A Class That Flows, Is A Class That Grows: Team-Building for Educators

This class establishes a foundation for communication, collaboration and on-going team-building among the teachers and para-professionals working in a variety of classroom environments throughout our district. A stronger team of educators can serve students more successfully and provide professional support to each other.

Academic Discourse through Socratic Seminars

The Socratic method of teaching is a student-centered approach that challenges learners to develop their critical thinking skills and engage in analytic discussion. The Socratic method can be used at any grade level and with all subject areas, and lessons can be adapted to fit a changing society. Come participate in a session that will provide teachers a method to ask students open-ended questions about texts and encourage students to use textual evidence to support their opinions and answers. Engage your students in intellectual discourse!

Acting Out the Math

Performance tasks have been used by many educators to help with student understanding and long term retention of information. The application of math to the real world makes the learning meaningful and at the same time helps facilitate the integration of the new Common Core Standards.

Participant will:

• Deepen knowledge around 8 Standards for Mathematical Practices and how to integrate them into CCSS Math lessons
• Gain an understanding of how performance tasks help facilitate the integration of both content standards and standards for mathematical practices in your classroom.
• Learn about 3-act tasks (an example of a Performance task)
• Explore different resources that help support the 8 SMPs & your grade level’s Math Content Standards

BlendELA: Activate Common Core ELA standards through Learning A-Z, Spelling City, NewsELA, and Scholastic News

Get started with our amazing online resources to activate learning in English Language Arts and address our Common Core Standards and 21st century learning. These blended learning platforms support personalized learning for our students through leveled reading, current events, nonfiction, and differentiated spelling activities. Teachers can create personalized pathways for students and monitor student progress. Bring your class lists and let’s jump right in!

Participants will:

• Understand how the ELA Common Core Standards and 21st century learning will be addressed through the blended learning platforms
• Learn how to navigate the different learning platforms
• Get prepared to engage your students in active learning using these platforms

Career Technical Education, Career Pathways and Academies: Working as a Community of Practice

A community of practice is more than just managing an established academy or pathway; members of a community of practice are practitioners dedicated to continuous improvement. Teacher teams working together in academies or pathways, in partnership with industry and community partners, can create a powerful, sustainable, evolving community of practice dedicated to the goal of graduating all students ready for success in college, career, and life.

Collaborative teams in pathways will learn how they can use the “Community of Practice Continuum” to self-assess their current status as a learning focused community of practice, to set specific goals, to reflect on their progress and results, and to identify support needs. This tool describes both practices of creating a collaborative culture of continuous improvement, and the steps of creating high-quality outcomes and standards-aligned performance tasks for academies/pathways and CTE classrooms.

Center for the Collaborative Classroom: Being a Writer

The Being a Writer program provides a writing-process approach to teaching writing that interweaves academic and social-emotional learning for K–5 students. Come learn how to get started using this new supplemental ELA resource.

Co-Teaching 101

This session is specially designed for certificated staff working in the beginning stages of the Co-Teaching model. Participants will learn about basics of the Co-Teaching model and will be able to build upon foundational knowledge of Co-Teaching. Teachers and specialists will work side by side to learn instructional strategies and techniques to support their Co-Teaching practice within their classrooms.

Participants will:

• Learn and build upon the foundations of the Co-Teaching model
• Work with Co-Teaching partners to learn strategies and techniques to further Co-Teaching practice
• Learn skills to support all learners within the Co-Taught
classroom.

Code San Leandro!

(Participants leave with Coding Curriculum)
Want to learn more about coding and computer science? CodeHS' PD workshop will explore how teachers can leverage our blended online learning tools and curriculum to confidently lead a computer science course, STEM or NGSS unit, or class, even if they've never coded before themselves. Come join us!

Creating a Captivating Teacher Webpage

In this workshop, you will engage in applying the essential basics to building an interactive teacher webpage. Workshops will be tailored to participant’s experience

Developing Your Students’ Mathematical Minds
(Exploring the 8 Standards for Mathematical Practices in Common Core Math)

The 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice describe the expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in students. These standards are the heart and soul of the Common Core Standards for Mathematics.

