Finding Enthusiasm for Teaching in an Online World
Without the face-to-face connection between people, it can be difficult to teach effectively. Feeding off the audience and sensing cues from the student’s faces and voices don’t exist in a virtual classroom or a discussion thread. Or do they? In this session, educators will learn strategies for managing their workload as an online moderator, coaxing the best out of their students, and balancing rigor with engagement for student and teacher alike, all in the name of finding a happier place as an educator in this ever-changing online world.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, instructional leaders, and anyone who teaches online classes and is in need of a motivational boost.
Tried That, Didn’t Work: Effective Interventions for the 5 Most Common Classroom Disruptions
Have you ever wondered why some strategies work great with certain kids but totally fail with others? Have you ever gone through your entire toolbox of management and motivation strategies but were unable to find anything that would work with a certain student? This session offers effective interventions for common classroom disruptions such as blurting out, side talking, rude behavior, lack of focus, and refusing to try. This content is connected to the book 75 Quick and Easy Solutions to Common Classroom Disruptions.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), administrators, and anyone interested in learning practical and easy-to-implement strategies for dealing with common classroom disruptions and challenges.
Managing and Engaging Students in the Common Core Classroom
The Common Core State Standards will require that students collaborate, think deeply about content, make connections across disciplines, communicate ideas, and direct some of their own learning. As a result, classrooms will have to be organized and managed in an authentic manner. This session will provide specific organizational, behavioral, and instructional techniques that will help to produce self‐controlled, cooperative, and focused learners.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), administrators, academic coaches, and anyone interested in learning how to optimize their classroom management style to support the teaching of the Common Core State Standards.
Are You Paying Attention? High Impact Memory Strategies
This session explores two of the topics that are of most relevance to classroom teachers: attention and memory. As teachers we know that we need our students’ attention in order for them to learn, recall, and demonstrate mastery. These two concepts, from the perspective of the brain, are highly complex and subject to numerous influences that may negatively impact classroom learning.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), administrators, and anyone who wants to learn about the brain processes involved in attention and memory and who wants to gain classroom strategies that will increase attention/focus and memory/recall.
Brain Research: Applications for the Classroom
What is all this fuss about brain research? Isn’t this brain stuff just another fad? In addition to learning about the brain-compatible instructional strategies, participants will be given the opportunity to practice techniques. (Note: This is an introductory course designed for an audience that is just beginning to investigate brain-based learning.)
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, and anyone interested in brain-based learning and in gaining instructional strategies that will help all students succeed.
Meaningful Learning: Curriculum Connections and the Brain
The brain inherently searches for meaning, relevance, and context. Much of the standardized curriculum offered to students is fragmented and disconnected.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), administrators, and anyone who is interested in gaining techniques to help students create meaningful connections across the curriculum.
Inside the Teenage Brain
This session uncovers the fascinating research surrounding the unique development of the adolescent brain. Participants will learn that the teen brain is wired differently and functions differently than an adult brain. This fact has significant implications for classroom practice.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (6-12), administrators, and anyone interested in gaining strategies that help the teen brain make sense of learning.
Get 'Em Up: Using Movement to Support Learning
This workshop will explore the connections between physical movement and learning. Participants will be given strategies, techniques, and sample lessons that allow students to learn concepts and content through physical movement.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, and anyone interested in learning how to improve learning through movement.
They Really Do Learn Differently: Gender Differences in the Classroom
This engaging and interactive session explores the differences and learning needs of boys and girls. Participants will be provided with an overview of gender/brain differences and how those differences impact learning, motivation, and classroom management. Specific strategies will be provided that are effective when teaching both single-sex and mixed-gender classrooms.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, and anyone who is interested in learning about gender differences and how they impact student behavior and learning.
Understanding the ADD/ADHD Student
Students with attention-processing disorders are often challenging for classroom teachers. This fun and interactive session will provide an overview of the brain functioning of students with ADD or ADHD. Participants will be given numerous, easy-to-implement ideas that will help students focus, learn, and retain information.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, and anyone who is interested in learning more about ADD/ADHD and how to improve student learning through practical and easy-to-implement strategies.
Getting Your Act Together (Organization for Students)
Do you know students who, in spite of high intellect, have a tough time handling day-to-day school responsibilities? They forget their homework, lose their papers, and always seem to be in a rush in the mornings. Why can’t they get their act together? When students do poorly in school, the cause is often poor organizational skills. Learn the 5 habits that will help your students get their act together! The 5 habits include: writing things down with one tool (either paper or digital) to trap all commitments in one place; breaking big projects down into little parts; taming the book bag; learning to deal with papers with the one-binder method and a regular routine of purging; and getting everything ready the night before to avoid the morning “rush hour.”
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), parents, administrators, and anyone who is interested in learning how to help their students get better organized.
The Passion-Driven Classroom
Over the years, our consultants have heard many stories about how a few words or a simple act has changed a student’s life forever. An expert consultant shares with teachers how they can sustain students’ energy, excitement, and love for learning.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), administrators, and anyone who is interested in receiving techniques to improve their students’ desire for learning.
Pulling the Weeds: Stress Management for Educators
Based on one principle (Live a balanced life) and 24 simple rules to live by, this session provides participants with strategies for balancing their health, personal life, and work responsibilities in order to be effective in all aspects of their life. Applicable for educators at all levels, the session is fun, relaxed, and humorous but also provides clear evidence of the negative impacts of stress on the body and brain.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12, higher education), paraprofessionals, administrators, and anyone who is interested in learning strategies for balancing personal and professional responsibilities.
Banish Bullying
The following bullying scenarios will be addressed using research-based strategies for effective communication, trust, and relationship building: student to student bullying, student to teacher bullying, teacher to student bullying, and teacher to teacher bullying. Participants will learn specific techniques to manage bullying, practice choosing words carefully, and identify strategies that will improve individual interactions. Anecdotal stories by the presenter and participants will be used as stepping stones for problem-solving. The professional development workshop will feature multi-media clips, including music and video segments demonstrating examples and non-examples of effective communication to combat bullying.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), administrators, instructional leaders, and anyone who is interested in learning how to create a school environment that is bully-free.