Designed for grades K–6 teachers.

Wondering how to engage your students as they explore and develop math understanding and mastery? You can make math meaningful for your students. Come and refresh your understanding of Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) as you engage in activities designed to help connect the ways your students are “smart” to the NC Math Standards. Explore and develop learning strategies to support math mastery as we look at planning for and assessing math standards for your grade level. With ideas for the self-smart and the people-smart, the naturalist, musical, verbal, kinesthetic and visual learners, you’ll leave ready to start your year the MI way! This program is presented by A+ Schools of North Carolina. 

Writing instruction is not only important but also vital for today’s students. Yet finding the time to teach writing in the elementary classroom can prove challenging. In this program, teachers will explore the various purposes for writing, the writing process, and strategies to integrate writing in other content areas. Additionally, teachers will investigate creative strategies to motivate students to write.

Designed for high school ELA teachers and those who coach them.

A false dilemma offered by critics of standardized testing is that they force teachers to focus on low-level skills if their students are to perform well on end-of-course exams. This is simply untrue. The NC English II End of Course tests (EOC) require that students analyze written text in the service of extracting meaning, recognizing the effect of particular words, and identifying an author’s stance on an issue, among other valuable skills. In this program, teachers will consider the “big picture” issues that English II should address. They also will engage in a variety of activities intended to enhance students’ reading, writing, and thinking skills.

With students learning in 1:1 environments, there is a push for integrating more technology into the classroom. However, technology is changing constantly. So how does one keep up? How does one teach their students to become responsible digital citizens? Come learn why it is important to address the responsible use of technology with your students as they learn to connect, collaborate, and communicate effectively, and safely. Explore resources, articles, and lessons that promote digital citizenship in the classroom. Learn how to weave digital citizenship into your curriculum and create lessons that allow students to become more social media savvy.

Designed for teachers of grades 5–8.

Which of our state’s national parks is home to over 12,000 documented species of plants, animals and invertebrates? In which park can you walk in the footsteps of Revolutionary War patriots? North Carolina is home to ten national park units stretching from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Cape Hatteras shores. These parks offer diverse opportunities to spark students’ desire to learn more about the rich science and history of our state. Discover how park resources, including informational texts and supplemental materials, can also enhance literacy skills. Learn ways your students can experience our parks both physically and virtually. Partner with national park rangers, historians and science experts to create lessons that will engage student learning in your classroom.

Today’s diverse students enter school eager to become successful in classrooms originally designed for culturally homogeneous populations and are expected to learn from teachers who are often not from the same cultural, ethnic/race or social-class. Unsurprisingly, student performance in reading and other subjects is often low while student dropout and teacher burnout rates are high. This program guides participants to explore and document their experiences in motivating at-risk students to become effective readers. In addition to sharing successful strategies for improving reading skills and producing a written narrative, participants will examine barriers children encounter along the pathway and how these barriers affected them. Additionally, participants will become familiar with strategies they can use today to change the culture of the classroom to support the development of higher order thinking skills while enhancing self-motivation, personal responsibility, and perseverance to become skilled readers who excel academically.

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 what essential questions, unit questions, and content questions 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.

Designed for ELA teachers of grades 6–8 and those who coach them.

Middle grades ELA inhabits a type of educational limbo. Intellectually, students are capable of taking on complex reading and writing tasks but many are still developing the necessary maturity to do so. This program will examine the knowledge and skills necessary to transition successfully from elementary to high school. Teachers will engage in and then craft their own language arts activities that engage both the child and the budding adult in each of their students. Activities will address reading, writing, thinking, speaking and listening skills.

Designed for grades K–3 teachers.

Elementary teachers use a variety of literacy assessments (mClass, STAR, benchmarks, unit tests, spelling inventories, etc.) in order to get a complete picture of their students’ literacy ability. These assessments generate a lot of data that can be overwhelming. Investigate how to get the most out of the literacy data by linking assessment data to literacy instruction. Explore ways to manage the data for each student. Discover ways to use literacy data to plan for individual, small, and whole group instruction while examining strategies to differentiate instruction to meet the learning needs of all students.