Meeting the needs of exceptional children can be a challenge for teachers who have these students in regular classroom settings. It can also be a challenge for EC teachers who have experience, but who must teach in multi-grade and multi-categorical self-contained classrooms. NCDPI mandates that public schools identify and serve students with disabilities, and that these students demonstrate progress on regular or extended content standards. Join teachers of EC students and experts in the field of special education as we investigate technology tools and digital resources and other strategies to provide enhanced literacy instruction integrated across the curriculum. Create lessons that differentiate for all learners. Explore the policies and best practices of EC expectations, create ways to challenge EC children, enhance literacy, and encourage continual intellectual and developmental growth.

How many of us have endured the drudgery of the “sit ‘n’ git” workshop and sworn silently that we would never inflict the same fate on our students? This promise represents not only good humor, but also good pedagogy. A wealth of research supports the hypothesis that physical activity can boost comprehension, retention, and self-regulation in students of all achievement levels. Teachers who build movement into their lesson designs will have students who are less disruptive and more engaged. Teachers will learn a variety of strategies for integrating instruction with physical activity, but not at the expense of intellectual rigor. Armed with a collection of techniques you can use immediately, design and create your own physically and mentally active lessons. All teachers from pre-K through 12th-grade are encouraged to attend.

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 dealing with how to create a classroom culture and how to create classroom instructions that facilitates self-motivation, personal responsibility, and perseverance of students. Participants also will review and evaluate motivational strategies for engaging students that can be used upon their return to the classroom.

What should literacy instruction look like in today’s classrooms? High quality literacy instruction promotes and advances critical thinking. This program will investigate intentional instruction that fosters critical thinking skills. Examine strategies to “dig deeper” into the text and discover the art of dialogue and purposeful questions. Utilize multiple media and technologies to support and enhance a student’s critical eye for thoughtful interpretation of ideas.

Classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, with each student having his or her own unique instructional needs. In light of these challenges, how do teachers ensure they are appropriately growing their gifted students? Come learn how to adapt and extend classroom-learning experiences to better address the academic development of your gifted students. Focus will be given to incorporating central concepts into the curriculum, implementing the tools of inquiry and creative thinking, achieving depth and complexity within content areas, embracing acceleration in the classroom, and utilizing multiple digital resources and digital strategies.

Designed for teachers of grades 3–12, and those who coach them.

Love them or hate them, standardized tests are not going away anytime soon. Even our most capable students can become paralyzed by anxiety when confronted with page after page of multiple choice questions. If our students’ scores are to accurately reflect their abilities, they need tools to help them overcome their fears. Participants in this program will learn multiple test-preparation and test-taking strategies designed to build students’ confidence and self-efficacy while addressing content in an ethical and educative manner.

The statistics are consistent: young male readers lag behind their female counterparts in literacy skills. In many instances, the reading scores of boys bring down the reading scores for the entire school. Explore the social, psychological, and developmental reasons why boys lag behind girls. Identify reading materials you can use in your classroom to capture and keep the attention of your struggling readers. Experience a variety of instructional methods such as text selection designed for boys, contests and competitions, focus reading groups, and the latest websites and blogs to boost literacy achievement. Discover solutions to capture the attention of reluctant male readers and examine strategies that motivate boys to sustain reading in the classroom and at home.

The study of STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—stimulates children to think critically and problem solve. STEM skills are crucial to building workforce readiness. Purposeful integration of tools found in the workplace can make STEM learning more authentic and relevant. Explore various types of technology and tools that can be incorporated into these existing lessons to make them even better. Maximize classroom time by integrating technologies that can make data collection and analysis easier. Experience lessons that give students a desire to ask questions and engineer solutions. Various technologies will be explored including Vernier sensors, coding software, design software, Cubelets, Spheros, web 2.0 resources, Makey Makeys, and more. Join us as we make messes, break things, fix things, and create minds-on STEM learning environments.