CSI (Connecting Standards to Instruction)

Request PD
Audience: Campus Teams (Special Education/Classroom Teachers)

It is more important than ever for special education teachers and instructional leaders to connect their understanding of the rigorous learning standards with effective, specially designed instruction in order to prepare students with disabilities for success in the next grade level and ultimately, life after high school.

Topics covered:

• Understanding the learning standards (TEKS) – design and construct of the TEKS, categorization of the TEKS (process standards, readiness standards, supporting standards) and their role in instructional planning
• Using data, knowledge of the TEKS structure and design, and identification of the long strand standards to inform the decision-making process
• Developing an effective, informed, simple PLAAFP statement that focuses on involvement and progress in the general education curriculum
• Adapting instruction to support student learning – prerequisite skills, accommodations and instructional adaptations, and connecting standards to instruction

IEP to Action

Request PD
Prerequisite: CSI: Connecting Standards to Instruction – Audience: Special Education Teachers and Leaders

Participants will apply the knowledge learned in CSI: Connecting Standards to Informed Decision-Making to the IEP planning process. This hands-on training takes a deeper look into the process, readiness, and supporting standards and the role they play in our curriculum. We will focus our attention on the long strand standards — content standards that build across grade levels and have relevance in future learning and in life — that will provide your students with special needs multiple access points to the rigor of the curriculum.

Participants will:

• Practice and learn how to write meaningful PLAAFPS based on effective instructional strategies and student involvement and progress in the general education curriculum
• Use an informed decision-making process to select high-impact standards for IEP goals and objectives
• Select, practice, and write measurable, high-impact, standards-based goals
• Select instructional strategies to support IEP goals and help students access the rigor of the standards
• Practice, develop, and select progress-monitoring models to support IEP goals and inform PLAAFP statements
• Build a plan for your Special Education PLC to learn the strategies for intervention and enrichment

Reaching Rigor: Creating Success for Special Education Students

Request PD
Suggested Prerequisite: CSI: Connecting Standards to Instruction – Audience: Special Education Teachers, General Education Teachers, or Both (K-HS)

How do we support students with disabilities with the complex learning demands of the content standards? High-yield instructional strategies, concrete representations, and metacognitive skill development are some of the evidence-based methodologies found to help students meet the high expectations of a rigorous curriculum. Join us to fill your instructional toolbox with ideas for reaching struggling learners in high-impact content standards across content areas.

In this workshop, participants will

• Get ideas for effectively planning and collaborating with content/classroom teachers
• Explore strategies to support struggling students in the areas of reading, math, science, and social studies
• Practice methods for teaching strategies to students, helping students evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy, and helping students generalize and transfer the use of the strategy
• Develop an implementation plan for embedding strategy instruction throughout the school year to prepare students for accessing rigor and achieving self-determination

Unlocking Achievement: Developing Independent Thinking in Students with Disabilities (K-HS)

Request PD
Target Audience: Special Education teachers, leaders, and/or instructional teams

How do we help students with disabilities develop independence? How can we support the thinking skills required to make meaningful progress in the standards? What if special educators committed to becoming champions of the process standards? The process standards are consistent across grade levels, highly correlate with overall performance on statewide assessment, and help teachers differentiate for learners. They serve as high-impact standards to assist teachers with instructional focus, effective progress monitoring, and selection of standards for aligning IEP goals and objectives.

What you will learn:

• The importance of the process standards in the learning process
• Instructional strategies to support the implementation of process standards across content areas
• Tools for assessing student mastery of the process standards to inform the IEP
• A plan for focusing the role of the special educator in the PLC

Achieving Fluency: Supporting Struggling Secondary Readers (6-HS)

Request PD
Target Audience: Secondary Special Education teachers, Special Education leaders, and/or instructional teams

Many students with disabilities, including those with dyslexia, still do not read fluently after elementary school. When students are fluent, comprehension improves. How do we build reading fluency while still helping our students meet the complex demands of secondary content instruction? This workshop teaches a framework for understanding fluency and word study in the context of secondary content. Participants will learn practical strategies to give students with disabilities access to text that connects to grade-level standards and can be implemented in a variety of service delivery models to best meet the needs of individual students.

What you will learn:

• Assessment strategies
• Introduction to a reading process framework
• Low-prep ways to teach, practice, and transfer
• Strategies that integrate intervention with content instruction
• Integration of lead4ward resources

Special Education Academy

View more information
Target Audience: Special Education teachers and leaders -or- collaborative teams of special education, general education, and leadership.

