Professional Development
Classroom Management
This course will equip teachers with the ability to teach every lesson thoroughly, without interruption, by managing their classroom successfully and giving students a better environment in which to learn. Participants will understand that classroom management is not just about keeping your students quiet and in their seats; on the contrary, classroom management is the epitome of the culture within your classroom. The course will address the impact of classroom set-up; temperature and other factors overlooked when trying to create a positive leaning environment. Attendees will learn to use methods influenced by their student’s culture, that will keep the students engaged and eager to learn.
Classroom Procedure
Most educators agree that it is extremely important to establish classroom procedures on the first day of school. It is imperative that the students learn the classroom culture, recognizing when to get up, sit down, use the facilities and overall understand the flow of the day. We do not live in a perfect world and this course provides training on alternative methods to establish classroom procedures based off of the cultural influence in and around the schools’ community. Participants will learn how to introduce procedures in their class in a fun and receptive way; while being prepared for the unplanned events that take place in the classroom.
Lesson Delivery Joy Factor
The Joy Factor in the classroom is a must! In today’s culture, we as educators are consistently competing with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media outlets. We must ask the question, how do we are expect to compete? The answer is that we don’t compete, but use these outlets to enhance our lesson delivery and increase student engagement. In this presentation you will learn ways to make learning attractive to your students by adding the Joy Factor to your lesson. One key way to keep students engaged is by having them participate in the lesson, not just participate but participate the CIEE way! After attending this presentation you will begin to incorporate impactful methods to include students in their own learning.
Brain Breaks
Research has shown that brain breaks give students the opportunity to reflect on what they have just learned, increases their retention of that information and future learning capacity. During this course, we will teach you how to incorporate different brain break strategies and execute the transition to and from the brain break, which is key. After learning these strategies, we will discuss how these breaks will contribute to increase student’s self-esteem and overall comfort in their learning environment.
School Wide Expectations
Understanding and implementing school-wide expectations in every teacher’s classroom striving for educational excellence is imperative. In order for an educator to be successful implementing these expectations, the school’s leadership team must first be in agreement about expectations and effectively communicate them across the school community. During this session, educators will learn 3 key steps to solicit the buy in of students and parents to support these expectations. The expectations established by leadership and implemented in the classroom, often follows though to the expectation of students during hallway transition as well as during cafeteria and playground/recess/break time. Consistent expectations reinforced throughout your classroom and school is the key to implementing a culture of educational excellence and achievement.
Behavioral Concern
It is imperative that educators identify concerns that they have with students in the beginning of the school year, and make proactive steps to communicate and address those concerns with students, parents and school leadership. This session will allow educators to develop specific Success Plans for students of concern and ensure that educators are equipped with the tools needed to effectively implement the Success Plan based on the students’ specific needs. Our unique approach will show educators how to use parent involvement when creating a Success Plan that will be established at school, and reinforced at home. This part of the strategy is often missing and will drive the successful execution of the Success Plan.
Students Relationship Building
It is well known across the education community that educators must build relationships with students in order to gain their trust and respect. We all agree that student’s don’t listen and learn from anyone they cannot trust. However, educators are not given consistent support regarding methods and alternative methods to develop stronger relationships with parents, students and their community. During this course, teachers will learn exercises to implement to skillfully establish great relationship with students and their families on day one. One exercise used is to ask students to write/share the most important thing that they want students to know about them on the board, followed by what is something you want your teacher to know about you? Every student will then get an individual letter, in that letter it reads, tell me something you want me to know about you and your family. This time shows students and family that they are important and valuable. From this moment forward a culture of respect is established among the family and the educator.
Home Visits
The culture of our students begin at home. Imparting a culture of educational excellence, at times requires spending time in the student’s home. During this session educators will learn first-hand about how to complete a successful home visit. It is important for teachers not to feel intimidated about going to the students home, the curiosity of the parent and their family. The reason for the home visit is to build a stronger relationship with the family and show them that you are investing in their child as well as their education. This unique session will provide essential pre and post home visit strategies to ensure that the time spent at the home is safe, effective and extends the expectations from school to home.
Teacher to Teacher Unification
If you are an administrator or a teacher and you want your school to have a positive teacher to teacher culture, unification is imperative to your success. So often teachers do not communicate effectively with other teachers or align successful strategies used in their classrooms across other classrooms. Our session focuses on impacting the culture of communication and unit among educators to better implement a culture of excellence across the school community. To do this, it is important for teachers to find time to build and work together sharing bright ideas. How do you make this happen? How do you bring teachers together and build a culture of teacher to teach communication and unification – this professional development course is the answer.
Administration (School Leadership) Success Plan
The true culture of excellence within a school must be developed, shared and implemented by the leadership with input from all stakeholders, including educators, support staff, parents and students. Using a collaborative method to develop and advance school culture will enable all participants to see themselves as part of the short and long-term goals of the school. This buy-in will translate into genuine support of tasks needed to achieve the identified goals, creating a culture of unity and achievement throughout the school. This session is for current and future school leaders and administrators. During this session we will focus on methods for administration and school leaders to develop strategic goals through a Success Plan that directs a course of action plan for all goals and stakeholders within the school. We will discuss the importance of establishing and cultivating strong relationships from the teachers in the classroom, to the lunch and facility staff, to successful execution of the Success Plan. The final exercise will provide time for participants to establish a first draft of goals within their Success Plan, such as a decrease in absenteeism, suspensions, and an increase in student morale, self-esteem, parent-teacher communication, parent involvement and staff morale.