Trainings Offered by the NNRPDP
ASSESSMENT
Common Formative Assessment
Based on the work of Larry Ainsworth, this training gives ten steps to a complete common formative assessment. It begins with prioritized standards, takes you through unwrapping standards to formulating big ideas and essential questions and includes scoring guides. Time can be flexible, but needs one full day at a minimum. It could be done in two half days.
Creating and Using Instructional Rubrics for Common Assessments
Why use rubrics? This workshop will help you to understand the value of rubrics as tools for teaching as well as assessment. How do you create them, how do you use them as teaching tools, where can you find them, and why use them? All of these questions are addressed.
Data Teams
Based on the work of Doug Reeves, this workshop gives teachers the tools needed to begin working within their PLC framework as a data team. The team uses common formative assessment (pre and post) to gather data to make best practices instructional decisions. Training can be a full day or half day (half day is mostly a working data team demonstration).
Exit Tickets
This workshop will help you learn how to close a lesson with evidence of what your students know. It provides specific strategies for your students to demonstrate the learning they have just experienced.
Portfolios
This workshop stresses student selection and reflection as a key component in using portfolios in the classroom, linking portfolios to state standards, and using portfolio design in assessment first. Samples are secondary but adaptations can be made for K-12.
COLLABORATIVE CULTURE
National Board Certification Support
When taking on the challenges of becoming a National Board Certified teacher the structured support given by a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards candidate support provider could be the difference between the words, “Congratulations, you are now a National Board Certified Teacher” to “We regret to inform you that your scores were insufficient for certification.” When considering National Boards, consider your support systems and make the most of what’s available.
Teacher Inquiry Community
Teacher inquiry, also known as action research, or practitioner research is a powerful approach to professional development where individuals investigate aspects of their practice through the cyclical process of posing a question, crafting a plan/timeline for investigating the question, collecting data, analyzing data, drawing conclusions and sharing results with a larger audience of stakeholders. This workshop allows individuals to take complete ownership in their professional development while collaborating and providing support for fellow teacher-researchers. Completed research cycles have proven to be influential to the learning for stakeholders such as teachers and administrators outside of the immediate teacher inquiry community.
DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE
Depth of Knowledge
Depth of Knowledge is an effective tool to ensure student learning at the highest levels. The Nevada Department of Education has adopted and modified Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge levels to promote academic rigor required by No Child Left Behind. Our workshops can be customized to meet the needs of teachers according to their comfort level and prior experience with DOK. Teachers will become familiar with DOK levels and learn how to apply this information in their classrooms.
Using Constructed Response Questions to Raise the Level of Cognition in Your Classroom
Constructed response items on our test require a student to think at a higher cognitive level. As teachers we need to provide the opportunity for students to think and respond at that level long before encountering those items on the CRT. Learn to create and evaluate constructed response items. Dig deeper and raise that level of cognition in your classroom and on your common assessments.
EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION
Brainiantics
Engaging students is the art of hooking into their brain. This workshop provides engagement strategies for teachers to use in their classrooms.
Differentiated Instruction
In differentiated classrooms, teachers begin teaching where the kids are. But how do you know? This workshop will focus on using different rates of instruction, modifying materials and using appropriate assessments to engage students in learning that is relevant and rigorous.
Headlines
This ninety minute workshop is for teachers to learn how the brain learns, so that the information can be applied to learning in the classroom.
SMART Board
Workshops are designed to be presented in modules. Module 1 gives general information about Notebook software and how to create an interactive lesson activity. Module 2 is more in-depth. Participants will learn to use advanced features to customize lessons and how to access resources from the web to enhance lessons. Both modules will emphasize student engagement and focus on ways to increase student motivation.
Student Engagement: How to Get and Keep Their Attention!
Your students are looking at you. You are giving invaluable information. How do you know they are with you and learning what you have to share? This workshop will help you develop student engagement strategies that will ensure student learning and retention. These strategies will also help you to do those all important “quick checks” with your students to let you know if they got it or if you have to do some reteaching.
Substitute Teacher Training
This workshop provides substitutes with the expectations of their jobs and effective teaching strategies to use in all classrooms. It can be tailored to meet the needs of individual districts and is best done in a collaborative manner with district personnel.
Teach for Success Workshops
The T4S workshop is focused around the elements of West Ed’s Teach for Success protocol. The framework behind this protocol addresses the use of research based instructional practices with a focus on teacher instruction and student learning. This workshop can be offered in 1-2 day setting or shorter workshops that address specific elements of the protocol are also available.
(Student Friendly Objectives, Key Vocabulary, Instructional Practices, Teacher Techniques, Classroom Environment, Formative Assessment)
The Brain
The brain is a unique and fascinating organ. This workshop will help participants to understand the impact of the brain on essential learning.
