ES&CP 7087 Seminar in Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology (Exploring Mental Health Issues in Schools)

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About:
          The Course
          Course Materials
          Technical Requirements
          The Lessons
          Progress Evaluations
          Grades
          Study Hints


The Course

Education professionals must acquire the knowledge and skills to face the increasing number of mental health issues in today's schools. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the mental health challenges facing all elementary and secondary students. You will gain an awareness of these challenges, knowledge of how they affect children's academic and social performance, and the skills to intervene appropriately in the school setting. The focus of this course is on awareness, understanding, prevention, and early intervention with an emphasis on practical, strengths-based approaches for helping you, the education professional, your students, and the school be successful.

Expected student outcomes for this course are as follows:

Course Materials >> Return to top of page

Course Materials

Required Text

Page, R. M. & Page, T. S. (2000). Fostering emotional well-being in the classroom. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Additional required readings for this course will be posted on the course Web site. Several readings require Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Recommended Text

Weare, K. (2003). Promoting mental, emotional and social health: A whole school approach. New York: Routledge.

Technical Specifications >> Return to top of page

Technical Requirements

Hardware Recommendations: PC

  • Pentium 75 processor
  • 20 MB RAM
  • Hard disk drive with 70 MB free space
  • SVGA monitor
  • 56k modem

Hardware Recommendations: Macintosh

  • Macintosh Power PC Processor
  • 20 MB RAM
  • System 7.5.3
  • Hard disk drive with 70 MB free space
  • SVGA monitor
  • 56k modem

Please note that WWW browser performance will be enhanced if your system exceeds these recommendations.

Software Requirements

You will need a Web browser that supports graphics and JavaScript (Netscape Communicator/Navigator 4.0 or higher or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher). Your browser should also accept cookies, which are used solely to verify your login.

An active e-mail account is also required for faculty-evaluated courses. Some courses may require software for playing or recording audio or video, reading documents in PDF, etc.

It is suggested that you have virus protection software on your system. Norton AntiVirus or Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit are recommended for PC users and Disinfectant is recommended for Mac users. Virus protection software will help to protect your system (and ours) against computer viruses. MU students can download virus protection software at https://ea-front.missouri.edu.

College/University Students: Check with your on-campus computing services office about access to the Internet/WWW. Many colleges and universities offer students e-mail accounts and software as well as Web access. (MU students should check with the Division of Information Technology.)

The Lessons >>

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The Lessons

You can access the lessons here
or from the course home page.
This course is comprised of 13 lessons. Lessons 1–12 contain the following sections:

  • the purpose, which states the author’s aim in designing the lesson;

  • the objectives, which list the specific kinds of knowledge you should gain from the lesson;

  • the reading assignment, which specifies what pages you must read for the lesson; and

  • the commentary, which consists of the author’s discussion of the important topics covered by the lesson and may offer some additional information concerning the topics discussed in the text.

Lesson 13 provides instructions for a final project worth 40 points.
Progress Evaluations >>

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Progress Evaluations

A progress evaluation follows each lesson. The progress evaluations are open-book assignments that test your knowledge and understanding of the course material. You will receive a lesson report for each progress evaluation. The lesson report provides feedback designed to help you understand any questions you may have missed.

There are 13 progress evaluations in this course, all of which are all faculty evaluated. The points earned on each progress evaluation count toward your final course grade.

Make certain you have completed the reading assignments before you attempt each progress evaluation.

A note about confidentiality: When completing progress evaluations, please draw from your personal experiences in the schools and from your work with children and families. However, when including comments or details from your personal experiences, DO NOT include names, birth dates, locations, or any identifying information about the children or families or anyone else involved in your experiences. Including such identifying information would be inappropriate, unethical, and possibly illegal. Please double-check all your assignments for such information prior to submitting them.

All progress evaluations must be submitted to the Center for scoring. After your progress evaluation has been scored, you will receive a lesson report, which gives your score and provides comments to help you improve your work. (If the report still does not help you understand troublesome questions, then you may write or send e-mail to the Center describing your specific difficulty. Be sure to identify the course and the lesson number as well as the question number.)

You are encouraged to submit one lesson at a time and wait until you receive the lesson report before submitting the next lesson; however, you may submit up to three progress evaluations in a seven-day period. You must submit each progress evaluation in order.

More detailed instructions for completing the progress evaluations can be found below.

Instructions for online lesson submission
Note: The progress evaluations for this course are faculty-evaluated and require written responses. These should be completed using Microsoft Word 97 or a more recent version of Word.

Grades

Check Your Progress -- Here, you can check your scores on all progress evaluations you’ve completed so far. You can also check to see when you completed a lesson and when the score and feedback were returned to you.
Questions on the progress evaluations are worth either 10 or 20 points, depending on their length and complexity. A final project is worth 40 points.

