Name

Teaching, Smarter Not Harder:  Supporting Today’s Youth Through Intentional Learning Environment Design

Audience

All  Educators

Presenter Name(s)

Ryan Sherman, DBH

Presenter Bio(s)

Ryan Sherman, DBH, is a behavioral health clinician, researcher, and district wellness leader with over 15 years of experience supporting the mental health of children, adolescents, and families. He currently serves as the Director of Wellness for Medway Public Schools in Massachusetts, where he leads all district-wide mental health, social-emotional learning, and family engagement initiatives. In this role, he designed one of the most comprehensive school-based mental health frameworks in the state and works daily with teachers, administrators, students, and families to address the real-world developmental challenges facing youth today.

In addition to his clinical and district leadership roles, Dr. Sherman serves as a senior professor and researcher in social-emotional learning at Bay Path University. His teaching and research focus on skill development, resilience, family engagement, school mental health systems, and the environmental factors shaping modern childhood. He is the co-author of The Fourth Tier: Modernizing MTSS for Student Mental Health, published by Bloomsbury.

Description

Today’s students are entering classrooms with gaps in social, emotional, and self-regulation skills that directly affect learning, behavior, and engagement. These gaps reflect broader shifts in childhood environments, including increased device exposure, reduced unstructured play, and shifting family dynamics. 

This course helps teachers reframe classroom challenges through a skill-development lens and provides practical, teacher-controlled strategies for designing learning environments that support today’s learners, without adding new programs or workload.

Participants have the option of taking this as a (1) credit course or (2) credit course.   The (1) credit course will cover Modules 1 – 5 while the (2) credit course will extend through Module (10).

Module 1: Understanding Today’s Learner

Module 2: Attention, Regulation, and Cognitive Load

Module 3: Skill Gaps That Show Up as Behavior

Module 4: Predictable Routines That Support Regulation

Module 5: Designing for Persistence and Frustration Tolerance

Module 6: Technology, Engagement, and Balance

Module 7: Building Social Skills Through Instruction

Module 8: Adult Responses That De-Escalate

Module 9: Designing for Real Classrooms

Module 10: Synthesis and Classroom Action Plan

Synchronous / Asynchronous

Asynchronous

Location

Online 

Dates & Times

June 15 – August 15, 2026

Approximately 12.5 hours – 30 hours asynchronously online

PDPs

12.5 PDPs or 25 PDPs

Credit

Pending approval, participants can choose to apply for (1) credit or (2) credits for an additional fee of $125 or $250 respectively to Worcester State University

Cost

$275 ACCEPT members;  $325 non-members for (1) credit course

$500 ACCEPT members;  $600 non-members for (2) credit course

Registration Deadline

Rolling Admission