Participant Outcomes:

• Determine the difference between the 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice and your grade level Common Core Math Content Standards.
• Identify the key elements of each of the 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice.
• Explore hands-on lessons and activities to leverage the 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice in your teaching.

Discrete Trial Instruction - Part 1

Participants will gain an understanding of the history, research and present day application of discrete trial instruction. The discrete trial cycle is explained and requirements for each component of the cycle are reviewed and demonstrated. Prompting procedures and prompt hierarchies used in discrete trial instruction are discussed. Strategies to avoid common prompting problems are addressed. Steps of acquisition common to discrete trial are reviewed, with consideration for the variation in steps of acquisition that are common when teaching expressive and receptive language skills. This is a hands on training which includes modeling, practice, and feedback.
(Session recommended for teachers who teach in autism programs)

Google Classroom 101 and Student Google Accounts

Now that SLUSD students are getting Google accounts, you must be wondering how you'll organize, grade and annotate the incoming deluge of assignments in your new blended learning classroom. Google Classroom seamlessly ties together Google's familiar suite of apps to streamline students' assignment workflow and enhance communication. In this workshop you will learn the basics of Google Classroom platform, how to assign and grade work, and how to create an interactive online learning community that will save you time and save your sanity so that you can spend more time providing guidance for your wonderful students.

Google Docs for Classroom Writing

Writing is going digital! From blogging to the SBAC, collaborating on reports and developing presentations, students need to develop the capacity to use online writing platforms to develop ideas, edit, and publish work. Experience best practices in the digital writing process and see how using Google Docs can make student thinking visible, support ELA and ELD standards, address a variety of learner styles, and facilitate student writing across the curriculum.

Let’s Talk: Everyday Argumentation

Students talk in class; let's get them to talk and reason in support of an idea or point of view. This workshop will help you guide students through academic discourse to support opinions with reasons, organize their thoughts effectively and develop the language to link their ideas together. The strategies you will learn will help support literacy development across content areas, address a variety of learner styles, and will help students prepare for opinion and argumentative writing in later grades.

Math Pathways & Pitfalls: Founded on Core Principles on How Children Learn Mathematics

Math Pathways & Pitfalls intervention curriculum helps students tackle stubborn pitfalls head-on and transform them into pathways for learning key standards. This session will address the need for providing improved instruction of key mathematical standards and academic language in the math classroom. Teachers will receive a Math Pathways & Pitfalls curriculum book and CD for attending this session that also includes:

• 20+ student lessons and teaching guides (download free samples)
• DVD with footage of Math Pathways & Pitfalls in action
• CD with black line masters and classroom quizzes with answer keys
• Discussion Builders poster

MIND MATTERS--
Using Neuroscience to Help Increase Growth Mindset and Grit

The more we understand how our brain works, the more we can use it to strengthen our mind, body, and spirit. Participants will learn about the neuroscience that anchors the key components of Social Emotional Learning: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, positive relationships, and decision making. They will learn about the research on Mindset-- as a critical component impacting their teaching as well as an essential tool in their work with students. Participants will engage in lessons that they can replicate in the classroom. We will examine the research on neuroplasticity, growth mindset and grit and how shifting perspectives of both staff and students will turn frustration, learned helplessness, and apathy into engagement, perseverance and hope.

Observational Art: Tied to Common Core Standards

In this session participants will use direct observation of light, use of the Golden Mean, Research and Descriptive Text, along with a piece of string and some chalk, to create the visual model we will build around Studio Habits of Mind. We hope to make it fun and meaningful as we also address its place in the Common Core Standards.

Scaffolding Creativity

Can creativity be taught? Dancer/Choreographer Twyla Tharp noted that “before you can think outside the box, you must have a box.” This workshop aims to demystify the journey from the “box” to the creation of original work and ideas. We will learn visual art techniques that can open up common classroom activities to invite a greater degree of imagination, creativity, and student agency

Science is a Verb -
An Introduction to Scientific Inquiry

Do you find that your students have many questions about the world around them? Do you want to encourage their curiosity and nurture their investigative & problem solving skills? Learn how to get started using Science & Engineering Practices from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to foster engaging student centered learning.

Participants will:

• Become familiar with the Science & Engineering Practices in NGSS.
• Use observations and inferences to generate investigable questions.
• Gain a foundation for incorporating inquiry into your classroom.

