For Supervisors, Mentors, Coaches and Administrators

Essential Elements in Designing and Delivering Effective Professional Development
As educators we were trained in how to teach children, but adult learners can be a whole new challenge for those asked to do now do trainings for their staff, new teachers or at the central office level.

What are the needs of adult learners?  What types of training design templates are most effective?  What processing activities engage adults?  What presentation skills do we need to hone in order to have the credibility we need to be effective?  And, what about those challenging participants?  How does one work well with them?  This workshop provides knowledge, tools and resources so you can design and deliver trainings that will be considered powerful, energizing and worthwhile for your participants.

Generational Savvy: Recruiting, Retaining and Supporting Employees of All Generations (sample agenda)
Have you noticed your newer teachers feel and look and act differently than novice teachers you remember? Are you hearing of communication challenges between colleagues of different ages? Are you becoming aware more employees want a life-work balance vs. a work-life balance? Generational factors might be coming into play. Who are these four generations in our schools? What are their strengths and needs? What structures and communication protocols should we design to work well with them all. And, what knowledge do we need to help every group thrive? This session will provide tools, resources and food for thought on this increasingly intriguing topic.

Having Hard Conversations (sample agenda)
As administrators, coaches or teacher leaders, we often come up against situations where difficult topics must be addressed.  What do we know about the best strategies for those moments?  What questions should we be asking ourselves before we speak, and what environments are best for when we do speak?  Based on research around conflict and interpersonal communications, this session will provide participants with action plan and scripting tools for having those necessary hard conversations.

Being School Savvy: What Do New Teachers Need to Know? (sample agenda)
As administrators, mentors, supervisors or coaches we spend a significant amount of time with new teachers discussing pedagogy, management and curriculum design. Yet understanding school dynamics and “playing well with other adults” are both critical capabilities essential to a new teacher’s success. What dispositions, knowledge and skills should we cultivate in our new teachers so they can thrive in our schools? This session will provide resources, tools and food for thought on this topic.

How Can You Make An Even Bigger Impact?
Refining and Refocusing Your Work for Better Results
You work on meeting the needs of your schools and stakeholders. You offer them information that makes their work lives better. The question is: "What can you do to make an even bigger impact?" Which new skills can you learn to make you more effective and efficient? What more do you need to know about communication styles so your impact isn't just good, but great? This session will help you answer those questions. With this new information you will be on your way to developing your strategic, organizational and relational intelligence. And you will get better results!
You'll learn:

• How to determine where people get stuck and how you can support them to move beyond those blocks
• How to design your presentations to strategically address the needs of participants
• How to position yourself in a presentation to have the greatest effect
• How to develop specific skills that will make you more relationally savvy

You will leave refocused and energized and with the templates, tools and protocols to take your content and your delivery to the next level.

For Teacher Leaders

Essential Elements in Designing and Delivering Effective Professional Development
As educators we were trained in how to teach children, but adult learners can be a whole new challenge for those asked to do now do trainings for their staff, new teachers or at the central office level.

What are the needs of adult learners?  What types of training design templates are most effective?  What processing activities engage adults?  What presentation skills do we need to hone in order to have the credibility we need to be effective?  And, what about those challenging participants?  How does one work well with them?  This workshop provides knowledge, tools and resources so you can design and deliver trainings that will be considered powerful, energizing and worthwhile for your participants.

Habits of Mind for the School Savvy Teacher Leader (sample agenda)
Using Costa and Kallick’s book, Habits of Mind, this workshop assists teachers to be more mindful and strategic in their collaborative day-to-day work with their colleagues. Whether one is interested in moving an initiative forward, learning how to read and navigate through a new school, or working on being a more effective communicator with colleagues, this workshop will provide the tools and skills in becoming more systems, school and people savvy.
Habits of Mind in this session include:

• Persistence
• Managing Impulsivity
• Listening with Understanding and Empathy
• Communicating with Precision and Accuracy
• Thinking Flexibly

Collaboration and Leadership Skills for Department Chairs,
Grade Level Leads and Teacher Leaders – The Voice of a PLC Teacher Leader
Teachers know how to teach their core subjects, but becoming a department chair, grade level leader or professional learning community participant requires a new and different set of skills. In this session participants will discuss the role of teacher leader, key listening dos and dont's, how to advocate and inquire successfully, and how to compliment and apologize effectively - all to help create a more collaborative and professional culture within their departments and schools.

For Classroom Teachers

The Heart of Teaching:  Beyond Content

Students learn so much more in our classrooms than content and skills. Beyond the content, what do we want learners to take away from their time with us?  A sense of wonder? A positive attitude toward learning? Some actual 'learning skills? There is compelling evidence that, in the long term,  the way teachers interact with students may even be more influential than the actual content they acquire. This course explores who we are as teachers, the climate we create in the classroom, and the dispositions and bigger learnings we hope our students will take away from our schools.
 
Participants in this course will:

• Explore 15 affective teacher behaviors that shape classroom climate and promote learner acquisition of positive dispositions
• Examine 16 habits of mind which can be taught and assessed and greatly influence content/skill acquisition
• Practice ways to 'seize the moment', when a learning opportunity in an international classroom ( racism, etc.) arises
• Practice with a range of strategies to help learners become more reflective, independent learners
• Explore how those big goals of our school's mission are 'taught' and assessed in classrooms daily

Elements of Effective Instruction
How do we as teachers think about how we teach a lesson? What do we want students to know and be able to do as a result of our lesson? How might a teacher design instruction that facilitates learning? This workshop helps delineate six essential skills of effective instruction - formulating an objective, teaching effectively to that objective, active participation strategies so that all students are processing the material, effective ways of monitoring, and adding engaging sets and closures to lessons. This workshop is also a great starting point for discussions around differentiation and equity in a student-centered classroom.

TESA Training - Teacher Expectation/Student Achievement
TESA is a Los Angeles County Office of Education behavioral change staff development program for all educators and administrators, grade levels, and subject areas. Teachers learn 15 key teacher behaviors designed to encourage equitable interaction with all students in the room. Based on expectation theory and the early research of Good and Brophy, TESA is designed to modify the way teachers interact with students through heightened awareness of how perceptions affect their expectations. This workshop is a great place to begin if a school wants to talk about the social-emotional climate of the school and how climate connects to student achievement.

Active Participation Strategies to Engage All Learners

Customized Trainings Also Offered on the Following Topics

• Peer Coaching
• Instructional Supervision Skills
• New Teacher Support
• Mentoring/Coaching Challenges
• Adult Training and Design of Professional Development Sessions and Programs
• Secondary New Teacher Needs
• Critical Friends, Looking at Student Work and Other Protocols