SmartStart Education offers full-day, half-day and 80-min workshops on specific topics for up to 25 participants. Each session is customized to meet the needs of the school or district partner with whom we work. As such, the workshops are relevant to the participants’ school schedule, resources, access to technology, and student population.
Each session includes an immersion experience for teachers, where a best practice is modeled. The teachers debrief and unpack the practice, including an overview of current research and the planning and decision-making process regarding its strategic use in the curriculum. Teachers are also given time to plan and design the practice for an upcoming unit of study or one they would like to revise. As a final step, teachers will engage in peer review and other discussion and sharing protocols in order to promote collaboration across the district.
Three 80-min sessions are equivalent to one half-day workshop. During the full-day workshop teachers have significant time allocated for lesson planning facilitated by the instructional specialist. When workshops participants are administrators, the content is focused on leadership and supporting teachers in utilizing the practices learned in the workshops.
Workshop topics include:
- Demonstrating Knowledge of Content & Pedagogy
- Designing Coherent Instruction
- Managing Classroom Procedures
- Managing Student Behavior
- Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques
- Engaging Students in Learning
- Using Assessment in Instruction (Differentiation)
- Strategies for Teaching English as a New Language (ENL) Students
- Data Teaming 101: The Five Step Data Teaming Process