Are you looking for innovative ways to provide specially designed instruction for students being served by special education programs? The goal of the lead4ward Special Education Academy is to provide a learning and support system for educators with face-to-face professional development and virtual support throughout two consecutive school years. Participants will synthesize, adapt, and transfer current and new learning to provide effective instruction, intervention, practice, and assessment. Following a learn, practice, and reflect model, academy members will leave with the confidence and competence to set in motion relevant change to promote students as lifelong learners.

Special Education ePLC

View more information

The Special Education ePLC is designed to facilitate discussion among Special Education teachers who teach students with high-incidence learning disabilities in inclusive settings across the state. Teachers will use the content from the online pre-recorded webinars to facilitate constructive conversations about how to make the content in the TEKS accessible for students with disabilities and provide methods for students to develop effective strategies to access that content. Each webinar will help teachers:

• Explore the specificity of key process standards
• Purposefully use the processes
• Learn how to effectively teach new strategies to students
• Plan instruction
• Explore strategies for K-HS students who are struggling to access the content and rigor of the TEKS

Connect Reading and Writing: Interactive Notebook (3-5) and (6-EOC) – Offered starting in June 2020

Request PD

Explore the reading and writing process using an authentic, integrated approach. Participants will create an interactive notebook to learn and teach the processes of literacy. The notebook will include the Tools to Know as a way to lay the foundation for reading and writing, while at the same time allowing autonomy for both the teacher and student. This interactive workshop will provide a sequential and connected approach to reading and writing that can be implemented the next day.

Reading & Writing Academy (6-EOC) – A Year-Long Service

Request PD

Are you looking for innovative ways to provide Reading and Writing instruction? The goal of the lead4ward Reading and Writing Academy is to provide a learning and support system for educators with face-to-face professional development and virtual support throughout two consecutive school years. Participants will synthesize, adapt, and transfer current and new learning to provide effective reading/writing instruction, practice, and assessment. Following a learn, practice, and reflect model, academy members will leave with the confidence and competence to set in motion relevant change to promote students as lifelong readers, writers, and learners.

This academy emphasizes:

• Big idea/shift
• Making it work — pacing and timing
• Reading and writing process
• Effective independent reading practice
• Genre study
• Instructional variety
• Student Learning Reports

Wave Goodbye, Say Hello: New ELAR TEKS (K-5) or (6-EOC)

Request PD

TEKS Cluster: 2017 TEKS

Join lead4ward as we sort through the new and old TEKS as a way to determine curriculum and instructional “keepers” and shifts.

This workshop includes:

• Comparing and understanding content and cognitive changes
• Learning the new lead4ward resources, including new Know to Show documents
• Exploring possible unit clusters
• Identifying routines, activities, and resources to continue
• Identifying new routines, activities, and resource needs

Math Intervention for ALL (3-EOC)

Request PD

Prerequisite: Problem Solving in the Math Classroom is suggested.

We know that the growth of all learners is critical (and state accountability now advocates for it too)! Targeted math intervention for ALL learners can be the game changer. Let’s capitalize on the use of data to drive the “who/what/when” of math intervention and experience some lead4ward resources that can support the “how” of it all! This session will model structures that will enable all students to get a piece of the intervention PIE!

In this workshop we will address:

• Prevention: Effective use of lead4ward’s TEKS Scaffold, released STAAR items, and lead4ward’s teacher guides to proactively approach math intervention prior to instruction
• Intervention: Effective use of lead4ward’s new intervention tool as the vehicle to establish math intervention groups and identify specific math content needed to grow ALL learners
• Extension: Effective use of lead4ward strategies to intervene with mathematical content and process standards to move ALL students to their next level of potential

Online Middle School Math Learning Videos for Teachers!

View more information

Only have time for a 20-minute PLC? Having difficulty filtering through all of the curriculum documents to even know where to begin the planning process? We can help!

The lead4ward Middle School Math Learning Video Series provides two videos for every highly tested middle school TEKS Cluster.

Each video is between 10-15 minutes long and drills down to the curriculum and content basics of what is needed to effectively plan instruction.

• TEKS Scaffold video – uses the lead4ward TEKS Scaffold document to better understand the verticality of the curriculum as a means of knowing where to begin and/or intervene with instruction. View Sample Video –>
• Released Tests video – uses the lead4ward IQ Released Items Analysis Tool to reveal content error patterns from the released tests and drive how we adjust our instructional practices to better address those identifiable needs. View Sample Video –>

The Power of Process in Science (K-5) or (6-EOC)

Request PD

Process = Engagement + Thinking – That’s the Power of Process!
Process standards are all about “how” we learn! Explore how to go beyond basic-level thinking and help foster life-long learners and problem solvers through teaching the process standards.

