Designed for teachers of grades K–5.

Struggling to get kids writing? Wondering how to encourage young writers to better demonstrate their thinking on paper? Does the phrase “written response to text” give you nightmares? We will explore structure and organization, tools and strategies, rubrics and differentiated support for helping students become confident, prolific writers who know how to demonstrate their thinking in writing. Written comprehension only works if students have the words to use and the tools to comprehend text. Examine methods for developing strong reading comprehension skills in your students and discover how those methods can be utilized to develop strong writers as well.

Educators have a responsibility to effectively integrate new technologies into the curriculum, preparing students for a literacy future we have yet to imagine. Discover how to create learning experiences that take your students from being consumers to creators of digital content. Help your students evaluate and analyze appropriate resources most beneficial to their success as creators. In this hands-on, make-and-take program, you will use free/inexpensive digital tools to create project examples that can be incorporated into your classroom. You will use multiple apps in conjunction (app-smashing) to create a final product. Seamlessly integrate applications to make standards-based learning fun and interactive. Come with tasks, projects, and ideas for your classroom that involve creation rather than consumption.

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 review and evaluate strategies for motivating disengaged students and will prepare you to implement them upon your return to the classroom.

Designed for high school math teachers.

Struggling learners often need concrete and visual experiences to develop understanding as they move seamlessly between linear, quadratic, and exponential functions and in creating equations. This program will include vertical alignment as it relates to the structure of mathematics (MP 7), making connections to the middle grades curriculum in order to utilize the strategies students already know or have been exposed to. We will spend considerable time focused on the major clusters in Creating Equations and Interpreting Functions; making connections to the building blocks of middle grades and the Math I standards. Participants will step outside their abstract comfort zone to reach down to the concrete and pictorial levels where struggling learners can grasp concepts that generally elude them. We will incorporate the TI-84 graphing calculator as an instructional tool to move students from concrete concept development to abstract application. You will experience the 8 Mathematical Practices as a student experiences them and examine the Mathematics Teaching Practices as outlined in “Principles to Action” (NCTM).

Designed for teachers of grades K–3.

Develop your teaching tool kit to support the reading initiatives in North Carolina’s Read to Achieve legislation. Join us as we examine best practices for developing a welcoming and enriching reading and writing environment for the early childhood classroom. Open to teachers in grades K–3, this program will focus on developing strategies that link foundational skills to comprehension in the classroom. Set the stage for comprehension at the listening level for kindergarten students and transition instruction to thinking beyond the text as students move through the early grades.

Canvas, North Carolina’s Learning Management System (LMS), is your place for one-stop learning and course management. Canvas is a trusted, open source LMS which provides a new way of teaching, learning, and thinking. Create modules, lessons, assessments, discussions, and portfolios. Have your grade book, course information, feedback, and student analytics all in one place. Come be a part of the education revolution—it’s Canvas Time, North Carolina!

Today’s students use phones, tablets, computers, and video games as ways to obtain information. Information does not always link to understanding! What types of strategies can teachers use to include this type of information sourcing? Are literacy strategies the same for traditional text as they are for digital text? Discuss the digital divide and the complexities involved with nontraditional text. Investigate strategies for “digging deeper” into digital text. Explore a variety of digital tools you can use to make literacy instruction and learning more authentic and relevant.

Open to teachers in their first, second, or third year of teaching, this program 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.