The NCCAT Research and Development Teams program offers educators an opportunity to meet in a residential setting devoid of distraction to create and advance departmental, school, or district-wide projects. These projects might consist of new programming, research, planning, or curricula. Gather a team together to create or refine your own innovative approaches to early grades literacy or digital learning. Early grades literacy or digital learning projects will be given preference. All projects will be considered. Come prepared to share your knowledge and progress with other teams from around our state. Single rooms, meeting space, internet access, and meals for the participants will be provided by NCCAT. Travel and the cost of substitute teachers are not covered. Teachers, administrators, central office personnel, and district coordinators are encouraged to apply.

The Excellent Public Schools Act of 2013 has charged teachers with the responsibility of integrating arts education across the curriculum. How can we use that challenge to super-charge early grades literacy instruction? While most teachers are aware of the research showing that children exposed to drama, music, and dance do a better job at mastering the core subject areas, many feel ill-equipped to bring the power of arts education into reading and writing. Where do the North Carolina Educational Standards connect and intersect with arts integrated learning? Join a group of dedicated colleagues as we explore ways to engage our students through visual, musical, dramatic, verbal, and movement arts. Discover how art can motivate, build persistence, improve memory, increase attention span, strengthen abstract thinking, and prepare students to deal productively with complexity, ambiguity, and frustration.

Two days of substitute teacher reimbursement will be covered for this four-day program.
Never in our nation’s history has ability to produce and comprehend written information been more necessary. Unfortunately, literacy instruction is as difficult as it is essential. This program will provide early grades teachers with a complement of research-based tools and strategies to help answer some of their more burning questions: How do I teach “close reading” to students who don’t yet know the alphabet? What level of writing can I attain from children who are still learning to spell? How do I simultaneously provide enrichment for advanced readers and remediation for delayed readers? Finally, how can I integrate reading and writing instruction into all other subject areas? Preference will be given to teachers of grades K–3.

Open to teachers in their first, second, or third year of teaching, this seminar supports motivated beginning teachers by strengthening their knowledge base and classroom expertise. Through experiential learning, teachers will explore pedagogical concerns including differentiated instruction, brain-compatible teaching, assessment, the effect of poverty on achievement and behavior, and classroom management. Come prepared to build professional competence and confidence, improve student achievement, and reinforce your commitment to this critically important profession.

“Flipping” instruction is a method of shifting lecture and explanation to a controlled video or mixed-media format so that time in class can be spent most productively. When done properly, flipping can be of great benefit to teachers and students by allowing for more finely attuned differentiation and more class time for one-on-one instruction and meaningful learning experiences. With help from working teachers and educational technologists, this course will give you the tools and confidence you need to approach flipping your own classroom in ways that are meaningful and engaging for your students and that give you new tools for assessment and interaction.

Reading and writing instruction has moved into every classroom. Changes in the standard course of study require that students read much greater amounts of non-fiction and construct viable written arguments using reason and evidence. Literacy instruction at the secondary level is a challenge even to those who were trained to do it; it can be downright terrifying to anyone else. This seminar will help secondary level teachers support their students’ reading comprehension. Techniques for using writing as a formative and summative assessment—and how to grade it—also will be included. This session is intended primarily for social studies teachers at the secondary level but would be appropriate for any teachers who are working with reading and writing across the curriculum.

In the time between a total implementation of 1:1 technology and the present, many teachers are faced with a charge to integrate technology into the curriculum and the reality that the technology supplied by their schools is not the same sort of technology that their students are using on a daily basis. One answer to this dilemma is that the technology that the students want to bring with them to school can be used as a way to engage them more fully with the materials and the processes. Come and join us to learn more about how a teacher, a school, or a district can more effectively leverage BYOT (sometimes also called BYOD—Bring-Your-Own-Device) in order to meet goals on a budget and to meet your students on common ground.

Primary sources, such as photographs, manuscripts, maps, and government documents, are now digitized and educators can easily access and use them to enhance digital learning for their students. Join us at NCCAT as we partner with university libraries and online programs which provide relevant and engaging teaching resources in user-friendly online forms. We will also discover other online sources and explore means of using them that promote critical thinking and analysis skills and engage high school students in technology, language arts, science, social studies, and other subjects. Together we will locate materials relevant to your own North Carolina home towns or counties and share ways to improve your students’ digital literacy and make these sources more meaningful to them.

Designed for K–5 educators

The Excellent Public Schools Act of 2013 has charged teachers with the responsibility of integrating arts education across the curriculum. How can we use that challenge to super-charge early grades literacy instruction? While most teachers are aware of the research showing that children exposed to drama, music, and dance do a better job at mastering the core subject areas, many feel ill-equipped to bring the power of arts education into reading and writing. Where do the North Carolina Educational Standards connect and intersect with arts integrated learning? Join a group of dedicated colleagues as we explore ways to engage our students through visual, musical, dramatic, verbal, and movement arts. Discover how art can motivate, build persistence, improve memory, increase attention span, strengthen abstract thinking, and prepare students to deal productively with complexity, ambiguity, and frustration.

Let NCCAT help you develop your teaching tool kit to support the reading initiatives in North Carolina’s Read to Achieve legislation (a part of the Excellent Public Schools Act). Join us as we examine the best practices for developing a welcoming and enriching reading and writing environment for the early childhood classroom. Open to teachers in grades K–3, the program will focus on the next steps in developing strategies that link the foundational skills to comprehension in the classroom. Exploration will include setting the stage for comprehension at the listening level for kindergarten students and transitioning instruction, as students move through the grades, to thinking beyond the text.