Participants will:

• Discover how to easily plan and incorporate the process standards in daily instruction
• Learn ways to help foster scientific questioning and communication
• Learn how the process standards help student learning in all content areas
• Understand how process standards will be assessed on STAAR and how to best prepare students for the rigor of dual-coded questions

Full Streamlining Ahead with the Social Studies TEKS (K-5) – Offered starting in June 2020

Request PD

The streamlined K-5 Social Studies TEKS will be implemented in the 2020-21 school year. What changes have been made, and how will they impact instruction and student learning?

In this workshop, participants will:

• Study the streamlined standards to determine instructional impacts
• Use new lead4ward resources to help plan instruction around the standards
• Examine the alignment of the Spiral Standards and discover how they help to bridge concepts between grade levels and courses
• Connect content with process standards to promote a more rigorous approach to instruction
• Explore activities that allow students to access and transfer content knowledge

Full Streamlining Ahead with the Social Studies TEKS (6-EOC)

Request PD

The streamlined 6-12th Grade Social Studies TEKS are being implemented in the 2019-20 school year. What changes have been made, and how will they impact instruction and student learning? In this workshop, participants will:

• Study the streamlined standards to determine instructional impacts
• Use new lead4ward resources to help plan instruction around the standards
• Examine the alignment of the Spiral Standards and discover how they help to bridge concepts between grade levels and courses
• Connect content with process standards to promote a more rigorous approach to instruction
• Explore activities that allow students to access and transfer content knowledge

Power of Process in the Social Studies Classroom (4-EOC) – Offered starting in June 2020

Request PD

Do you want to develop self-sufficient, independent thinkers? Are your students struggling with how to apply their understanding of the content to a variety of stimuli? This session focuses on effective planning with the process standards to support students with “Tools to Know” to initiate the critical-thinking process and “Ways to Show” their understanding of the content.

This workshop includes:

• Engaging activities that reveal ways to analyze and interpret social studies information (primary sources, secondary sources, and visuals)
• Ways to foster social studies reasoning skills and how to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of ALL students
• Instructional strategies for supporting students with how to start the critical-thinking process and/or communicate their understanding of social studies content
• Comprehension strategies that will enable the successful acquisition of new content knowledge
• An understanding of how the process standards are assessed on STAAR and how to best prepare students for the rigor of dual-coded questions in tested and non-tested courses

Planning for Social Studies Instruction (Grades 4-EOC) – Offered starting June 2020

Request PD
TEKS Clusters: All clusters.

Planning for effective Tier 1 instruction is the key to the growth of ALL students and minimizes the need for intervention. Come discover a planning process that models how to move students through the stages of learning to reach rigor and relevance in your Social Studies classroom.

This workshop includes:

• Learn it: How do you introduce a concept or the content? How do you assess students’ prior knowledge of the concept/content to even know where to begin? What does “I do, we do, you do” really look like in the Social Studies classroom?
• Apply It: How will students apply their understanding of the concept/content? How do you design/choose activities that are at the application level? How will you differentiate the application of the concept for the varying degrees of learners in your classroom?
• Connect It: How will students connect their understanding to previous/upcoming units of instruction? How will students connect their understanding to concepts outside of the Social Studies classroom? How will students connect their understanding of the concept/content to STAAR?

Social Studies ePLC – A Webinar Series for PLCs

NEW Content for USH – Offered starting in June 2020 View more information
The 8th Grade & USH Social Studies ePLC (online Professional Learning Community) helps teachers build their understanding of big-picture concepts and content nuances through webinars and other resources that address each major topic.

The 2020-21 ePLC:

• Aligns with the streamlined TEKS and trends from STAAR
• Embeds process-based instructional best practices and strategies from the Social Studies Playlist (NEW)
• Subdivides major topics into units of study to allow more flexibility during PLC meetings (NEW)
• Addresses the “how” and “when” for intervention (NEW)

Teachers often struggle to translate the volume of TEKS standards and Social Studies content into manageable chunks of instruction. Front-loading teacher planning time with lead4ward’s ePLC allows them to spend constructive time within their PLC designing engaging experiences and planning targeted lessons that promote content retention, comprehension, and historical thinking skills.

How and when should we intervene to ensure students are successful? And what methods could we use for students at different thresholds? New this year, each topic also includes a webinar that discusses what intervention could look like for students who are struggling to access the stimuli and/or need support with inferential thinking.