Tribes
Tribes is a process through which students learn social skills and life skills in order for them to work in small and whole group settings. During this workshop, which is a 24 hour class, participants will experience the Tribes process themselves that integrates three essential qualities for learning-social, emotional, and academic expression. Participants will leave prepared with the needed tools and strategies for classroom implementation with their students.
Use your Brain for a Change
This ninety minute workshop is a continuation of the Headlines workshop. This workshop provides specific strategies to improve content area learning based on brain research.
MATH
Navigating Through Geometry (7-12)
Explore geometry through a transformational lens. Using the highly respected NCTM Navigation series, this workshop concentrates on topics such as the use of transformations, coordinates and matrices, congruence and similarity, and fractals and introductory limit notions. It provides activities that require the use of technology to expand learning. This is a hands-on workshop in which teachers will receive teacher-tested lessons to use in their classrooms.
Navigating Through Probability (7-12)
This workshop, based on the NCTM Navigation series, assists teachers in honing their students’ thinking by introducing them to two approaches to probability. The first approach, which interprets probability as relative frequency over the long run, uses actual or simulated data from many experiments to arrive at empirical probabilities. The second approach analyzes outcomes abstractly to arrive at theoretical probabilities. This is a hands-on workshop in which teachers will receive teacher-tested lessons to use in their classrooms.
Using Math Manipulatives to Ensure Learning
This is an active participation workshop demonstrating multiple ways to incorporate math manipulatives into the classroom for more effective teaching. Why is it important to build those nonlinguistic representations for your students? How do math manipulatives help students make sense of abstract concepts? How do you manage all those little pieces? This presentation will answer many of the questions teachers have about using manipulatives.
Writing in Mathematics
Communication is an essential part of mathematics education. This workshop provides practical strategies that improve students’ ability to communicate about their math knowledge and understanding.
READING
A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words
This workshop will involve learning the importance of visual representation using photos, pictures, and posters of concepts and or words in order to access and or build background knowledge of essential content vocabulary. This information is applicable to all grade levels and all subjects.
Accessible Text (K-12)
This is also known as Never Too Big for Little Books-Making Content Knowledge Accessible through a Variety of Means. This workshop looks at a variety of print sources at various levels to allow teachers to delve for content information outside their standard textbooks.
New Ideas in Children’s Literature and Math
This presentation connects some of the newest children’s books available to Nevada State Math Standards. Lesson plans written directly to Nevada Standards for primary and intermediate math concepts, are offered in this fun and interactive workshop.
Reader’s Notebook Workshop
This workshop is based on Aimee Buckner’s book Notebook Connections and Brian Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning. Participants will learn how to use a reader’s notebook as place for students to understand and articulate which reading strategies work best for them, for students to record their reading history to self-evaluate growth, and as a formative and summative assessment of student reading comprehension growth.
Reading and Writing? You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me!
Based on research, this workshop gives educators motivational approaches and specific instructional strategies to help improve boys’ reading and writing skills.
Reading Traits Workshop
The Reading Traits Workshop utilizes the Traits of an Effective Reader – an organizational framework for critical reading instruction and assessment. Teachers will be able to assess students’ critical reading, grades K-12, using a six-trait assessment scoring guide that complements state and national benchmarks.
RUBY PAYNE’S A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING POVERTY
Seven workshops are available to provide participants with an awareness of the challenges and factors that perpetuate poverty. A Framework for Understanding Poverty is the first in a series of workshops to introduce the work of Dr. Ruby Payne and the implications of poverty on the students we teach.
Building Positive Relationships – is key to student achievement. This workshop will give teachers strategies to help build positive relationships of mutual respect with their students. Participants will learn what relational learning is, why it is essential to learning and how to use it to increase student achievement.
Giving Students Choices - based on the work of Constance Dembrosky, this workshop gives teachers formulas and strategies to empower their students in taking control of their own learning by leading the students to set specific academic and/or behavioral goals.
Language and Cognition – language resources allow a person to communicate with others. To better understand poverty, this workshop will focus on the registers of language, discourse patterns, vocabulary development and story structure.
Meeting Standards and Raising Test Scores – is based on the work of Drs. Ruby Payne and Donna McGee (with a little Stiggin’s thrown in). This workshop provides specific strategies to improve student achievement.
Putting It All Together – Ruby Payne did not invent lesson planning, but her planning structure does allow teachers to think about the why, what and how of teaching. Every part of the Payne Lesson Design is created with learning in mind.
Teaching Appropriate Behaviors – focuses on specific behaviors related to poverty. Participants will learn effective discipline strategies that move students to self-govern and change inappropriate behaviors, the “whys” behind the behavior and possible interventions.
