Pennsylvania Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Please click on the links below to learn more about the available workshops in the Professional Development Series:

Leveraging Cultural Differences to Promote Diversity and Equity in the Classroom

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day, Multiple Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

By acknowledging and valuing diverse cultural backgrounds, educators can devise instructional lessons that contextualize critical content and skills within students' everyday lives. Through this process, students learn more about one another in safe, respectful environments that promote pro-social behavior, reduce bullying, spark intrinsic motivation, increase home-school connection, and close opportunity gaps through personalized learning. This session offers strategies school leaders and teachers can transfer immediately into their buildings and classrooms to reach and engage learners of all cultures, ages, and abilities. 

Workshop Topics:

Part 1:

• Internal and External Identity Development
• Cultural Proficiency Continuum
• Social Emotional Learning Components
• Microaggressions
• Implicit Bias
• Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
• Self-Assessment

Part 2:

• Race and Ethnicity
• Socioeconomic Status
• Facets of Gender
• Language and Linguistics
  

Fostering a Growth Mindset

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day, Multiple Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

In addition to Carol Dweck’s research on Growth Mindset, participants will explore the research of Vygotsky, Atkinson, and Seligman through experiential learning, collaborative activities, and deep dialogue and how their work impacts teaching and learning. Educators will assess ways to teach students of all levels about neuroplasticity, the value of productive struggle, the power of resilience and perseverance, and the importance of metacognitive reflection. Session participants will leave with several interactive activities and lessons that can be immediately applied to the classroom.

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Devising and Asking Questions to Spark Curiosity, Critical Thinking, and Collaboration

Workshop Duration: Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

The best learning starts with questions, not answers. In this session, educators will evaluate the art of devising and asking effective questions to spark curiosity, critical thinking, and collaboration among students. Join us as we delve into the relationship between effective questioning and best teaching practices, the common pitfalls experienced when posing questions, and successful strategies to boost engagement and deeper learning.

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Reducing Bullying Behavior and Fostering a Pro-Social Educational Environment

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Our students require a safe, supportive learning environments in order achieve at their fullest potential. In this session, attendees will participate in experiential activities designed to strengthen student interactions and develop a classroom community. In addition to examining the types of bullying and the roles students take during a bullying incident, participants will learn of classroom strategies that reduce bullying behavior and increase pro-social interaction. All activities, strategies, and lessons are able to be immediately incorporated into the classroom routines and practices.

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Increasing Student Collaboration, Participation, and Engagement through Formative Assessment

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Fostering collaboration in the classroom encourages students to combine strengths, share responsibilities, learn from each other, and spark innovation to improve their own learning. Students need to be explicitly shown how to collaborate effectively and efficiently in order to practice and master these skills. Through experiential learning and modeling, this session will showcase strategies for employing formative assessment to plan “next steps in learning” as well as promote student collaboration and participation.

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Establishing and Sustaining a Culture of Community

Workshop Duration: Full Day, Two Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This session addresses the most critical issues in schools today - climate, culture, and community. The foundation for creating a safe learning climate and community is “respect” – for self and others. To be successful in our academic efforts, educators must create safe school and classroom communities by establishing strong, respectful relationships. This experiential session is designed to identify, model and practice strategies for team, group, and community building, self-respect and social skill building.

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Building Academic Success on Social Emotional Learning

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day, Two Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This session will help teachers design a climate and culture that develops students of character through the integration of Social Emotional Learning (SEL), sometimes referred to as “soft skills.”  Social Emotional Learning begins with self-awareness and extends to the essential skills of respect for self and others, responsibility for all that we say, think, feel, and do, and the value of building healthy relationships. "Satisfying the social emotional needs of the students does more than prepare them to learn. It actually increases their capacity for learning. Social and emotional learning has been shown to increase mastery of subject material, motivation to learn, commitment to school, and time devoted to school work" (Hawkins et al., 1999; Malecki & Elliot, 2002).

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Gamifying Learning to Increase Student Motivation and Achievement

Workshop Duration: Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Can the use of games in the classroom increase student motivation? Research says, “Yes!”  This session begins by defining the qualities of online gaming that capture students’ attention and interest. Incorporation of these characteristics into classroom instruction enhances the content, promotes active engagement, emphasizes social emotional learning, and increases academic performance. Through experiential activities, participants will explore low- and high-tech examples of games and how these games can meet the diverse needs of learners in every grade and across content areas.

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Designing Quality Lessons to Increase Engagement through Active, Student-Directed Learning

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Engagement, or intrinsic motivation, is an essential component in student learning. Research shows the depth of engagement correlates to the depth of learning and serves as protective factor that increases the likelihood of a student’s success in school (Carini, 2004; Resnick, 1997). In this session, participants will analyze the four components of educational engagement, the five levels of student engagement (Schlechty, 2002). Through active learning, attendees will examine twelve engagement strategies to establish a student-directed learning environment and devise ways to incorporate these strategies into lessons for immediate use.

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Cultivating a Student Leadership Organization

Workshop Duration: Full Day, Two Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This session will provide resources and assistance to educators so that they may empower and support students building critical social and emotional skills to become leaders in their educational community. Core areas of focus include: Identity and Developmental Assets, Social Emotional Intelligence, Belonging and Self-esteem, Character and Perception, Healthy Relationship, Communication and Active Listening Skills, Decision-Making Processes, Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation, and Peer Mentoring.

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Engaging Students through Brain-Informed Teaching Strategies

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

“What were you thinking?!” Maybe you have wondered this of, or even asked it out loud to, your pre-teen or teenage student. Understanding the fundamental processes of the adolescent brain can help provide answers to that question. This session will help you understand the basic brain functions of adolescents and support you in designing and facilitating learning strategies and practices that will resonate with and engage students while fostering their academic, social, and emotional growth.

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Curriculum Design and Development

Workshop Duration: Full Day, Two Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

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Project-based Learning

Workshop Duration: Full Day, Two Days, One Semester

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This program includes learning opportunities for district leaders and teachers to provide for an efficient and well-supported project-based learning (PBL) program. The program will grow teacher and administrators understanding of project-based learning to help them create and implement with minimal obstacles. The program includes four parts: an administrator workshop, teacher content development training, project facilitation training, and a reflection activity. During this work, participants will collaborate with peers, building leaders, and a PBL consultant when they need help.

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Digital Leadership and Innovation

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day, Multiple Days

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Throughout the program, learners will be introduced to a variety of types of instructional technology and innovation instructional leadership strategies that focus on example programs to advance the technical skills of both digital leaders and for those educators in which they supervise.

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Applying the 4C's to Innovative Learning Experience

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

Developing Reflection through Blogging

Workshop Duration: Half Day, Full Day

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This program discusses why blogging has quickly become one of the most popular ways of communicating and spreading information and news and how this connects with education. There are literally millions of blogs online (don’t worry, you can make yours stand out and get noticed!). Blogging is a great way to express yourself and also a fantastic way to share information with others. You become a better person and a better writer.

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Designing Online Courses with Open Educational Resources

Workshop Duration: Full Day, Two Days, One Semester

Cost: $1500 per day, plus travel expenses

This program will introduce the participants to a model of teaching and learning based on the use of open educational resources, within a collaborative professional development model. This includes the use of education materials that are available for localization and adaptation, such as Khan Academy, CK12, COERLL and many other Open Educational Resources (OER). We will also review the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen campaign to use openly licensed educational materials to transform teaching and learning.

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