Online Courses Provide Professional Development in Dropout Prevention Strategies
CLEMSON, S.C. (May 9, 2017) – The National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) is pleased to announce that online courses in research-based strategies for improving graduation rates are now available to educators, https://dropoutprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/C.W.-Gardenhire-pic.jpgistrators, legislators, researchers, and others who share a common goal of continuing to reduce the nation’s dropout rate.
The 15 Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention are based on a decade of research at the National Dropout Prevention Center and are nationally recognized as the most effective way to select and implement best practices that improve graduation rates. The 15 Effective Strategies are the road map of many state and local dropout prevention initiatives and have been used by many schools and districts to achieve significant graduation rate gains. “Training in the 15 Effective Strategies is by far NDPC’s most requested service. Our ability to help educators know and use these strategies has historically been limited by our capacity to deliver high-quality training in person or in print,” said Dr. Sandy Addis, Director of NDPC. “Online courses now make this high-impact professional development affordably available to literally millions of educators at any time with no waiting. There is now no limit to the number of educators and school systems we can support.”
Each of the new online courses focuses on a specific dropout prevention strategy and leads the course participant through a series of activities in preparation to effectively implement the strategy in the local school setting. Courses include orientation to the strategy, tips for implementation and ongoing evaluation, numerous video clips illustrating the strategy, and essential tools and resources. Each course requires approximately two hours to complete and may be done in small time segments at any pace. Courses may be accessed individually on the NDPC web site (www.dropoutprevention.org) or may be acquired in blocks by school systems for faculty groups. “These courses make a perfect professional development package for groups of dropout prevention practitioners such as school counselors and alternative school faculties,” said Addis. Credit for on-line courses may also be used to meet requirements of the National Dropout Prevention Specialist Certification Program. “Some schools are acquiring courses for whole faculties and using the content to restructure their work and to guide faculty meeting discussions,” Addis said.
Dean George J. Petersen, Founding Dean of the Clemson University College of Education stated, “The National Dropout Prevention Center has provided useful professional development in graduation rate improvement to states and schools for thirty years, but this high-impact training has never before been offered on this scale with so much potential for national impact.”
Additional information about the NDPC online courses is available at www.dropoutprevention.org/15-effective-strategies-online-courses/.
About National Dropout Prevention Center/Network (NDPC/N)
Established in 1986 with a mission to reduce dropout rates, NDPC/N shares solutions for student success and dropout prevention through its clearinghouse function, active research and evaluation projects, publications, and a variety of professional development activities and conferences. The organization’s website—www.dropoutprevention.org—is the nation’s leading resource in providing effective, research-based solutions to engaging students and reducing dropout. The NDPC/N is housed in the College of Education at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina.
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For Additional Information Contact:
Lynn Dunlap, Director of Public Information
National Dropout Prevention Center/Network
Phone: 864-656-2678
Email: ldunlap@clemson.edu