Professional Development
We offer a wide variety of Professional Development for teachers and schools. Our team can customize content to best fit the needs of your staff and learners.
Can't find what you're looking for in our catalog? Contact us for a free consultation. Together, let's plan exactly what your team needs.
Professional Development Catalog:
Browse our selection of available Professional Development programs below. Unsure about funding? Need something customized? Have other questions or ready to put us on your school or district schedule? Get in touch!
| Category | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Behaviors | Social Emotional Learning | Social emotional learning has been shown to have a direct impact on student achievement, increase prosocial behaviors in students, improve student attitudes, and reduce depression and stress among students (Duriak, et.al., 2011). This workshop introduces the 5 key skills that students need to benefit from social emotional learning: self awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision-making skills. Educators will discuss the meaning of these skills and how these skills can be explicitly taught and measured in their classrooms. This workshop will help teachers to proactively manage student behaviors that often times can disrupt the learning environment. |
| Academic Behaviors | Developing a Growth Mindset in Students | In this session, educators will learn how to promote the development of a growth mindset in self and others. When students and educators have a growth mindset, they understand that achievement in students can be developed with a focus on improvement instead of how smart they are. Based on research we know that students who learn this mindset show greater motivation in school, better grades, and higher test scores. Research has also shown that promoting a growth mindset narrows both gender and racial achievement gaps. Teachers and administrators say that after learning about and adopting a growth mindset in their classrooms and schools they find that their students are more enthusiastic, hardworking and persistent in their learning. Educators will learn procedures that will help their students develop a belief in effort, a love for challenge, and resilience in the face of adversity. The focus of this workshop will be on providing strategies to: - change students’ thinking about performance and success - build a growth mindset for academic success within each child in the classroom - develop students’ understanding of learning and the elasticity of the brain |
| Academic Behaviors | Culturally Responsive Classroom Management | This workshop teaches educators how to use a culturally responsive lens to examine classroom management and behavior systems. educators will then be encouraged to design a classroom matrix that represents your class expectations and includes explicit teaching of desired behaviors. To do this educators will proactively plan for student misbehavior by identifying key times in the day and/or triggers that elicit negative student responses. This plan is further developed with scaffolded interventions and support systems needed to prevent and diffuse negative behaviors. educators will also discuss volatile behavior situations and learn how to diffuse these situations. |
| Academic Behaviors | Restorative Practices Foundation | This workshop introduces Restorative Practice (RP) as a sustainable and effective approach to improving school and classroom environment and student misbehavior. RP is based on the premise that people change their behavior when we do things WITH them as opposed to them or FOR them. In a Restorative Practices community, every learner knows that they are seen, heard, and valued, facilitating better behaviors for all kids, especially those with a history of negative ones. It has been noted that RP is a promising practice for improving disproportionate behavior and discipline data. Research shows that classrooms with a high level of restorative practices implementation had fewer disciplinary referrals for defiance and misconduct compared to classrooms with a low level of implementation. Restorative Practices can make a difference in transforming teacher/student relationships and in addressing equity issues in schools and classrooms. |
| Academic Behaviors | Student Motivation and Engagement Literacy Emphasis |
In safe and responsive classrooms, teachers respond to adolescents' needs for choice and flexibility and offer clear expectations and support for higher achievement. In this workshop educators will learn how to structure classroom environments to promote engagement and how to facilitate discussion, create authentic learning experiences for students, choose engaging literature, structure assignments, and assessments to motivate students. educators will explore the social/emotional/behavioral causes for and effects of failure. Research on intrinsic motivation will be reviewed and discussed in regard to classroom application. |
| Academic Behaviors | Traumatic Stress Responses in Students | Research suggests that approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16. A child's reactions to trauma can interfere considerably with learning and/or behavior at school. However, schools also serve as a critical system of support for children who have experienced trauma. By attending this interactive session, you will better understand the different types of trauma, how trauma can affect a student cognitively, emotionally, socially, physically, and spiritually, how trauma affects learning, strategize what you can do in your classroom and school and the importance of self-care. Please join us to explore the impact of trauma on children so that we can better understand and learn how to create a more trauma sensitive classroom and school. Topics Explored: - The different types of trauma - Traumatic Stress Response in students - Student’s cognitive, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual response to trauma - Trauma and learning - Develop plans to help students in your classroom and school deal with trauma - Differentiate what trauma looks like at different ages and grade levels |
| Academic Behaviors | Classroom Management through a Culturally Responsive Lens | Classroom behaviors can have a disrupting influence on learning. This session will focus on classroom management strategies that create conditions for learning. Through the session educators will engage in activities to create a framework to support appropriate behavior, including: - Designing a classroom matrix that represents your class expectations during key times in the day when misbehavior is most likely to occur - Looking at the use of specific positive feedback to build cultural among students and increase on task behavior - Using these building blocks, examine classroom consequence systems and how to correct for implicit bias - Practicing how to defuse volatile behavior situations - Creating culturally responsive protocols |
| Academic Behaviors | Mindfulness in Schools | WEI works in partnership with Reset-MindBody to bring Mindfulness to your school. The mission at Reset-MindBody is to support and serve the community by providing youth and adults with instruction that improves their overall sense of emotional and physical well-being. They introduce and facilitate the concepts of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Mindfulness based strategies that can easily be integrated into daily life. Through intervention programs and specialized workshops, they empower individuals to become more self-aware, to better self-regulate, and ultimately feel capable of creating and nurturing personal resiliency to handle the challenges of today’s world. In this session you will be introduced to the following topics: - Mindfulness and its relevancy to social and emotional literacy - Understanding the “stress response” and how Mindfulness can decrease it - How Mindfulness enables us to self-regulate when faced with strong emotions - Being Mindful in school and classroom relationships - How Mindfulness nurtures resiliency Educators will learn many simple, yet powerful techniques designed to enhance focusing skills, management of emotions and conflict resolution. When the mindful awareness strategies are practiced often in low stress environments they can become a more intentional way of being in higher stress situations. Research has shown these practices help students in schools calm down when upset, avoid fights and arguments, fall asleep better at night, feel happier at school and home, and even improve grades. |
| Assessment & Data | Forward Exam (Wisconsin State Assessment) | Forward Exam assessments are assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that intend to measure student progress toward college and career readiness. This workshop is designed for educators to gain an understanding of how and what this exam is measuring. educators will analyze the questions and tasks found in the Forward exam and look for connections to the classroom. educators will also explore the Depth of Knowledge framework and its relationship to this exam and its application to the classroom. educators will also gain an understanding of how to interpret Forward exam results. |
| Assessment & Data | Evidence Based Decision-Making | Evidence Based Decision-Making is a process for making decisions about a program, practice, or policy that is grounded in the best available research evidence and informed by experiential evidence from the field and relevant contextual evidence. This workshop is designed to support school leaders or teacher leaders as they deliver services to students based on data, research, and evaluation. Scenarios will be used to demonstrate how leaders maintain alignment to the intended targets and make decisions in the best interest of students. educators will also look at four different types of data (perception, achievement, program, and demographic) to broaden the definition of data based decision-making. |
Showing 1 to 10 of 77 entries