Your responses to 10-point progress evaluations will be graded using the following scale:

Application and demonstrated knowledge, including appropriate citations from course readings
4
Practicality, insight, and thoroughness
4
Organization, presentation, writing quality
2
Total
10

Your responses to 20-point progress evaluations will be graded using the following scale:

Application and demonstrated knowledge, including appropriate citations from course readings
8
Practicality, insight, and thoroughness
8
Organization, presentation, writing quality
8
Total
20

The final paper will be graded using the following scale:

Application and demonstrated knowledge, including appropriate citations from course readings
16
Practicality, insight, and thoroughness
16
Organization, presentation, writing quality
8
Total
40

Your grade will be based on the number of points you earn in the course. There is a total of 230 points possible. The course grade scale follows:

Points Percentage Grade
207–230 90–100    A
184–206 80–89    B
161–183 70–79    C
0–160 0–69    F

Academic integrity. You are expected to follow CDIS guidelines for academic integrity and freedom. Please review your academic rights and responsibilities.

Study Hints

Learning at a distance or taking a WWW course may be a new experience for you. Although there are many similarities to face-to-face instruction, there are many differences as well. Some of these similarities and differences will seem like advantages and some like disadvantages. We hope that the suggestions that follow will help you adapt to the distance learning environment, maximize its strengths for your learning, and find ways to become a successful online student.

Set Goals for Yourself
List the most important goals first and make sure they are specific and realistic. Then, reward yourself as you make progress toward your goals. Examples of goals you might set for yourself include: (1) work for at least one hour on a lesson before you take a break, (2) spend enough time on each lesson that you understand all the concepts before going on to the next lesson, (3) try to answer all the questions on a progress evaluation without looking in the book first, and (4) try to improve your scores each time you take a progress evaluation.

Develop a Study Plan
Each student has a different learning style. Some people like to work on difficult tasks first to get them over with. Some people like to start with easy problems to build up their confidence. Some like to work for several hours and then take a break. Others like to break their work into smaller chunks of time. Think about your own preferences; then record how long it takes you to complete the first lesson or two. You can use this information to prepare your own study plan for completing the entire course.

Keep Your Study Materials Neat and Well-Organized
Have your textbook, pen or pencil, paper, dictionary, and other materials readily available. That way you won’t waste valuable study time looking for supplies.

Focus on the Lesson Purpose and Objectives
Each lesson is designed to give you a preview of what is coming and lets you know what you should focus on. Read the purpose and objectives for the lesson carefully because they correspond to the main points within the lesson’s instruction as well as to the areas covered in your assignments and/or examinations.

Keep a List of Vocabulary Words and New Concepts
Make sure you look up any unfamiliar words or concepts before submitting progress evaluations.

Be Aware of Computing Habits
At home, you may use the computer for games or while you are doing something else like eating, talking on the telephone, etc. You may pay attention only to the portions of the computer program in which you have great interest. Participating in a WWW course is not like that. You need to stay focused on the content and participate fully in the learning activities presented.

Manage Your Time Wisely
When you receive your lesson reports, review the comments carefully and look up answers to any questions you may have missed. Make sure you understand the concepts in each lesson before going on to the next. If you have questions about the lesson reports, contact Student Services at the Center for Distance and Independent Study at 1-800-609-3727.

Take Responsibility for Your Learning
Without a teacher present, you must make a special effort to understand the course content. The commentary on the course Web site is designed to take the place of class lectures. But you will need to do more than simply read the commentary in order to understand the lesson concepts fully. Most lessons include discussions of important points, additional examples, and study questions to supplement the material you will read in the textbook.

Use Online Help Features
If you need help with using software, check to see if there is an online tutorial or the help feature on the menu bar. Different Internet Service Providers may also provide a contact person or "help desk" that you may call. Sometimes a Web search will help you discover solutions to technology problems. If you are exploring the Internet, many different sites also have a help feature called FAQ (frequently asked questions).

Share Your Thoughts and Opinions
Let the Center know how you feel about the effectiveness of participating in a distance education environment like the Internet. As you finish the course, you will have the opportunity to complete an evaluation form. Your input will help us plan for future distance course delivery.

Think Critically About WWW Sources
The Internet and WWW are wonderful educational tools for students and faculty. However, there is so much information available and not all sites are of excellent quality. Therefore, critical thinking and evaluation skills are important as you explore different sites. It’s important to ask questions like—Is it accurate? Current? Meaningful? Researched? Supported by people knowledgeable in the field? Thorough? The following are links to some excellent resources that survey a variety of evaluation criteria for Web information:

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Questions/Comments? Contact the Center for Distance and Independent Study, a division of MU Extension
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