Professional Development
Sample Workshops
Bullying Prevention and School Climate
Communicating in Stressful and Conflict Situations
Jim Dillon and Nancy Andress
Half Day
Successful teamwork and collaboration, essential elements for effective educational initiatives, rely upon the communication skills of the participants. The ability to successfully confront and resolve complex problems, and the conflicts often produced, requires a range of communication skills and strategies. This workshop will identify the common sources of conflict and stress, and describe strategies to address and resolve problems in a creative and productive way. Opportunities will be provided for participants to observe communication difficulties via video clips and to practice communication skills with each other.
Leadership for Bullying Prevention
Jim Dillon
Half Day and Full Day Options
Effective school leadership is essential to the success of any school improvement effort. While much of the focus on bullying prevention has been on implementing specific programs and strategies in school environments, bullying is a complex problem that challenges many traditional approaches used by schools. This workshop will highlight and illustrate the specific set of knowledge and skills that school leaders need to successfully lead and sustain any bullying prevention initiative.
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
Jim Dillon (certified trainer)
Two Days, One Year Follow-up Consultation
The Olweus Program reduces bullying among children, improves the social climate of classrooms, and reduces related antisocial behaviors such as vandalism and truancy. It is a comprehensive, school-wide program designed and evaluated for use in elementary, middle/junior high schools, and is currently gathering data on high school implementation. The program’s goals are to reduce and prevent bullying problems among school children and to improve peer relations at school. The Olweus Program has been implemented in more than a dozen countries around the world and thousands of schools in the United States. A coordinating team from each school building must attend the two day training. Jim Dillon, certified trainer, implemented the program in the school where he was principal for seventeen years. He brings his unique and practical perspective to the training and consultation.
Teaching Self Regulation Skills to Children
Jim Dillon
Half or Full Day Options; Follow-up TA Option
The social world of school is difficult to navigate for many children. Research has shown that the ability to control and regulate one’s actions in pursuit of a goal or to solve a problem is a better predictor of success in life than IQ. Much of the inappropriate behavior demonstrated by children stems from deficits in self regulation and the inability to accurately match one’s behavior to the demands of the situation. This workshop provides an overview of self-regulation theory and research and emphasizes the unique role of language and “self talk” in developing self regulation skills. Practical strategies will be offered on how to integrate self regulation instruction into the typical school day.
CTE, Internships, Service Education, Senior Year Activities
Internships and Service Learning 101: What Needs to be in Place Before Students Leave the Building?
Joan McLachlan
Half-day or full-day options with follow up phone/email consultation
Often internship and service learning programs stop at inspiration because getting to application seems too daunting. This workshop will give participants the foundation to make an internship or service-learning program a reality or help to improve on an existing one. The guidelines, activities, and materials available in the workshop include a checklist of What Needs to be in Place before Students Leave the Building and other useful information and samples to enable participants to assess the relevance and applicability of this curriculum-based internship model for their school community and to decide if their school or district is ready for internships. Participants will explore the key elements needed for sound academic internships including the following:
- Preparation before students leave the building
- Identifying suitable internship sites
- Structuring internships, developing and writing curriculum, and designing school-based support
Internships and Service-Learning 201: What Needs to be in Place After Students Leave the Building?
Joan McLachlan
Half-day or full-day options with follow up phone/email consultation
The discussions and materials available in the workshop include: a sponsor orientation checklist; sample curriculum, discussion of the need for internship support classes or seminars and sample lessons; and a checklist of the key stages of an internship including what can go wrong and what to do about itThis informational workshop explores the necessary elements for supervising and monitoring students in internship and service-learning sites including
- Helping sponsors prepare for the intern’s arrival and what to do after the initial excitement wears off
- Getting students ready for an internship placement through classes or seminars
- Supporting students with ongoing seminars and meetings
- Understanding the importance of curriculum to guide internship activities
- Monitoring students in internship placements and
- Dealing with the natural stages of an internship and predicable problems
The discussions and materials available in the workshop include: a sponsor orientation checklist; sample curriculum, discussion of the need for internship support classes or seminars and sample lessons; and a checklist of the key stages of an internship including what can go wrong and what to do about it
Helping Students become College and Career Ready
Joan McLachlan
Half or full-day options; follow up phone/email consultation
Participants explore how internships can engage all youth in developing academic and 21st Century skills and making informed choices for career paths and college majors. Topics include, seminars, reflection, individualized curriculum, mentoring and the how the knowledge of the predictable stages of an internship or service- learning experience will lead to quality real-world learning experiences
Senior Project Workshop
Joan McLachlan
Half or full-day options with follow up phone/email consultation
Whether required or optional, many high schools struggle with scheduling Senior Projects, determining how the program could operate in their schools, deciding who will be in charge and, most importantly, how to prepare students for and how to manage their presentations. This workshop will provide educators with the “nuts and bolts” of operating a successful Senior Project program.
