CSI (Connecting Standards to Instruction)

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Audience: Special Education Leaders and 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 structure and design of the TEKS, 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

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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’s 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 measureable, 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

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Prerequisite: CSI: Connecting Standards to Instruction – Audience: Special Education Teachers, General Education Teachers, or Both (K-12)

Strategy instruction is the only instructional method that has been shown through research to enable and prepare students with disabilities and other “at-risk” students to meet the complex learning demands of secondary and post-secondary schools.

In this workshop, participants will

• Explore various strategies to support struggling students in the areas of reading, math, science, and social studies
• Practice methods for teaching strategies to students, help students evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy, and help 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

Special Education Academy

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Are you looking for innovative ways to provide Intervention Instruction? 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

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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 your students
• Plan instruction
• Explore strategies for K-12 students who are struggling to access the content and rigor of the TEKS

Comprehension Strategies in Action (K-5) or (6-HS)

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TEKS Clusters: Process, Figure 19

The ability to apply the cognitively demanding comprehension strategies is critical for understanding what is read. This session focuses on providing a framework for implementing learning and leveraging comprehension strategies that support the understanding of what is read and provide a foundation for analyzing what authors do.

This workshop includes:

• Turning theory into action
• Building an interactive reading notebook
• Integrating multiple texts and genres
• Finding low-prep ways to teach, practice, and transfer

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

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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)

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TEKS Cluster: 2017 TEKS

Is it that time already? 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

Reading – Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 – Recommended Spring

Note: For Tested Grades
Updated Content Request PD

Let’s rock review for STAAR! A new twist on a classic, Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 for Reading will focus on how to motivate your students to engage with content that they may have struggled with earlier in the year. We will anchor on the content that is essential for kids to learn and address the highly tested concepts.

Using Reading examples, we will model NEW strategies, plan with the updated 1-2-3 plan, review the updated quick start guides, and deepen understanding of lead4ward resources that specifically facilitate effective review.

Teachers will learn how to: 

• focus review on priority TEKS clusters
• leverage content strategies to engage learners
• explore hands-on/minds-on activities that provide meaningful practice
• activate student voice to create engaging review
• empower students to analyze and take ownership of common errors
• plan your next steps

Let’s rock this!

Writing – Rockin’ Review – Recommended Spring

Note: For Tested Grades
Updated Content Request PD

Let’s rock review for STAAR! A brand- new Writing Rockin’ Review will focus on how to motivate your students to engage with aspects of the writing process they may have struggled with earlier in the year. We will anchor on the features of writing that are essential for kids to learn and address the highly tested concepts.

Using Writing examples, we will model NEW strategies, plan with the updated 1-2-3 plan, review the updated quick start guides, and deepen understanding of lead4ward resources that specifically facilitate effective review.

Teachers will learn how to: 

• focus review on priority TEKS clusters
• leverage strategies to engage learners
• explore hands-on/minds-on activities that provide meaningful practice
• activate student voice to create engaging review
• empower students to analyze and take ownership of common errors
• plan your next steps

Let’s rock this!

Problem Solving in the Math Classroom (K-HS)

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Workshop available beginning June 2018
Do you want to develop self-sufficient, independent thinkers? Are your students struggling with how to start a math problem or effectively communicate their understanding of the content? This session will focus on the effective planning of the process standards to support students with “Tools to Know” to initiate the problem-solving process and “Ways to Show” their understanding of the content.

This workshop includes:

• Rubric for evaluating students’ use of the process standards
• Identification of the different types of mathematical thinkers and how to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of ALL students
• Instructional strategies for supporting students with how to start the problem-solving process and/or communicate their understanding of mathematics

Review 360: Math (3-HS) – Recommended Summer/Fall/Spring

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Review of learning happens every day and in many different ways! How can we build independent thinkers and problem solvers? How can we help students confidently transfer what they have learned in multiple ways? We purposefully plan with content, process, and reflection/review in mind.

Join us to learn how to:

• Create purposeful plans for review (daily review, reviewing for tests, etc.)
• Go from newly introduced concepts to understanding, application, review, and transfer
• Build confident kids by providing strategies for transferring learning in multiple ways
• Vary instructional strategies and classroom activities to make meaningful connections

Number Sense (1-4) – Recommended Summer/Early Fall

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TEKS Clusters:
Representing and Comparing Whole Numbers (Gr. 1-3)
Representing and Comparing Whole Numbers/Decimals (Gr. 4)

As place value is the foundation of all that grows in Mathematics, it is essential that our students have a rock-solid understanding of how to represent and compare whole numbers. This session focuses on the place value progression throughout the grades–how the conceptual understanding of place value extends to a better understanding of comparison of values as well as how to support a student’s ability to develop their own algorithms and effectively employ the use of properties of operations when adding and subtracting.

