Change isn’t easy in schools and districts, especially since the pandemic. Yet, change is what we need if we seek high levels of learning for all students and we seek a workforce that is engaged, satisfied, and consistent. In this interactive two-part workshop series, you will learn how to apply systems thinking to a school or district initiative in order to increase the likelihood of success. You’ll bring an initiative to the course and apply the knowledge you gain to your initiative. You will receive feedback about your initiative and make improvements to your plans. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of systems thinking and change theory.
Reading
Dysgraphia Workshop
This workshop will focus on what we know about the writing process, the underlying skills that make communication in print possible, and what they mean for classroom instruction. We will examine the tools used for progress monitoring and assessment, as well as the profiles of students with writing difficulty. Participants will leave this workshop with an understanding of how writing develops and how to use assessment as a foundation for improving the writing skills of all students in the classroom.
The Power of Assessment Course
This interactive course focuses on issues related to the assessment of reading, spelling, and writing—including identifying early signs of trouble, diagnosing dyslexia and dysgraphia, and communicating test results to parents and other educators.
Testing 101: The Basics
Sign up for this workshop to get a refresher on the basics of assessment, progress monitoring, and standardized norm referenced testing. Submit your questions ahead of time or bring them to the workshop to get them answered by Dr. Melissa Farrall!
How to Measure Writing Progress
How do we measure student progress in written expression as a foundation for classroom instruction? This workshop will focus on different ways to measure progress in writing. We will compare both formal and informal assessment, and what different types of tests contribute to our knowledge of students. We will discuss what we are measuring, what we are learning, and how we link these results to effective instructional practices.
Orthographic Processing: What Is It Really?
This interactive workshop will focus on the orthographic processor: what it is, how it develops, and what it means for instruction. We will look at the reading brain, and the importance of speech sound awareness as a foundation for word recognition fluency, the development of the orthographic lexicon (sight word vocabulary), and more.
