Having Hard Conversations 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.

Generational Savvy: Recruiting, Retaining and Supporting Employees of All Generations 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.

Coaching Skills 101
Teachers know how to teach their grade levels and their core subjects and administrators run schools, yet coaching a colleague requires a new and different set of skills. In this session, participants will discuss the role of coach and mentor and the key communication skills for the role:

• How to effectively listen and paraphrase
• How to use non-verbal language to create an approachable stance
• How to ask questions that open up a colleague’s thinking capacity
• How to offer suggestions that can be heard
• How to verbally unpack one's professional practice

Participants will look at mentor-mentee dialogues on video and case studies will be used - all to create an interactive experience in which we explore the dispositions and skills and capabilities of effective coaches.

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.

Collaboration and Leadership Skills for Department Chairs, Grade Level Leads and All Teacher Leaders
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 and how to increase one’s credibility in this role, key listening dos and don’ts, how to advocate and inquire successfully, and how to give feedback effectively - all to help create a more collaborative and professional culture within their departments and schools.

Using Discussion and Reflection Protocols to Support Instruction
The use of protocols for professional learning can be extremely helpful in optimizing professional development time.  So much can be said and heard in a shorter time when parameters and structures are used to support powerful collaborative discussion.  In this session, participants will learn at a variety of protocols such critical friends protocols, methods to analyze assignments for student understanding, and several techniques to look at student work. 

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 and working with English Learners in a student-centered classroom.

Active Participation Strategies to Engage All Learners
Students who are more engaged and motivated by the intentional use of engagement strategies can and do achieve at higher levels. Using the instructional strategies of active participation and checking for understanding, this workshop provides background and examples of these elements in action in the classroom. Emphasis will also be placed on modifications for English Learners and ways to be more culturally responsive. Participants will leave with resources to move from a more teacher-centered way of instruction to a more facilitative, student-centered way of learning.

Creating Identity Safe Classrooms for All Students
Creating sense of belonging for all students in a classroom is essential to learning.  What can teachers do to make students feel safe and welcome? What can teachers do to create an environment in which students feel capable and competent?  In this workshop, participants will study the concept of stereotype threat through readings and video and then learn a set of behaviors that are within the teacher’s sphere of control in order to increase identity safety for all students.

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 the students acquire. This 2 or 3-day 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

Learn a range of strategies to help learners become more reflective, independent learners