This workshop includes:

• Student-level activities that build conceptual and procedural fluency within the base-10 system
• Spiraling activities to continue reinforcing place value understanding throughout the year
• Strategies that use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to add and subtract two-digit whole numbers

Algebra for the Young Minds: It’s Elementary (3-5) – Recommended Fall

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TEKS Clusters: Addition/Subtraction of Whole Numbers (Gr. 3)
Multiplication/Division of Whole Numbers (Gr. 3)
Whole Number Operations (Gr. 4-5)

Being able to select the appropriate operation(s) and represent real-world situations with an appropriate number sentence/equation are foundational for young learners in securing their understanding of whole number operations. This session focuses on how to move students from concrete to abstract representations of math problems to build that algebraic mindset.
This workshop includes:

• Using strip diagrams effectively as a means of representing math problems
• Creating activities that allow students to connect the use of strip diagrams to the selection of appropriate mathematical operation and identification of the number of steps in a problem
• Adjusting existing instructional materials to reach more transfer and rigor

Studying the Parts that Make Up the Whole of Fractions (2-5) – Recommended Fall

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Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Fractions (Gr. 2-4)
All Operations with Fractions (Gr. 5)

Is the sum of all your parts not equaling the whole when it comes to the Fractions strand of Mathematics? Fractions can be very complex for young learners until they understand the value of a “whole” and experience the “parts of the whole” through a variety of concrete representations. Spend a day experiencing the verticality of Fractions in the elementary curriculum.

This workshop includes:

• Engaging in activities that vertically align to the developmental acquisition of fractional understanding
• Connecting the concrete, pictorial, and abstract thinking of fractions
• Unveiling what released STAAR items demonstrate about the expectations of fractional understanding

Growing Graphs in the Primary Grades (K-2) – Recommended Fall

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TEKS Clusters:
Data Analysis (Gr. K-2)

Data analysis is critical to emerging mathematicians as this concept transcends all strands of mathematics and, more importantly, relates to real-world expectations. Interpreting data represented on real object, picture, pictograph, T-chart, tally-mark, bar-type, and bar graph is just plain tough to teach to young thinkers. Add in the process standards, and rigor is off the chart.

This workshop includes:

• Connecting the concrete, pictorial, and abstract thinking of graphs
• Adjusting existing instructional materials to reach more transfer and rigor
• Using graphs as a means of spiraling other math concepts
• Discovering how 3rd grade released STAAR items inform K-2 planning for instruction

The Long and Short of Measurement (K-2) or (3-5) – Recommended Spring

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TEKS Clusters:
Measurement (Gr. K-4)
Geometry and Measurement (Gr. 5)

Measurement can be complex for young learners without having those hands-on experiences and relation to real life. Come lengthen your knowledge of the measurement standards, build capacity within your instructional practices, and weigh in on some new ideas.

This workshop includes:

• Keeping, tweaking, or trashing measurement lessons based on the study of the standards
• Unlocking the hidden messages found with the realigned/newly released STAAR items
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a more conceptual understanding of measurement

Math – Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 – Recommended Spring

Note: For Tested Grades
Updated Content Request PD

Let’s rock review for STAAR! A new twist on a classic, Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 for Math will focus on how to motivate your students to engage with content that they may have struggled with earlier in the year. We will anchor on the content that is essential for kids to learn and address the highly tested concepts.

Using Math examples, we will model NEW strategies, plan with the updated 1-2-3 plan, review the updated quick start guides, and deepen understanding of lead4ward resources that specifically facilitate effective review.

Teachers will learn how to: 

• focus review on priority TEKS clusters
• leverage content strategies to engage learners
• explore hands-on/minds-on activities that provide meaningful practice
• activate student voice to create engaging review
• empower students to analyze and take ownership of common errors
• plan your next steps

Let’s rock this!

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

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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 process standards help student learning in all content areas
• Understand how process standards will be assessed on the STAAR Assessments and how to best prepare students for the rigor of dual-coded questions

Review 360: Science (3-EOC) – Recommended Summer/Fall/Spring

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Review of learning happens every day and in many different ways! How can we build independent thinkers and problem solvers? How can we help students confidently transfer what they have learned in multiple ways? We purposefully plan with content, process, and reflection/review in mind.

