Professional Development Highlights: Blended Learning Strategies, Close Reading Strategies, Scientific Literacy and More

never stop learning concept on blackboard
- News and Announcements, Professional Development

Friday, March 10 is Professional Development Day at ACPS and there will be a wide array of learning opportunities available for employees to enhance their knowledge and grow professionally.

Form now through March 10 we will be focusing on programs that are offered on Professional Development Day. Take a look at this week’s highlights and sign up for a program today on the PLMS website.

Note: Sections are added to courses on a regular basis, so be sure to check for new sections even if you have enrolled in the course before. Sections may include follow up, updates, or even brand new information.

Personalizing the Learning Process with Blended Learning Strategies
What resources can I use to better implement a blended learning approach in my classroom? Join us for face-to-face time with our Blended Learning Strategist, Stacy Hawthorne. This session is for teachers participating in the ACPS Blended Learning Cohorts. Hawthorne will lead teachers in sharing resources and building their toolkit for supporting the needs of their students to provide a rigorous, relevant and engaging learning environment through the use of blended learning strategies. #14769

Close Reading Strategies
How can close reading strategies increase student engagement with text and student comprehension? Using Notice and Note as the guiding text, teachers will engage in close reading practices to increase student comprehension and text analysis. By the end of the session, teachers will be able to explain a variety of close reading strategies as well as incorporate them into their lessons. All participants will receive a copy of Notice and Note and will be able to participate in a one-on-one follow up session. #14847 

Collaboration and Teaming for Special Ed Paraprofessionals
How can special education paraprofessionals and teachers effectively collaborate to capitalize on their combined expertise to support students? Participants will review communication and collaboration strategies and role-play common collaboration scenarios. The session focuses on preparing special education paraprofessionals to engage in authentic collaboration with their teaching partners. During this interactive session, participants will learn strategies to effectively collaborate with teachers and other staff. Participants will discuss communication strategies and how to best utilize expertise to meet the needs of students. #14794

Perspectives – Presented by Sara Wicht for Teaching Tolerance
How can my lesson plans help facilitate inclusive learning? Perspectives is a comprehensive, literacy-based K-12 curriculum that provides students the opportunity to engage deeply with meaningful texts, allowing them to read, discuss, write about and critique ideas from four unique anti-bias perspectives: identity, diversity, justice and action. The Perspectives anthology provides students with windows into others’ realities as well as mirrors that reflect their experiences and underscore the interconnections of our personal, familial and community identities. During this highly interactive learning opportunity participants will:

  • Describe the goals of anti-bias education and apply them to your practice
  • Explore the Perspectives central text anthology and practice diverse text selection
  • Explore literacy-based instructional strategies and assessment tasks and explain their alignment with the standards and critical literacy
  • Integrate Perspectives for a Diverse America into your own authentic planning and practice

#14709 

Scientific Literacy through Guided Inquiry Strategies for Secondary Science Classrooms
Why use inquiry in your classroom? In this session, secondary science teachers will collaborate to perform and analyze a guided inquiry experiment from the teacher and student perspective. There will be an emphasis improving science instruction for students at all levels by incorporating inquiry activities to provide opportunities for structured and purposeful student discourse and interaction. Specific focus areas in the workshop will include scaffolding using visuals, demonstrations, modeling, leveled directions and sentence frames. #14762 

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