Professional Development Seminars

Differentiated Instruction

Teachers engage students with a broad range of interests, backgrounds and capacity. How can a teacher appropriately meet the needs of all of his/her students? This session presents a wide range of concrete strategies that will help you meet your students’ needs and vary learning process.

Using Assessment to Enhance Student Learning (Formative Assessment)

This workshop focuses on using assessment formatively, as a tool for learning rather than strictly a measure of learning. Participants will learn the importance of assessing student work regularly throughout the learning process and many easy, practical ways to do so. Emphasis is placed on checking for understanding to ensure that the goal of student leaning is properly achieved.

Authentic Assessment / Differentiating the Product

This session will introduce educators to alternative assessments, which teach students how to apply their skills, including analytical skills, to tasks and projects. The learning process is valued as much if not more than the finished product itself.

Rubrics: Redefining Assessment

Rubrics are a wonderful assessment tool, providing students with meaningful, specific feedback about their knowledge and performance. This session will describe what rubrics are, the benefits of using them, and how to create and employ them in the classroom setting. We will also explore ways in which the rubric can actually enhance instruction, providing students with a valuable guide and critic as they formulate and produce their work.

Cooperative Learning

Become familiar with practical strategies for integrating cooperative learning into your classrooms. Appropriate groupings, roles and applications will be discussed.

Active Learning Techniques

Research shows that students learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process. This session will introduce participants to a wide range of active learning techniques that will increase student participation, deepen learning, and enhance retention. 

Multiple Intelligences: Teaching to Our Students’ Strengths

Learn more about the 8 identified intelligences that people possess and ways that we can use this information to structure our classes to meet every student’s needs. Teachers will also learn how their own personal intelligences impact the way in which they present classroom material.

A Proactive Approach to Classroom Management

Effective classroom management skills are essential for instruction. This workshop identifies best practices, proactive as well as responsive, that will assist teachers in creating a healthy learning environment for their students.

Brain-based learning – How to Teach So that Your Students Will Learn

Use our increased knowledge of the brain and its functions to guide class preparation and structure, while enhancing student learning and retention. Items to be addressed include: Basic brain structure and functionality, various student learning styles or intelligences, strategies to maximize classroom effectiveness.  

Strategies for Promoting Student Success

This workshop shows teachers a host of ways in which they can enhance their students’ comfort level and overall preparedness for class.

1. Clarifying class expectations

2. Sensitizing students towards different learning styles

3. Teaching preparedness and organizational skills

4. Improving note taking skills

5. Developing memory enhancers

6. Strengthening review habits

7. Enhancing test taking skills

8. Appropriate homework assignment

Memory and Retention – Making It Stick

In this workshop we explore our understanding of human memory with a particular focus on classroom instruction. Participants emerge with a wide range of strategies that will help students process and retain their studies.

The Essential Elements of Instruction

In this workshop, we will learn the eight essential components of every class lesson, based on the research of Madeline Hunter. These include identifying and articulating the learning objective, checking for understanding and providing closure. We will also discuss horizontal learning, a technique that reduces strain on working memory, increasing student clarity and retention.

Clarifying the Learning Objective

Every great lesson begins with a set of clear learning objectives. What content do you want your learners to learn? Which skills would you like for them to develop? What other outcomes are you targeting? How will you measure to ensure that your goals were met? This session will review key components of objective setting and present participants with practical, easy-to-apply strategies that will help them deliver targeted, assessable instruction that produces the maximum benefit for the learners in your classroom. 

Keeping the Lines Open: Tools to Ensure Strong Teacher–Parent Communication

Research shows that strong teacher-parent communication can have a very positive effect on student performance while also making the school experience a more positive one for teachers and parents. Strong communication keeps parents in the know about the child’s performance and the goings on of the classroom. It also helps to foster teamwork between adults, for the benefit of the child. This session will focus on various techniques that teachers can use to help them develop strong lines of communication with the parents of their students, including teambuilding strategies, proactive communication, and feedback solicitation.

Using Values to Improve Student Conduct

PBIS (Positive Behaviors, Interventions and Supports) is a school-wide proactive behavior program. It focuses us on the identification of a short list core overarching interpersonal values and frames all behavioral expectations through the "lens" of those values. In this workshop, we will discuss PBIS as a tool that administrators and teachers can use to create an effective, wholesome learning environment for their students.