Strengthening the Internship/Service Learning Component of Senior Projects
Joan McLachlan
Half -day or full-day options with follow up phone/email consultation
This workshop explores tried and tested practices that will make the community- based learning component of the Senior Project more rigorous and relevant to students. Participants will learn the key elements of a quality community-based learning experience; The Need for a Vision and a Plan; How Internships and Service-learning can fit into your program; Finding Student Placements; Placing and Monitoring Students Benefits of Seminars and Mentoring and helping student present their internship, service-learning experience to an audience.
What’s School Got to Do with My Life Anyway? An Introduction to Career Skills Exploration in Connecting School, Life, and Identity
Dr. Stephanie Robock
Half or full day workshop, grades K- High School
While relevance and engagement in school often focuses on getting students engaged in the work of school, this workshop shifts the question to, “What do my students’ lives and emerging identities have to do with what goes on in school?” Using hands on activities, participants learn skill exploration activities that help students construct their own understanding of the links between school, life outside school, and the world of work. These activities provide a strength-based literacy tool to promote students’ sense of competency and learn more about themselves and each other. The workshop uses an interdisciplinary approach that is inclusive of all students in promoting competency, a positive sense of self, and occupational and literacy standards tied directly to students’ lives and backgrounds. Participants will also learn ways to use career skills literacy across the content areas.
Collaboration
Building Powerful School Teams
Vincent Tarsio
There are many teams that meet on a regular basis in our schools. This workshop will focus on the most current research regarding the development of effective school teams. Participants will be provided with tools and strategies to manage and conduct effective team meetings.
Communicating with Purpose
Vincent Tarsio
Participants will identify their own interpersonal communication style and how to adapt their communication style to others in the workplace. They will learn and practice effective communication skills that promote more purposeful conversations that will strengthen collegiality and relationships within their school community.
ELA, Literacy, Reading
Classroom and Teacher Observation and Evaluation Using the Classroom & Intervention Reading Instruction Observation Form (CIRIO)
Dr. Stephanie Robock
Two-day Workshop and follow-up
Teacher and classroom observations are becoming a critical component of teacher evaluation and school improvement reform. Through classroom and teacher observation, the CIRIO helps to assess, evaluate, and improve reading instruction, small group work, interventions and practices. The training provides a step by step, section by section overview and research grounding of the instrument, video and hands-on examples, range of instrument uses for teachers, coaches, specialists, and administrators. Supervised use of the instrument along with follow-up and feedback will take place within two weeks of the training. Differentiated professional development will be available based on individual staff need and use of the CIRIO. Participants will learn how to use results of the CIRIO in combination with grade, classroom, and individual student level data to identify areas in need of improvement or attention.
Literacy-based Action Research Projects
Dr. Stephanie Robock
Series of 4-8 Workshops
Teachers have a critical role as professionals who can systematically develop solutions to improve classroom and individual student outcomes. In this series of workshops, teachers learn how to effectively identify, articulate, and target an instructional issue, find and review best practices targeted to the problem, and design a systematic approach to solving the issue. Through these innovative workshops, teachers and coaches will become practitioner-researchers able to conduct their own applied research to solve relevant classroom-level issues. Working as a group or individually, teachers and coaches will identify an instructional concern, design and carry out “action research” in a learn-by-doing method that empowers teachers to obtain immediate and meaningful solutions to classroom–level issue.
Planning
Data Informed Decision Making
Vincent Tarsio
School teams will be provided with a structured protocol for the analysis of summative and formative data. This workshop is built around the exploration and interpretation of the most current school data. Teams will understand and apply the most current research in the key components of comprehensive school planning to assess current instructional practices and revise and further develop the school’s current educational plan.
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