Designed for teachers in grades 4–12.

Teaching reading skills in English/Language Arts classes and across the disciplines is an almost guaranteed way to help students retain content. Unfortunately, the tendency to focus on the content is a real enemy to the ultimate goal of building reading skills. Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, reluctant, struggling and disengaged students are not assured enough opportunities to read throughout the school day. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information about a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills using materials that are relevant to their students. Participants in this program will review ideas about how to incorporate reading skill lessons into their curriculum so that they are enticing to struggling, reluctant, and disengaged learners.

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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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Elementary teachers may find that “fitting it all in” is impossible. Using informational text and technologies, elementary teachers will discover that not only is it possible to “fit it all in” it is fun! Examine the North Carolina Essential Standards and make connections to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, ELA and Writing Standards. Investigate text sets and the role they play in integrating multiple contents. Create engaging cross-curricular instructional units with culminating projects for assessments.

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This hands-on, minds-on seminar is designed to help teachers explore, evaluate, and apply blended models, structures, strategies, and tools to increase personalization in their classrooms. Throughout the week, participants will design a blended learning blueprint for their classrooms to assist with planning and implementing a personalized learning environment. Join us to learn how to leverage technology to meet each student’s needs in a blended classroom.

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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.

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It can be a struggle for career and technical education teachers to find appropriate resources to engage their students when designing their courses to fit the 16 Career Clusters and 79 related pathways that are a part of the CTE essential standards. Join CTE experts as we investigate digital resources, community partnerships, and strategies that provide enhanced instruction across the multiple curriculums in this field. Create lessons that enrich and extend these standards. Explore the policies and best practices of CTE education and how they can help launch students for success in a broad range of occupations and career specialties.

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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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