Workshops
Workshop sessions involve extensive interaction between presenters and participants around an idea or hands-on experience of a practice. These sessions may also take the form of a crafted panel, staged conversation, dialogue, or debate – all involving substantial interaction with the audience. [45 min. each]
The Heart of the Matter: Using a Social, Emotional, Cultural, and Academic Lens in Teacher Preparation and K-12 Classrooms
Workshop Presentation Wendy Thowdis, Nancy Lourie Markowitz
Facilitators will provide an interactive workshop where participants will practice using a social, emotional, and cultural (SEC) “lens” and discuss how it can be applied to K-12 teacher preparation and classroom settings. The Anchor Competencies Framework, created by the Center for Reaching & Teaching the Whole Child (CRTWC), provides a roadmap and specific strategies for making SEC competencies actionable in classroom and teacher preparation settings, with the focus on supporting teacher and student growth and student academic achievement. Supporting research completed on this Framework will be shared. First, participants will review the CRTWC Framework, which includes a description of the seven Anchors as well as teacher moves and strategies that make them actionable in classrooms. Second, participants will experience a mindfulness activity and dialogue about how and why it supports student learning. Third, they will view and analyze two video clips and one teaching case, using the SEC Observation Protocol, identifying how the seven Anchors can be integrated into academic content and used to create a safe, productive learning environment. Specifically, these resources demonstrate how educators can meet the needs of English Language Learners and how SEC competencies can be integrated into literacy. Fourth, in small and whole groups, participants will be given prompts to identify how using the seven Anchors can help teachers respond more productively to students, with an emphasis on how socio-political, cultural, and individual contexts impact student learning. Finally, participants will brainstorm plans for integrating this work into their current teaching.
Writer's Checklists: A Framework for Scaffolding the Writing Process
Workshop Presentation Deborah Howard
The ability to write well is an essential skill in every aspect of life, not just in academic settings. However, learning to write proficiently can be difficult for all students whether in primary school or post-secondary courses. It is typically even more challenging for students who struggle with writing. Therefore, it is important students learn the skills and strategies they need to use and manage the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing. The writing process tends to be recursive rather than linear, often requiring students to move back and forth through the different stages. To support struggling writers, procedural facilitators such as writer's checklists provide explicit, scaffolded frameworks to guide students as they complete each stage. This session will present writer’s checklists within the instructional framework of the Gradual Release of Responsibility model (I Do, We Do, You Do). The workshop can be adjusted to fit small and/or large numbers of participants. Participants will follow along as the writer’s checklist for planning is modeled to respond to a writing prompt. Afterwards, participants will be sorted into small groups for collaborative practice using the checklists for drafting, revising, and editing, as time permits, to complete the written work. Upon completion, groups will share their experiences with using the checklists and brainstorm ways to adapt, modify, and accommodate the checklists based on students’ diverse instructional needs. The presentation will include handouts of checklists and examples as well as access to digital copies that can be adapted to fit participants’ needs.
