Designed for teacher leaders and instructional coaches.

Professional learning that recognizes teachers as agents of their own growth and allows them to direct their own learning, leads to increased educator effectiveness. The Standards for Professional Learning can be used to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning. Through a series of collaborative activities, participants will analyze the purpose and key components of Learning Communities, Leadership, Resources, Data, Learning Designs, Implementation and Outcomes. We will explore the relationship between teacher agency and professional growth with a goal of developing your capacity to engage in and lead effective professional learning experiences aligned to the Standards for Professional Learning. Participants will create an action plan with steps for implementing the Standards in their school or district and discuss their alignment with evaluation standards.

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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.

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Designed for teachers in grades 4–12.

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.

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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.

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Extreme weather events offer multiple opportunities to create engaging lessons across grade levels and the curriculum. Real-time media coverage of devastating storms like Maria and Irma creates the ideal catalyst for motivating student interest in science, literacy, technology, and social studies lessons. Hear accounts from Outer Banks residents who have experienced hurricanes firsthand and see evidence of damage caused by recent storms. Partner with science, literacy, and digital learning experts to explore how extreme weather events are the perfect curriculum storm for creating lessons that will enhance K–12 instruction.

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The Maker Movement empowers regular people to become inventors, engineers, and designers. A current trend in education uses the Maker mindset to encourage students of all ages to build, design, program, solve problems, collaborate, and innovate. Learn to plan lessons that teach the Maker mindset and pull in content as diverse as engineering, reading, and math. In this hands-on session you’ll explore how you might use Maker activities in your classroom to promote learning, to foster engagement, and to build innovation and creativity in your students. Topics include: design, 3D printing, building, invention, robotics, programming, electronics, app smashing, and more!

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Whether or not your school or district has adopted a Google Chromebook environment, if your LEA infrastructure allows for the use of Google Tools and/or Apps, the “Googlesphere” can be an immense help. It can aid in engaging students, keeping in touch with parents, automating feedback and assessment, sharing documents, and more. Hone your skills with the Google Chrome Browser, with Google Apps, with Android Apps, and with Chrome OS so that you can engage your students using freely available tools on almost any platform.

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Designed for teachers in grades 4–8.

Our public schools are encountering a multicultural diversity challenge. Minority students (and all students) need to see positive verbal and visual images of children like themselves in the books they read. When children see themselves in books they are motivated to read more books and read more often. It can increase self-esteem and make them feel part of the larger society. Reading literature about people from other cultures can increase sensitivity to those who are different from themselves, improve their knowledge of the world, and help them realize that although people have many differences, they also share many similarities. Learn to identify and evaluate books and online literacy resources that you can use to build a positive multicultural classroom. Become familiar with grants and other sources you can use to acquire multicultural resources. We also will explore strategies for involving parents in multicultural literacy programs.

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Designed for teachers in grades K–8.

How do we take a standardized curricula and design instruction to align with the diverse learning needs of the students in today’s classrooms? How do we ensure students are engaged and motivated to learn? How can we design and implement lessons that ensure student success? This program will help teachers answer these questions by examining elements of lesson design and planning that focus on the learning processes of the students. Teachers will incorporate these elements with evidence and research-based instructional strategies as they design and create lessons for student learning in their classroom.

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The fundamental difference between the ELA Standards for Grades 9–10 and Grade 8 is not one of substance but of scope. Whereas eighth graders are asked to evaluate the effect of individual elements in a text, freshmen and sophomores must understand how a series of such elements impact a text in its totality. Words like “thorough” and “cumulative” begin to appear in the 9-10 ELA Standards. In this program, participants will engage in a series of activities that scaffold this skill development. We will demystify the concept of author’s purpose and examine how we can sensitize students to understand how the language and organizational choices communicate purpose. This program incorporates many of the activities from “Middle Grades ELA: Teaching Beyond the EOG,” “Teaching English II: Enrich the Mind and the Scores Will Follow,” and “Teaching English I: Fresh Ideas for Freshmen.”

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