Sunday, June 27, 2010
8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
$175 each
Fee includes continental breakfast, lunch, all materials, and supplies.

Aligning Instruction With Essential Knowledge and Skills

Presenter: Katie Whitney Luers (Education Northwest)

Would you like to see more interdisciplinary collaboration, but schedules, groupings, and standards seem to limit you? In this workshop, collaboratively define a coherent program that can overcome obstacles to interdisciplinary teaching and learning.

As a workshop participant you will work with your academy team to:

• Refine a distinctive learning community vision that reflects students interests and learning needs
• Define what is most important for graduates to know and be able to do across subject areas
• Outline a common framework for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and learning climate to link class to class and year to year
• Plan professional learning to support implementation

Shifting Resources To Close the Achievement Gap

Presenter: Diana Oxley (Education Northwest)

Typical patterns of resource use are often inconsistent with schools improvement priorities, especially closing the achievement gap. Learn resource allocation strategies schools use to prepare students for college and careers.

School and district leaders will weigh high-yield strategies that can sustain effective learning communities with existing funding.

• Maximizing staff FTE dedicated to core instruction
• Eliminating below–grade level classes
• Serving students with special needs in innovative ways
• Concentrating on electives that extend the core
• Increasing time for teacher collaboration

Leaders identify changes in practice that free up resources for improvement priorities and develop long range plans for making these changes.

Refining and Sustaining Small Learning Communities

Presenter: Erin McGary-Hamilton (Education Northwest)

You aren't beginners anymore, but is restructuring having as much positive impact on student achievement as you expected? This workshop provides existing learning communities with tools to move from implementation to excellence.

Successful small learning communities, career academies and small schools share a common set of practices. In this workshop, your leadership team will:

• Use best practices and tools to take stock of your goals and existing practices
• Identify gaps between current and desired practice
• Devise an implementation plan to support effective use of instructional strategies that have demonstrated positive effects on student learning.

Participants leave with a continuous program improvement strategy and a plan of professional development for the whole school staff.

How Interdisciplinary Teams Personalize Instruction

Presenters: Paula Barkley (Change Coach, McGavock High School, Metro Nashville Public Schools)
David Holden (AAIS Instructional Coach)
Robin Shrode (AAIS Instructional Coach)

How do teams work together to best meet the needs of each student? To create strong and viable systems of interventions for student success, schools must leverage the work of interdisciplinary teams for enhanced learning. This session will focus on research-based and practical strategies to respond to student needs. Proactively, teams can gather diagnostic data, plan lessons that capitalize on multiple intelligences, and differentiate instruction. Responsively, teams can identify and intervene with specific students to enhance learning. Strategies include analyzing student work, using formative assessment strategies, and developing specific Pyramids of Interventions for both behavioral and academic issues.

In this workshop, participants will develop these layers of interventions and learn protocols for:

• Identifying students in need
• Developing a plan of action
• Creating Student Learning Profiles with multiple data points
• Using data to make well informed decisions regarding appropriate interventions
• Working with parents and colleagues to support students

Participants gain experience in using tools and processes for gathering and using student data, tailoring instruction to student differences, and responding to student needs.