SCIENCE
Dry Ice Investigations (6-12)
This GEMS workshop revolves around the intriguing nature of dry ice and the incessant curiosity it provokes in all those who have the opportunity to interact with it. It is composed of three intertwined content strands: exploring the scientist’s mindset, tackling key concepts in chemistry, and guided preparation for Open Inquiry. This unit is designed for grades 6-8, but could easily be adapted for both younger and older students. This workshop uses inquiry-based learning strategies as well as formative assessments of learning that can be used with students.
Earth, Sun, and Seasons (6-12)
This workshop represents the first two units of the GEMS space science sequence. In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to learn about all the energies the Sun can produce, including the full spectrum of electromagnetic energy and the stream of matter that flows from the Sun in the solar wind. Participants also will be guided through investigations of the Sun-Earth relationship in the understanding of what causes the seasons, a source of many adult misconceptions. This workshop uses inquiry-based learning strategies as well as formative assessments of learning that can be used with students.
The Solar System and Beyond (6-12)
This workshop represents the final two units of the GEMS space science sequence. In this workshop participants will learn about the excitingly diverse objects in the Solar System, and even more importantly, they will learn key concepts about the Solar System such as: how it is organized, what categories and objects it contains, and how its components move. Participants will begin to weave together an understanding of stars and galaxies in the context of several big ideas. This workshop uses inquiry-based learning strategies as well as formative assessments of learning that can be used with students.
WRITING
Analytic Scoring for the Writing Proficiency
This workshop concentrates on understanding the Analytic Rubric currently used in the 5th grade Writing Proficiency. In addition to reviewing the rubric and discussing current papers, the teacher will practice scoring student samples. This training is essential for all 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers.
Analyze Your Own Students' Writing
This workshop is designed to score current classroom student work. The participants will use the appropriate rubric and discuss their scoring with other teachers. At the end of the session, the teacher will have their set of papers scored. This workshop is appropriate for grades 1-12.
Conferencing in a Writing Workshop
Katie Wood-Ray considers one-on-one conferencing to be both the backbone of a writing workshop and the most difficult aspect of a productive writing workshop. Conferencing in a Writing Workshop provides several video examples, quality reading excerpts, and conversation to guide participants through the process of efficiently and productively conferencing with their students K-12.
Developing Units of Writing (K-6) Class
Based on the belief that “best practice is informed practice,” this 15 hour class will build “theoretical and a foundational understanding” of developing units of writing. Grade level teams will have the opportunity to work together to create units of study for specific writing genres. The class will focus on understanding unit design, crafting lessons, conferencing strategies, modeling techniques, and assessing student progress. Teachers will use the works of Katie Wood Ray and Ralph Fletcher as a basis of study for these classroom-ready, processed-based writing units.
Grammar in Context
A recent study (Fearn &Farnan 2005) found that teaching students to focus on the function and practical application of grammar within the context of writing (versus teaching grammar as an independent activity) produced strong and positive effects on students’ writing.
This workshop introduces teachers to how to teach grammar within the context of student writing as apposed to an independent (worksheet or textbook) activity.
Holistic Scoring for the Writing Proficiency
This workshop concentrates on understanding the Holistic Rubric currently used in the 11th and 12th grade Writing Proficiency. This rubric will also be used in 2011 to score the 8th grade writing proficiency. In addition to reviewing the rubric and discussing current papers, the teacher will practice scoring student samples. Holistic scoring training is useful for teachers in grades 6-12.
Using Picture Books to Teach Writing Traits
This presentation addresses techniques used in teaching specific writing traits using children’s literature. Numerous examples of each trait are demonstrated using wonderful, award winning children’s books.
Writer’s Notebook (2-12) Workshop
This workshop introduces teachers the effective use of a student writer’s notebook to increase writing fluency, collect thinking about possible topics, practice and collect writing strategies, and for both teachers and students to analyze and assess writing growth.
Writing Across the Curriculum
Research shows that using writing in curriculum areas increases the learning that takes place in the classroom. This workshop will provide many examples of writing strategies that can be used in content areas including science, math, social studies etc.
Writing to Learn
Participants will learn easy-to-use, but highly effective strategies of how to use writing as an instructional tool for increasing students’ understanding of content (may be used as a follow-up for DOK training).
Writing Traits Workshop
The Writing Traits Workshop teaches the common language of the four traits – ideas, organization, voice and conventions. This workshop provides many effective strategies that will produce good writing in students’ work.
Writing Workshop, an Introduction
You hear fellow educators talking about it, you notice books in prominent publishing house flyers referring to it, you’ve even tried to dabble in it, but you still wonder, what’s all the hype about writing workshop? In this workshop you will learn about the consistent structures of a writing workshop, valuable resources to help you plan mini-lessons, and what all the hype is all about. Make your writing instruction yours and your students’ favorite part of the day with writing workshop!