Start Your Students on the STEM Path with Linkbots!

Looking for ways to incorporate fun and exciting STEM projects in your classroom? This session will teach computing and STEM concepts through a fun and exciting robotics-based curriculum using Linkbots! This session will inspire young students to gain interest in science and technology through robotics.
(Participants may sign out the 36 unit Linkbots for future classroom use)

Strengthening SEL Skills through Kindness, Empathy, and Compassion

This informative, interactive and highly-engaging workshop explores the research that supports the importance of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) practices in educators’ personal and professional development. Participants will receive an overview of SEL research and strategies and learn how to specifically integrate the important skills of kindness, empathy, and compassion both into the school site climate and classroom culture. These key components of emotional intelligence prepare students to be successful in school, college, career, and life. The facilitator, Joelle Hood, will lead participants in discussion and hands-on activities that they can replicate in their classroom to boost student communication and collaboration. Using empathy as the foundation, she will also teach participants how to problem-solve, connect, and redirect students' disruptive behavior in a positive and productive way.

Student Satellites: Create a STEM Project in your classroom.

Explore the world around you with a simulated satellite that fits in the volume of a soda can! In class activity explores temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, magnetic field, acceleration, and GPS. Based on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the experience culminates in a high power rocket launch east of Stockton or a high altitude balloon release on your school campus. Teachers that participate in this workshop can acquire the curriculum and PD to support their class with a launch!

Working with Renaissance Learning and Understanding Data and Reports to guide Instruction

In this session learn how to generate individual, group, and class report on Renaissance Learning. By utilizing the instructional planning tool, learn to make informed, targeted instructional decisions that will impact student learning. Finally, explore goal setting and progress monitoring with STAR assessments.

Words Their Way: Getting Started

Words Their Way (called Palabras a Su Paso in bilingual classrooms) is a differentiated spelling and word work program designed to help students move through the developmental stages at their own pace. Come learn how to get started using this new resource!

Using Performance Based Assessments

Professional Development for using performance based assessments in your classroom.

A Class That Flows, Is A Class That Grows: Team-Building for Educators

This class establishes a foundation for communication, collaboration and on-going team-building among the teachers and para-professionals working in a variety of classroom environments throughout our district. A stronger team of educators can serve students more successfully and provide professional support to each other.

Co-Teaching 101

This session is specially designed for certificated staff working in the beginning stages of the Co-Teaching model. Participants will learn about basics of the Co-Teaching model and will be able to build upon foundational knowledge of Co-Teaching. Teachers and specialists will work side by side to learn instructional strategies and techniques to support their Co-Teaching practice within their classrooms.

Participants will:

• Learn and build upon the foundations of the Co-Teaching model
• Work with Co-Teaching partners to learn strategies and techniques to further Co-Teaching practice
• Learn skills to support all learners within the Co-Taught
classroom.

Discrete Trial Instruction - Part 1

Participants will gain an understanding of the history, research and present day application of discrete trial instruction. The discrete trial cycle is explained and requirements for each component of the cycle are reviewed and demonstrated. Prompting procedures and prompt hierarchies used in discrete trial instruction are discussed. Strategies to avoid common prompting problems are addressed. Steps of acquisition common to discrete trial are reviewed, with consideration for the variation in steps of acquisition that are common when teaching expressive and receptive language skills. This is a hands on training which includes modeling, practice, and feedback.
(Session recommended for teachers who teach in autism programs)

Google Next Steps

In this hands-on session, participants will:

• Learn more about Google Calendar, such as creating Appointment Slots
• Creating Google Sheets and Forms
• Gain intermediate skills in Google Sheets

Medical Training with District Nurses

District nurses will discuss EpiPens, seizures, asthma, and head injuries in the school setting. There will also be time for a question and answer session to address emerging health issues, so bring your questions!

SPED 101: Exploring the History of Special Education

In this session we will identify major laws and court rulings that have helped shape special education services, including an overview of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We will describe how beliefs about people with disabilities are related to life experiences. In addition, we will identify categories of disability according to state and national laws.

Strategies for Supporting Instruction

Come learn strategies for supporting instruction for all students. Participants will learn to:

• Understand district’s co-teaching service delivery model
• Preparation for supporting instruction