence, and so on. Students will be expected to research previous areas of study in order to complete the assignment.
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Career Skills
One of the most important outcomes of education is employment in your chosen field. Concentrating on resume creation, job search techniques, application processes, pre and post interview skills, this course is designed to achieve that outcome.
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On the Job Training
Qualified students can apply for on-the-job training. We will place the qualified students in an environment that will use all of the skills they have acquired in their chosen program.
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First Aid and CPR
Workplace Standard First Aid with CPR Level C and AED (Automatic External Defibrillation).
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Non-Violent Crisis Intervention
It’s difficult to predict exactly how you might respond during a crisis. Yet, as a human service provider, you face challenging behaviour and potentially dangerous situations every day. How you respond greatly determines the safety of everyone involved—and profoundly impacts the relationships with those in your care. Are you prepared? We will teach you to respond effectively to the warning signs that someone is beginning to lose control, but also addresses how you can deal with your own stress, anxieties, and emotions when confronted with these challenging situations.
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Keyboarding
This course is designed to assist students in using basic keyboarding skills, developing speed accuracy, formatting memos and letters, and introducing word processing skills.
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Microsoft Office Suite
Students will learn how to use the Microsoft Office 2003 Suite of productivity software. Emphasis will be placed on Microsoft Word (word processing, document creation), Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet creation), Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation layout and design), Microsoft Access (database design and use), and Microsoft Outlook (email and time management).
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Early Childhood Education