Principal Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction, New York
Professional development opportunities give teachers the power to make stronger students
Most professional development only address the symptoms. We help our clients get to the heart of their challenges. And, we specialize in customizing our workshops to met your unique needs. Mindsteps offers content from these powerful workshops:
- From Differentiation to Customization
- From Differentiation to Customization for Instructional Leaders
- Strategic Conversations
- Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching — An Overview
- Classroom Currencies
- Planning Rigorous Learning Units
- Motivating Unmotivated Students
- Fostering Student Engagement
- Providing Effective Feedback
- Developing and Communicating High Expectations
- New Teacher Workshop
- Helping Students Take Ownership Over Their Own Learning
- Supporting Struggling Students
- Strategies for Building and Sustaining an Effective AP Program
- Supporting Under-Prepared Students in Rigorous Courses
- Quality vs Quantity
From Differentiation to Customization
The trouble with many differentiated instructional models is that they require teachers to create multiple lesson plans in order to meet the needs of multiple learners. In this workshop, teachers learn how to create ONE lesson that meets all their students where they are. Teachers learn:
- how to quickly diagnose your students’ learning needs
- how to match instructional strategies and supports to meet your students’ needs
- specific instructional strategies you can use to differentiate your lessons without creating multiple lessons
- how to create customized lessons that help all your students reach mastery.
Audience: Teachers grades 3-12
From Differentiation to Customization for Instructional Leaders
It’s hard to tell sometimes whether teachers are effectively differentiating their instruction. In this workshop, instructional leaders learn how to help teachers effectively design and deliver lessons that meet ALL their students’ needs. Leaders will learn:
- how to conduct walk-throughs that help you quickly assess how well teachers are customizing their instruction to meet all students’ needs.
- specific look-fors and ask-fors that let you know whether teachers are effectively customizing their instruction.
- specific strategies for providing teachers with effective feedback that will help improve their instructional practice.
- specific strategies for differentiating and customizing their own instructional leadership to meet the needs of the teachers you support.
Audience: Instructional Leaders (principals, asst. principals, deans of instruction, coaches, department heads, team leaders, and central office personnel).
Giving difficult feedback is not easy. How can you conduct effective conversations with teachers that help them significantly improve instructional practice? In this workshop, learn how. Leaders will learn:
- the four types of teachers and how to diagnose the needs of their faculty.
- the four types of strategic conversational approaches and how to match each approach to teacher needs.
- how to provide effective feedback after walkthroughs, informal, and formal observations.
- how to develop a differentiated leadership plan that addresses the individual needs of each teacher and helps each teacher progress towards mastery teaching.
Audience: Instructional Leaders (principals, asst. principals, deans of instruction, coaches, department heads, team leaders, and central office personnel).
Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching — An Overview
Want to introduce your staff to the principles of effective instruction? This full-day workshop provides teachers with an overview. Help your staff determine where they are on the mastery trajectory, determine how to incorporate the principles into their instructional practice, and develop a plan for how they will use the principles of effective instruction to resolve their instructional challenges. Teachers will learn:
- The Seven Principles of Effective Instruction
- where they fall on the master teacher trajectory and specific steps they can take to move towards mastery
- how to use the principles to resolve instructional challenges.
Audience: Teachers k-12
If you are going to start where your students are, you need to understand what currencies your students bring with them to the classroom. In this workshop, you’ll explore your own currencies and discover ways to uncover and value the currencies your students bring with them to school. Teachers will learn:
- the effect your own preferred currencies have on their instructional practice and expectations of students.
- ways to uncover and value your students’ currencies.
- strategies for creating common classroom currencies in your own classrooms.
Audience: Teachers k-12
Planning Rigorous Learning Units
If you want your students to go beyond rote memorization and learn how to learn then you will need to plan rigorous learning units. Rigor is not something for just the elite student; any student can learn to think in highly rigorous ways if you build their capacity for rigorous learning over time. Teachers learn:
- what rigor is
- the four stages of rigorous instruction
- how to move students from one stage of rigorous learning to the next
- specific strategies for supporting students at each stage
- how to develop a comprehensive plan for helping all students access and be successful with rigorous learning
Audience: Teachers grades 3-12
Motivating Unmotivated Students
If you are having trouble helping students “buy-in” to school and be motivated to learn, then you need to learn how to help them invest in their learning by demonstrating the value of what you are teaching on their terms. Teachers learn:
- the reasons students resist investing in our classrooms?