Join us to learn how to:

• Create purposeful plans for review (daily review, reviewing for tests, etc.)
• Go from newly introduced concepts to understanding, application, review, and transfer
• Build confident kids by providing strategies for transferring learning in multiple ways
• Vary instructional strategies and classroom activities to make meaningful connections

Physical Science Matters: Matter and Energy (K-5) – Recommended Summer/Early Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2018

TEKS Clusters:
Properties and Patterns of Objects (Gr. Kinder-1)
Properties of Matter (Gr. 2)
3.5 Physical Properties of Matter (Gr. 3-5)

Exploring matter and energy is generally the first big unit of instruction for the school year. These concepts are sometimes difficult for students, and yet they are essential to an overall understanding of physical science. This workshop digs deep into the content and process of teaching matter in the elementary classroom.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring how young scientists learn through their senses and ways to support this development
• Digging deep into what students need to know about the properties of matter
• Addressing how to deal with difficult content
• Exploring how Physical Properties of Matter is highly tested on STAAR
• Exploring and creating hands-on investigations that enhance student learning and make connections that can be implemented immediately

Physical Science Matters: Matter and Energy (6-8) – Recommended Summer/Early Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2018

TEKS Clusters:
Elements and Compounds (Gr. 6)
Physical Characteristics of Matter (Gr. 6)
Interactions of Matter and Energy (Gr. 7)
Properties of Atoms, Chemical Formulas and Reactions (Gr. 8)

Exploring matter and energy is usually the first big unit of instruction for the school year. These concepts are sometimes difficult for students, and yet they are essential to an overall understanding of physical science. This workshop digs deep into the content that helps support conceptual understandings and how it plays a crucial role in middle school grades.

This workshop includes:

• Investigating what concepts are hard for students to understand at each grade level and ways to support learning
• Identifying specific grade-level lab investigations that address the difficult concepts of physical science
• Integrating Instructional Strategies that help support the transfer of learning from the taught to the tested
• Providing an in-depth look at how these concepts are tested on STAAR and how to address them in instruction

Physical Science: Force, Motion, and Energy (K-5) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Force, Motion, and Energy (Gr. Kinder-5)

This workshop focuses on how to support emerging scientists and make meaningful connections between science vocabulary, hands-on investigations and active learning.

This workshop includes:

• Building strong content understanding and linking content to critical vocabulary development
• Discussing age-appropriate, hands-on lab investigations
• Using the process skills
• Identifying lab investigations that enhance learning
• Focusing on how STAAR items can inform our instruction and support learning

Physical Science: Force, Motion, and Energy (6-8) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Force, Motion, Potential, and Kinetic Energy (Gr. 6)
Law of Conservation of Energy (Gr. 6)
Force, Motion, and Energy Relationships (Gr.7)
Force, Motion, and Energy (Gr. 8)

From investigating potential and kinetic energy to learning about Newton’s Laws–middle school is jam-packed with force, motion, and energy! It is important that students build on the basic understandings of force, motion, and energy to gain the competencies necessary for physics.

This workshop includes:

• Learning ways to engage and build strong content understanding
• Exploring the important role each grade level plays in the development of the TEKS Cluster
• Identifying specific grade-level lab investigations that enhance learning
• Focusing on how STAAR items can inform our instruction and support learning

Earth Science: Forces that Change the Earth (K-5) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Rocks and Water (Gr. Kinder)
Rocks, Soil, and Water (Gr. 1)
Natural Resources and Changes to Earth’s Surface (Gr. 2)
Natural Resources and Changes to Earth’s Surface (Gr. 3-4)
Earth (Gr. 5)

Earth is always changing around us. There are slow changes that occur and some that change in an instant! These are essential for students to understand the importance of the Earth’s natural resources as well as how the Earth is always changing through force.

This workshop includes:

• Identifying student-level activities that build conceptual fluency of Earth science
• Recognizing how STAAR items can inform instructional practice
• Connecting hard-to-learn concepts, academic vocabulary, and hands-on learning
• Using grade-specific, hands-on lab investigations and activities that can be used in class instruction or center-based learning

Earth Science: Forces that Change the Earth (6-8) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Structure of Earth (Gr. 6)
Impacts of Earth’s Systems (Gr. 7)
Impact of Natural Events (Gr. 8)

How is the Earth shaped? How does it change? How does it move around us? Abstract in nature, these concepts are hard for students to learn, which makes it essential for targeted instruction and hands-on investigations.

