Instructional Strategies

In addition to traditional writing skills, summary writing requires advanced reading, analyzing, synthesizing, and organizing skills. Attendees will receive and practice using scaffolding templates and other resources to help secondary students successfully write summaries on a variety of topics.

What are the qualities of engaging student work? What should teachers look for when documenting student engagement? Research suggests the facets of learner engagement are simultaneously intellectual, academic, and egocentric.

In this workshop, participants are taken on a journey through the latest brain research in a humorous, interactive session that integrates strategy, thinking, and engagement; this is truly a three-dimensional approach.

How can teachers develop high-quality integrated units and use the process to integrate the standards, strengthen alignment, and upgrade units for 21st century learners?

During this interactive session, attendees will design strategies to develop high-quality, integrated unit maps in regular classrooms. Participants are encouraged to bring a computer and unit ideas.

Research indicates there are proven strategies to create improved learning for teachers and students. This session isn’t just about building a positive school culture – it’s about developing strategic, actionable practices that align with what we know about the science of learning to increase learning capacity.

This session is designed for schools that are already implementing teaming or PLCs and are looking for strategies to help make their collaboration deeper and more meaningful. It’s ideal for schools attempting to improve academic achievement and student outcomes.

Student learning is the product of three factors: what the teacher brings to the classroom, what the students bring in terms of schema and background, and the actual content of the lesson.

These three factors come together in the student work or task. Knowing this, how do teachers plan tasks that maximize learning, and what are the components of a powerful task? This workshop addresses what rigor looks like.

While the work is complex, the workshop will help simplify the design process and use humorous anecdotes to illuminate the construction of optimal learning activities.

John Dewey, a leader in education, conveyed that learning should not be just the acquisition of a rote set of skills. He believed learning should be “the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.”

Project-Based Learning (PBL) provides an educational environment that creates meaningful contexts to apply both academic and success skills that embrace the application of caring about – and for – the greater good.

There are a variety of definitions and explanations pertaining to PBL. For schools or districts that do not already have a framework in place, there is the BIE Gold Standard Project Based Learning Model, which can be used for both designing project-based curriculum and developing and implementing project-based instruction.

Learn the eight BIE Gold Standard PBL essential project design elements:

• Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills: The project is focused on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.• Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills: The project is focused on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.
• Challenging Problem or Question: The project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.
• Sustained Inquiry: Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.
• Authenticity: The project features real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact – or speaks to students’ personal concerns, interests, and issues in their lives.
• Student Voice & Choice: Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.
• Reflection: Students and teachers reflect on learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles, and how to overcome them.
• Critique and Revision: Students give, receive, and use feedback to improve their process and products.
• Public Product: Students make their project work public by explaining, displaying, and/or presenting itto people beyond the classroom.

Explore how one of the most fundamental instructional strategies – questioning – can provide the proper scaffolding to deepen student thinking, understanding, and application of knowledge.

Participants will learn:

• Instructional methods and techniques for using questioning to extend and evaluate student learning experiences
• Eight different kinds of questions that challenge students to demonstrate higher-order thinking as categorized by Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and communicate depth of knowledge as designated by Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Model
• How to rephrase the performance objectives of college and career readiness standards into questions that will engage and challenge students to think deeply and express and share the depth and extent of their learning

Many teachers feel increasing pressure to teach 21st century students without easy access to 21st century tools. The idea of blending online work with face-to-face engagement can be very daunting.

In this session, educators explore how technology can be used to empower both teachers and students in an increasingly digital world.

Learn how to transition from a traditional, low-tech classroom to a blended learning model by capitalizing on students’ connectivity and the technology they bring into the classroom.

Learn how to build a technology tool belt to create a blended learning model that works for an individual classroom.

Weaving together technology and tradition can make educators more effective, while improving learning outcomes for students.

Whether just getting started or well into the process, this session highlights the critical components leaders and leadership teams need to target and ensure successful implementation.

In this session, leadership teams will gain strategies and tools to:

• Identify the support structure needed to implement the process
• Clarify the roles and responsibilities of the team
• Determine possible entry points
• Set realistic short- and long-term goals
• Unpack the goals to determine training needs
• Connect it with other initiatives