It's All About the Plan: A MindSet Shift Towards Unfinished Learning

This workshop will address the guiding principles that Early Reading Matters used to adapt our virtual, early literacy assessments and make them more equitable for Multilingual Learners. Our initial outcomes and adapted data protocol, which positions translanguaging as an asset-based approach to analyze student performance, will also be discussed. Participants will receive resources to apply the same analysis to their own assessment practices. This process aims to elicit a more accurate representation of MLL students’ early literacy skills. With a focus on children’s strengths, educators will be equipped with the tools to identify where their early literacy assessment practices may be enhanced to better serve this diverse population.

 

Guided reading has often been referred to as the greatest tool in a teacher’s arsenal when attempting to be responsive to students’ reading needs. When working with emergent bilinguals, the primary focus tends to be in the area of vocabulary development. While vocabulary acquisition is important, it is only one aspect of reading and language development. Participants of this workshop will not only receive an overview of guided reading instruction, but will also explore how to consider translanguaging and cross-linguistic analysis to better leverage emergent bilinguals’ complete skills within their guided reading instruction.

 

Experienced educators know culture eats instruction for breakfast! The goal of this session is to provide attendees with a framework for building a culture of healthy engagement. Attendees will walk away with 7-researched based and field-tested strategies for building powerful engagement between parents, students, and teachers.

 

Entering the new school year this fall, schools will be tasked with the challenge of assessing and understanding the degree of unfinished learning left by the last year of hybrid learning. This webinar will help equip school leaders, curriculum writers, and teachers with the support needed to identify the most foundational content from the previous grade level to review or re-teach at the start of the 2021-2022 school year. In addition, this session will highlight the key areas of vertical alignment or standards progressions from grades K-12 in both ELA and Math, in order to shed light on our instructional priorities, as educators begin to plan for use of curriculum in the upcoming school year.

 

Personalized learning plans (PLPs) provide students, teachers, and parents an opportunity to define, strategize for and monitor progress towards meeting individualized learning goals. While frequently thought of either in the context of personalized mastery learning models or special education settings, PLPs represent a logical and necessary response to COVID learning loss. As we progress through assessing the effect of the pandemic on student learning, we know that the plan to move each student forward on their learning path will be unique, from addressing social and emotional issues, pinpointing academic goals, leveraging strengths, interweaving family and community supports and more. In this workshop, we will look at several different models of PLPs, discuss how you can adapt them to your school context and explore strategies for schoolwide rollout and monitoring for the fall semester.

 

This pandemic has been hard on almost everyone--more so for educators. Already the job of a teacher or school administrator is challenging, but then add trying to engage students online and teaching to black boxes; juggling demands at home and relationships with family and friends; and spending more time planning, grading, and working because you have to transform what you’ve done in the past to work online--all of that adds up to a stressful situation. Now more than ever, we need to invest in our own self care--we need to take time to nourish ourselves before we can nourish others. In this workshop we will be exploring several, researched-based self-care strategies such as gratitude practice, movement, mindfulness, among others. You’ll leave feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and maybe even be inspired to keep going.

 

Social Emotional Learning has come into focus once again as schools and teachers attend to the needs of students during this last year of school closures. When working with diverse students, the emphasis should be on SEL that affirms and validates the identities of all students. While kindness is important, it is only one aspect of SEL development. Participants of this workshop will not only get an overview of SEL strategies but will explore how to consider culturally responsive and anti-racist practices to better leverage the realities of students’ lived experiences.

 

When it comes to teaching reading, where do you start? Participants in this session will identify the foundational skills our earliest readers need to ensure they become successful readers. We will outline best practices for teaching these skills and provide resources that will track students’ progress. These resources will help educators make data-driven instructional decisions when it comes to supporting their early learners. At the end of this session, participants will be equipped to put their students on the path to reading success with a clear roadmap for small group reading instruction.

 

Getting students to use literature to engage in a call to action within their school and school community should be a primary goal. Imagine using the tools of literacy instruction to trouble inequitable systems. Participants in this session will be introduced to, engage with an anti-racist instructional paradigm designed to elevate the voices of historically marginalized people to make their experiences visible and foster in students both the development of empathy and critical consciousness. The goal of this session is to provide teachers with a framework in which students can examine and challenge racism and social injustices. Teachers will walk away with methods for "flipping" their own curriculum to be project-based incorporating anti-racist practices.

 

For the last 16 months of this pandemic, students have developed a heightened sense of awareness on what keeps their attention and what does not. As we transition back to “normalcy,” we have the opportunity to re-imagine the classroom experience along with our students. What do we want to see? Co-creating culturally responsive learning experiences is a priority that is rooted in deep mutual understanding. Sometimes we have to give a little to get a lot in return! Participants in this workshop will explore pedagogical practices and strategies to leverage student identity, voice and choice to push the rigor in lesson planning.

 

As we survey the wreckage of the last 18 months and assess the damage done to our students, teachers, schools and communities, it can be hard not to feel overcome with pessimism or to slide into cynicism, even as we recognize that our students will require the exact opposite from us in the new year. Planning for the fall will require an abundance of positivity, belief in the possible and an unwavering commitment to bringing our school communities back stronger than ever: in short, a growth mindset. In this workshop, we will explore how to frame schoolwide planning for next year around growth mindset principles. We will look at practical strategies for building a culture of resilience and positivity with your faculty as well as tools to help students consistently see their learning through the frame of opportunity and possibility.

 

In studies of grading and alternatives to grading, researchers have produced consistent results. Study after study shows that traditional letter and number grading reduces the achievement for students. In this session, participants will explore an alternative to traditional grading: mastery grading. We will look at the components of mastery grading and provide systems for using this form of assessment in a mathematics classroom. Participants will walk away prepared to shift their modes of assessment in a way that will have a significant impact on overall achievement.

 

What is literacy, and how do we engage students remotely and in-person with the skills and strategies responsive to students’ reading, writing, speaking and listening needs? When working with diverse student populations, the primary focus should be on culturally responsive practices that center literacy in the lives of young people. Participants of this workshop will not only get an overview of cross curricular literacy instruction, but will explore how to use inquiry-based practices to better leverage students’ natural curiosity to engage students.

 

As teachers and school leaders committed to educational equity, how do we ensure that each of the young people in our care receives the support they need in order to thrive, including and especially students with special needs? How do we design instruction that simultaneously keeps all students engaged and gives every student, no matter their learning needs, the opportunity to experience success? In this session, we will explore high-leverage inclusive instructional strategies that are particularly relevant to the uniqueness of the upcoming school year, strategies that both center students with special needs and benefit all students. After engaging with and reflecting on these strategies, participants of this workshop will leave with concrete next steps for their own classrooms and school communities.

 

The teacher-student relationship is the straw that stirs the educational drink. The goal of this session is to provide attendees with the inspiration, psychology, and framework for building a mindset that maximizes healthy engagement.   Attendees will walk away with field-tested strategies for building and possessing the mindset of what I call the “Classroom Coach.” Upon leaving this session attendees will have to decide whether to return to the classroom a “classroom teacher” or as a “Classroom Coach."