This workshop includes:

• Grade-level, specific content focus and strategies that support conceptual development
• A focus on STAAR items that inform how these concepts develop in middle school
• Grade-level, specific hands-on investigations that enhance learning

Earth Science: Exploring Space and Weather (K-5) – Recommended Late Fall/January

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Seasons and Space (Gr. Kinder)
Weather, Seasons, and Space (Gr. 1)
Patterns in the Natural World (Gr. 2)
Space and Weather (Gr. 3)
Earth’s Cycles and Patterns (Gr. 4)
Space (Gr. 5)

It is important to understand how our atmosphere and solar system affect our world and daily lives. These concepts can be complex for learners because of their abstract nature. That is why it is so important to make meaningful connections in the events that occur and patterns we can see through space and weather.

This workshop includes:

• Various methods to make impactful connections between the content, academic vocabulary, and hands-on investigations
• Focusing on STAAR items that inform instruction
• Grade-specific, hands-on investigations that can be used in classroom instruction

Earth Science: Exploring Space and Weather (6-8) – Recommended Late Fall/January

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Organization of Solar System (Gr. 6)
Sun, Earth, and Moon (Gr. 8)
Characteristics of the Universe (Gr. 8)
Climatic Interactions (Gr. 8)

It is important for students to build on their understanding of space through understanding the organization of our solar system and how our atmosphere impacts the oceans and weather of our planet. This workshop is geared for 6th and 8th grades, which focus on space and weather.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring ways to connect the important content to everyday investigations and strategies to support conceptual understanding
• Focusing on how STAAR interesting items inform instruction
• Identifying grade-specific, hands-on lab investigations and activities that can enhance learning

Investigating Life Science (K-5) – Recommended Spring

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2018

TEKS Clusters:
Basic Needs of Plants and Animals (Gr. Kinder, Gr. 2)
Characteristics of Plants and Animals (Gr. Kinder-1)
Relationships of Plants and Animals (Gr. 1)
Animals and Environments (Gr. 3)
Survival of Plants and Animals (Gr. 3)
Interactions of Organisms in Ecosystems (Gr. 4)
Animal Adaptations and Behaviors (Gr. 4)
Organisms and Environments (Gr. 5)
Animal Adaptations and Behaviors (Gr. 5)

Every day, learners interact with the world around them. This workshop explores the balance and roles of living organisms and their responses to the environments in which they live.

This workshop includes:

• Building on understanding from previous grade levels and connecting new content of the roles living organisms play in the balance of their ecosystem
• A focus on how to engage emerging scientists with content and academic vocabulary
• Interacting with interesting STAAR items and using them to inform instruction
• Exploring activities and investigations that can be used in classroom instruction or center-based learning

Investigating Life Science (6-8) – Recommended Spring

New Content Request PD
Workshop available beginning June 2017

TEKS Clusters:
Classification of Organisms (Gr. 6)
Relationships of Organisms and Environments (Gr. 7)
Variations of Traits in Populations and Species (Gr. 7)
Interdependence of Living Systems (Gr. 8)

This workshop explores interactions and relationships among living organisms and the ecosystems in which they live–from the basic building blocks of life to the complex relationships among biotic and abiotic factors in ecosystems.

This workshop includes:

• A focus on the important concepts that build vertically from 6th – 8th grade and the important role they play in building a foundation for Biology
• A focus on STAAR interesting items that inform instruction
• Grade-specific activities and investigations that can be used in classroom instruction

DNA: Replication, Transcription, Translation, and Mutation – Recommended June/Early Fall

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters
B.6 Mechanisms of Genetics

The concepts taught in this workshop are important to Biology learners because they help students explore the components of DNA and evaluate the significance of changes in DNA. Topics of study include: DNA coding, mutations, codon charts, and the structure and function of DNA.

