Linking Theory to Practice to Support Authentic Learning for Preservice Teachers

Seminars Created for Student Teachers For decades research polls have identified school discipline and classroom management as among the top challenges most teachers at some point face during their professional careers.  New teachers as well as some veteran teachers frequently cite classroom management as a primary concern in their teaching practice, and preservice teachers often […]

Assessment: A Window Into Students’ Thinking. Look, Listen, and Learn!

Professional Development Workshop Created to Help Teachers Meet Student Needs In May 2015, Southside Middle School, participated in an AdvanceED diagnostic review. One of the findings and identified improvement priorities was to hold Professional Development regarding topics including best practices, classroom management, team building, and formal/ informal assessment. This workshop will highlight certain formal and […]

Sensory Circuits

  Bringing a School Together to Increase Motor Ability in Students Upon a new assignment to this elementary building, the Occupational Therapist quickly became aware that there were options to help the teachers. The Occupational Therapy strategies needed to be developed and planned with administration support and teacher input. A program was developed for the […]

Engaging At-Risk Students for Complex Learning

Training Staff to Respond to the Mental States of At-Risk Students Leads to Increased Academic Performance At-Risk students have faced challenges in education over time, but with the progression into college and career readiness skills and more complex learning, the challenges are even greater. By training staff to understand and respond to the mental states […]

WIDA English Learner Standards and School-wide Professional Development

Staff Meetings Increased Teachers’ Knowledge of the WIDA English Language Development (ELD) Standards Rhoades Elementary, in the MSD of Wayne Township, Indianapolis, is a Title I building with approximately 25% of our students identified as English learners. With Indiana’s adoption of the College & Career Ready and WIDA ELD* Standards, it became increasingly important to build […]

Classroom Engagement

Professional Development Session Helps Teachers to Improve Student Engagement After thoroughly reading Dr. Robert Marzano’s “The Art and Science of Teaching,” Storer staff members conducted a professional development session where we analyzed each chapter and provided each other with examples on how we can use this information throughout the school building. After this session, each staff […]

Online Professional Development

Ways to Enhance Teacher Development Sustained professional development time has been curtailed due to changes in school scheduling. In addition, there is an online course management tool (MBC) that was underutilized. Some professional development materials and discussion topics were presented via MBC. Teachers responded to pertinent topics such as cultural competency, engaging children from poverty, […]

Data Drive Instruction

Data Team Summaries Drive Educational Instruction Grade level teams meet weekly to discuss both formative and summative data. For example, upper grades use daily math work to form small intervention groups at the end of each day. Primary grade levels often look at the depth of knowledge about a newly introduced concept. Decisions are made […]

Staff-led Professional Development: Analyzing Marzano’s ‘The Art and Science of Teaching’

Professional Development Day Helps Teachers to Improve Student Performance and Engagement Our staff was given copies of Marzanos The Art and Science of Teaching and felt it was best addressed in short presentations. We divided the staff up into small groups and assigned each group a chapter from the book. During our Professional Development Day, […]