Writing well allows students to process and organize their thoughts and feelings and to communicate effectively with a range of audiences. Writing well is also one of the most difficult skills to teach, and many find the task overwhelming. The grading alone taxes the commitment of even the best of our profession. In this program, we will examine ways to write and how best to introduce various writing techniques to your students while providing useful, timely feedback. Participants will have the opportunity to practice writing, receive and give feedback, and collaborate on best practices for supporting adolescent writers.

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It’s time to start thinking outside the box! Teachers often think projects take too much time to plan or don’t know how to align them with curriculum. Project Based Learning Units (PBLs) are an effective and enjoyable way to learn that allow students to work as a team, reflect, ask questions, build confidence, work with a purpose, problem solve, and learn time management. Investigate essential questions, unit questions, and content questions that will enable you to develop your own PBL unit. Return to your classroom with a PBL unit you create that will excite and engage your students as they claim ownership of their learning.

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In order to support children’s success in early elementary grades, we need to understand best practices for developing young minds. Utilizing multiple means of instructional delivery, we will explore aspects of daily schedule, classroom community, executive functioning, developmentally appropriate best practices, growth mindset, and authentic assessment. We will develop schedules and procedures for growing a community of growth oriented young learners. We will practice and view models of authentic assessment designed to support personalized learning for all readiness levels. Participants will utilize new knowledge of executive functioning and developmentally appropriate practice to develop lessons that support choice and growth.

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Students are engaged when they are involved in their work, persist despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in their accomplishments. Solving student engagement issues is complex. What works in one class may be a failure in the next, with every year presenting new challenges for engaging students in various lessons. This program will use a collaborative classroom process to address questions with how to create a classroom culture and how to create classroom instruction that facilitates self-motivation, personal responsibility, and perseverance. Participants also will review and evaluate motivational strategies for engaging students.

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Instructional coaches have a direct impact on instruction and student achievement in today’s schools. Coaches use their role in the schools to enhance others’ abilities through motivation and support. This role can be an overwhelming and daunting task. This program will offer inspiration, guidance, training, strategies, and evidence based practices for the 21st century instructional coach.

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Explore disciplinary literacy and what it means to read, write, speak, listen and think critically within any content area. Through the use of online tools, such as online sticky notes, journal writing and mind maps, investigate literacy within the disciplines. These tools will assist your students in becoming more resourceful. Create new lessons or update current ones with digital tools that will make your lessons come to life and deepen your students’ knowledge of disciplinary literacy.

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The fundamental difference between the ELA Standards for Grades 9–10 and Grade 8 is not one of substance but of scope. Whereas eighth graders are asked to evaluate the effect of individual elements in a text, freshmen and sophomores must understand how a series of such elements impact a text in its totality. Words like “thorough” and “cumulative” begin to appear in the 9-10 ELA Standards. In this program, participants will engage in a series of activities that scaffold this skill development. We will demystify the concept of author’s purpose and examine how we can sensitize students to understand how the language and organizational choices communicate purpose.

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Educators have a responsibility to effectively integrate new technologies into the curriculum, preparing students for a literacy future we have yet to imagine. Discover how to create learning experiences that take your students from being consumers to creators of digital content. Help your students evaluate and analyze appropriate resources most beneficial to their success as creators. In this hands-on, make-and-take program, you will use free/inexpensive digital tools to create project examples that can be incorporated into your classroom. You will use multiple apps in conjunction (app-smashing) to create a final product. Seamlessly integrate applications to make standards-based learning fun and interactive. Come with tasks, projects, and ideas for your classroom that involve creation rather than consumption.

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What is literacy? How does literacy cross all content areas? How can I integrate literacy strategies into my class when I don’t teach reading? All teachers share the responsibility of ensuring our students are literate and prepared for college and careers. In this program, teachers will investigate ways to integrate literacy instruction into their content area by collaborating, exploring and creating literacy activities and/or lessons that they can take back and employ with their students. This program is designed specifically for teachers who teach art, music, and physical education in the elementary grades.

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Designed for teachers of grades 4–12.

Teaching reading skills in English/Language Arts classes and across the disciplines is an almost guaranteed way to help students retain content. Unfortunately, the tendency to focus on the content is a real enemy to the ultimate goal of building reading skills. Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, reluctant, struggling and disengaged students are not assured enough opportunities to read throughout the school day. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information about a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills using materials that are relevant to their students. Participants in this program will review ideas about how to incorporate reading skill lessons into their curriculum so that they are enticing to struggling, reluctant, and disengaged learners.

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