This workshop includes:

• Breaking down the TEKS specificity, processing, and needed vocabulary
• Using the Planning Guide and interesting STAAR items to inform instruction
• Discovering high-yield vocabulary instructional strategies to use with students
• Experiencing engaging lab activities to use with students to create memorable learning
• Justification stations using varied stimulus with open-ended responses that elicit evidence of learning from students
• Using digital tools to enhance formative assessment on free platforms such as Formative, Padlet, and ChatterKids (optional)

Homeostasis: Functions of Living Things – Recommended Late Fall/Early Spring

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters
B.10 Levels of Biological Systems

This workshop explores the importance of biological process and systems in plants and animals as they relate to homeostasis. Topics of study include: Animal systems structure, function, and how these systems interact to support life. Vascular plant structure, self-fertililzation, and tropisms that allow plants to react to external stimuli.

This workshop includes:

• Breaking down the TEKS specificity, processing, and needed vocabulary
• Using the Planning Guide and interesting STAAR items to inform instruction
• Discovering high-yield vocabulary instructional strategies to use with students
• Experiencing engaging lab activities to use with students to create memorable learning
• Justification stations using varied stimulus with open-ended responses that elicit evidence of learning from students
• Optional: using digital tools to enhance formative assessment on free platforms such as Formative, Padlet, and ChatterKids

Science – Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 – Recommended Spring

Note: For Tested Grades
Updated Content Request PD

Let’s rock review for STAAR! A new twist on a classic, Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 for Science will focus on how to motivate your students to engage with content that they may have struggled with earlier in the year. We will anchor on the content that is essential for kids to learn and address the highly tested concepts.

Using Science examples, we will model NEW strategies, plan with the updated 1-2-3 plan, review the updated quick start guides, and deepen understanding of lead4ward resources that specifically facilitate effective review.

Teachers will learn how to: 

• focus review on priority TEKS clusters
• leverage content strategies to engage learners
• explore hands-on/minds-on activities that provide meaningful practice
• activate student voice to create engaging review
• empower students to analyze and take ownership of common errors
• plan your next steps

Let’s rock this!

Power of Process in the Social Studies Classroom (4-EOC)

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starting June 2018

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 will focus on the effective planning of 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 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

Social Studies Playlist: Strategies and Routines (4-EOC)

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
All clusters.

Move beyond the lecture and liven up your Social Studies classroom. Engaging students in the learning process is mandatory for content retention. How can you do that when there is so little time and so much content? Discover historical analysis routines and practices for students to embed and internalize for transfer to independent analysis of primary and secondary sources. Experience effective strategies from the lead4ward playlist that include rigorous thinking and rich content! Effective social studies routines and engaged strategies will enrich all social studies classrooms.

This workshop includes:

• Discovering historical analysis routines and practices you can use that will help students embed and internalize their learning and transfer it to independent analysis of primary and secondary sources
• Experiencing effective strategies from the lead4ward playlist that include rigorous thinking and rich content

Exploration and Colonization (Grade 8) – Recommended Summer

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
Exploration and Colonization (Gr. 8)

The Exploration and Colonization unit sets the foundation for representative government, understanding the impact of human and physical geography on historic events, and the results of economic geography on people in different regions. As the first unit of the school year, students need to develop their historical thinking skills, practice working with primary sources, and analyze cause-and-effect relationships with a variety of stimuli. This session focuses on the concepts and processes that will build for the remainder of the school year.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards associated with the historic era
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards and spiral standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

Constitution: The Constitution and Principles of Government (Grades 7 & 8) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
Texas Government (Gr. 7)
Constitution (Gr. 8)

Understanding the seven principles of government is key to unlocking the complexity of the Constitution and our governmental systems. As one of the most cognitively complex units, and most heavily assessed on 8th grade STAAR, vertical alignment is crucial. In 7th grade, students learn how the Texas Constitution reflects the principles of limited government, republicanism, checks and balances, federalism, separation of powers, popular sovereignty, and individual rights. A deep understanding and ability to apply the learning to a variety of stimuli is paramount for student success in 8th grade.

This session focuses on the principles of government, the Bill of Rights, the amendment process, and the ratification of the Constitution.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

Industrialization (Grade 8) – Recommended Fall/Spring

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
Industrialization (Gr. 8)

The understanding of the dynamic relationship between industrialization, urbanization, and immigration is crucial for student mastery of the Industrialization unit. Learning must go beyond the who, what, when, where, and why of this era. Cause-and-effect relationships are vital to developing an understanding of the economic, cultural, and geographic implications of the “progress” of the time. In addition to stimuli analysis, it is crucial that students are able to make connections between events, people, and the economy.