- specific strategies to help students see the value of learning in their own terms
- specific strategies for helping students invest in their learning and in our classrooms.
Audience: Teachers grades 5-12
Students cannot learn to their full potential if they are not fully engaged in instruction. Learn how to help students become genuinely engaged in learning and create a classroom environment that keeps students invested in their progress and growth. Teachers will learn:
- the difference between students who are engaged and those who are merely entertained
- strategies that help students engage in their own learning
- strategies for designing engaging lessons
Audience: Teachers Grades 3-12
Effective feedback helps students become better learners. Without it, they cannot truly learn from their mistakes and develop effective thought processes and habits of mind. Effective feedback is more than just grading — effective feedback provides students with information about where they are and what they need to do to reach mastery. Teachers will learn:
- the purpose of feedback
- how to use formative assessments as feedback
- how to improve grading practices so that students get more effective feedback
- the difference between growth-oriented and fixed-oriented feedback, and how to provide coaching, growth-oriented feedback that develops a growth-mindset
- how to assess the current messages their classroom gives students and how to improve their overall feedback practices
Audience: Teachers Grades k-12
Developing and Communicating High Expectations
We’re taught that high expectations are critical for student success but we are never taught how to effectively develop and communicate genuine high expectations to students. We think our expectations should be based on our students, when really, our expectations say more about US than they do our students. Teachers and school leaders will learn:
- the three mythes about high expectations and how to combat them
- the anatomy of high expectations
- how to raise expectations even in the face of students with very low skill levels
- how to communicate high expectations effectively
Audience: Teachers and Administrators k-12
Being a new teacher is tough. Not only are you learning a new curriculum, but you are learning how to run your own classroom. This workshop can help. New teachers learn:
- strategies for managing a classroom
- how to quickly plan effective lessons that help ALL students reach mastery
- the principles of effective instruction
- specific strategies for how to grow from novice to master teacher one step at a time
Audience: New Teachers Grades k-12
Helping Students Take Ownership Over Their Own Learning
Do you ever feel like you are working harder than your students? Are you doing all of the work while your students sit back and passively receive your lessons? If so, then you need to learn how to help your students do the work of learning for themselves. Teachers will learn:
- what is your work, what is your students’ work, and what work you share
- ways you may be unwittingly taking on your students’ work or expecting them to do your work
- specific strategies for helping students take ownership over their own learning
- strategies for gradually releasing responsibility for their own learning to students.
Audience: Teachers k-12
Supporting Struggling Students
When students reach failure, it is almost too late to provide support. Effective support is proactive — to work, supports must be in place BEFORE students begin to learn. If we want students to be successful, we cannot afford to leave to chance what happens to them when they struggle. Teachers will learn:
- how to set students up for success
- how to provide effective interventions that help students work their way out of struggle before it becomes destructive.
- how to set up a series of “red flags” that warn them students are headed for trouble
- how to develop a proactive, progressive intervention plan they can use to support students before, during, and after the lesson.
Strategies for Building and Sustaining an Effective AP Program
Building a sustainable and growing AP program takes careful planning. In this workshop, instructional leaders learn to move beyond simply growing their AP program, but how to increase student success in the program. Specifically, leaders will learn:
- how to examine data and identify students for AP
- how to recruit and support students in AP courses
- how to support AP teachers so that they successfully support their students
- what to do each month to build and sustain an effective AP program (administrators also receive an AP month-by-month plan for the entire school year as well as a three year plan for growing their program).
Supporting Under-Prepared Students in Rigorous Courses
It’s important to give under-prepared students the opportunity to engage in more rigorous courses, but we cannot do so without also providing them with the supports they need as they make the transition. Teachers will learn how to:
- develop a comprehensive support plan that helps under-prepared students transition into highly rigorous courses successfully
- help under-prepared students learn the “soft skills” they need to be successful in highly rigorous courses
- specific strategies to support under-prepared students without “dumbing down” material or compromising rigor
Many teachers become burned out because they don’t know how to prioritize their work so that they can focus on those things that are most important. Instead, they try to do it all and become overwhelmed in the process. In this interactive workshop teachers will:
Audience: Teachers and Administrators k-12
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