Change is all around us, but yet most people are vastly unprepared to deal with change. Learn strategies that staff can immediately grasp onto and use to understand not only change at school but in their daily lives as well. Ask the five essential questions in any change or restructuring effort; let the answers guide your work as you form study and research groups to guide your efforts. Explore two important concepts: without conflict there will be no change and change takes longer than it takes!

We don't have time to do all that is needed to positively impact student learning. Homework that is relevant, targeted, focused and used in the next day's lesson is one way to extend student learning and allow you to maximize your valuable class time for new learnings. Homework can be used to access what students already know so you are not allowing the textbook to drive instruction.

Learn strategies to integrate homework into daily entry tasks and lesson design and avoid using valuable class time to "correct homework" in class.

Having difficulty with homework completion? Examine how to clearly define the purpose of homework and guidelines for homework completion for both students and parents. Explore strategies for homework implementation and examine what the research has to say about "best practices." And best of all, you will learn strategies and ideas for assessment and evaluation of homework that will eliminate the need for you to spend hours in and out of class grading homework.
 

Workshop currently under construction

When your vision and expectations are crystal clear and focused on increasing student achievement, you will be astonished at the results you will achieve in a very short period of time. Can you work on improving reading and math achievement at the same time? The answer is yes, unless low reading achievement is impacting math achievement. And, then, its best to focus on reading until students are almost at grade level. And, yet, there are interventions that will work if you are focused and intentional and strongly consider “double dosing” students in either reading or math.

Examine the value of reading and math concepts that are intentionally taught. Use your data to explore why we are doing what we are doing based on what evidence. Focused teacher dialogue at grade level, one grade level down and one grade level up will not only “lovingly” move children through curriculum concepts but will ensure a consistent stream of instruction that assists students to make learning connections in both math and reading.

Workshop currently under construction

A positive (or negative) school culture affects everything that we do! When we are dealing with change and a higher level of accountability for everyone, we need new strategies and ideas.

As we closely examine our current school culture, we may find that our practices and beliefs do not align with the need to increase student achievement. Learn strategies and gather ideas and best practices to examine and structure your school culture to one that is more conducive to continuous improvement for both students and staff! Examine the instructional leader's role in working smarter to do the hard jobs to include empowering teachers, parent and student leaders in an appropriate way. Walk away with numerous ideas and strategies to change and/ or modify school culture on an "as needs" basis. Positive school culture that is well defined and aligned to school improvement goals is a powerful influence in working with all segments of your school community.

Workshop currently under construction

This session is for all content area teachers to learn a process to ensure that EALRs and national standards are part of daily lesson design in a way that will not only impact student achievement but is manageable and do-able for teachers. Learn how to use assessment (pre and post) to shape instructional decisions and spend less time grading papers. Learn strategies for lesson design that are proven and successful for use with diverse learners. This hands-on session will give you many tools to use in your classroom to focus on active teaching and learning.

In order to set the stage for a learning culture that supports the goal of increasing student achievement through the process of teacher evaluation, we need to focus on the issue of student, teacher and administrator accountability as well as assist teachers in designing lessons that link teaching-learning and assessment and re-teaching.

Participants will learn how to design their lessons to the EALRs and national standards, use student/parent feedback to guide instruction, understand student/teacher accountability, and set goals for intentional teaching and specificity of instructional concepts.

Learn how to link lessons to the EALRs and national standards to set goals for intentional teaching and specificity of concepts in a collaborative way that also uses research of best practices that are so essential if evaluation is to be also used as an adult learning tool. Look at your current evaluation process/focus and learn to extend/link your process to school improvement efforts; evaluation elements that could be part of a revision process. You will leave with materials and handouts you and teachers can use immediately.