This session focuses on the impact of technological advancements, population density, push-and-pull factors surrounding immigration, and the cultural shifts from an agrarian to urban society that occurred during this era.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards associated with the historic era
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards and spiral standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

Rise of a World Power (High School USH) – Recommended Summer/Fall

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
Rise of a World Power (USH)

The United States’ rise as a world power began with the Spanish American War and was solidified due to World War I. Though there is chronological overlap with the Progressive Era, this thematic topic allows students to dig deeper into foreign policy, territorial acquisitions, and the impact of alliances. Content ranges from interventionist policies to isolationism and technological advancements during World War I to the formation of the League of Nations. During the fall semester, students need to develop their historical thinking skills, practice working with primary sources, and analyze cause-and-effect relationships with a variety of stimuli. This session focuses on the concepts and processes that will be built upon for the remainder of the school year.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards associated with the historic era
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards and spiral standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

World War II (High School USH) – Recommended Fall

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
World War II (USH)

World War II is an extremely complex era. Students need to understand the impact of mobilization on the economy and how it contributed to the end of the Great Depression. Simultaneously, they learn that life on the homefront consisted of many sacrifices and hardships (including internment). The war itself is comprised of two unique and very different battlefronts. The war in Europe was mostly land based, while the war in the Pacific was based at sea with amphibious assaults used during the island-hopping strategy. There are people, dates, battles, and more facts to learn; however, instruction must go beyond the memorization of facts. While continuing to develop their historical thinking skills, students should be analyzing secondary and primary sources to “bring the facts alive.” This session focuses on the concepts and processes that will enrich the content of the World War II era.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards associated with the historic era
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards and spiral standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

Contemporary America (High School USH) – Recommended Spring

New Content Request PD

TEKS Clusters:
Contemporary America (USH)

Contemporary history presents several unique challenges. Some if it is still very fresh, some is controversial, and parts can be very divisive. As a history teacher, it is crucial that the content we present is objective and allow students opportunities to draw their own conclusions. This workshop focuses on the Nixon era through 2009. Watergate, relations with the Middle East, the end of the Cold War, the Reagan era, advancements in technology, trade agreements, 9/11, and the War on Terror are all significant pieces of the puzzle that is “Contemporary America.” Students must be able to make connections between politics, foreign policy, geography, technology, economics, and social issues. In lieu of teaching history purely chronologically, this session emphasizes the connections and relationships that will to help students develop their conceptual understanding.

This session focuses on the impact of technological advancements, population density, push-and-pull factors surrounding immigration, and the cultural shifts from an agrarian to urban society that occurred during this era.

This workshop includes:

• Exploring knowledge and skills and focus priority student expectations
• Conceptualizing how to effectively “reach” all of the content standards associated with the historic era
• Recrafting some of our instructional practices to support a student-centered classroom
• Integrating the process standards and spiral standards in planning routines
• Preparing activities that allow students to access and transfer their content knowledge

Social Studies – Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 – Recommended Spring

Note: For Tested Grades (Grade 8 and USH)
Updated Content Request PD
Let’s rock review for STAAR! A new twist on a classic, Rockin’ Review: Volume 2 for Social Studies will focus on how to motivate your students to engage with content that they may have struggled with earlier in the year. We will anchor on the content that is essential for kids to learn and address the highly tested concepts.

Using Social Studies examples, we will model NEW strategies, plan with the updated 1-2-3 plan, review the updated quick start guides, and deepen understanding of lead4ward resources that specifically facilitate effective review.

Teachers will learn how to: 

• focus review on priority TEKS clusters
• leverage content strategies to engage learners
• explore hands-on/minds-on activities that provide meaningful practice
• activate student voice to create engaging review
• empower students to analyze and take ownership of common errors
• plan your next steps

Let’s rock this!

Social Studies ePLC – A Series of Prerecorded Webinars for PLCs

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The Social Studies Professional Learning Community is designed to offer time for Social Studies teachers who teach 8th grade Social Studies or US History to collaborate, learn what’s new, and discuss issues related to content, curriculum alignment, standards, and testing.

Teachers often struggle to translate the unit bundle of TEKS into lesson themes and then to daily lesson plans. The goal of these webinars is to facilitate constructive conversations about how to make the content in the TEKS comprehensible for students and provide methods for students to develop pathways for recall.

The ePLC will include:

• Fifteen to twenty 30-minute recorded webinars to facilitate a PLC session for each major topic or era
• A platform to collaborate with other Social Studies teachers throughout the state
• Resources at your fingertips