As an experienced presenter, speaker, and professional developer, I am available to come to your school or district. I can adapt one of the workshops listed here, or will custom-build a dynamic, engaging professional development experience to meet the needs of your team. Contact me using the form below for more information.
Click the topic titles for more details, handouts, and session information for recent presentations. If you are here looking for materials from a session you attended and do not find what you’re looking for, head to my contact page to send me a general request for information.
[hr]21st Century Skills & Digital Technology
Separating Truth from Fiction: Information Literacy for Elementary Students (ISTE 2010 & ISTE 2011)
Students often believe that all the world’s knowledge is stored on the Internet, and that a simple Google search will provide them instantly with all the answers they seek. In order to unlock the potential of Internet resources, even young students must learn how to be critical users of information. In this session, I use my website, All About Explorers, to introduce participants to the essential literacy skills that elementary students should have and a collection of resources we have developed to teach them. Participants will walk away with a clear understanding of the need for information literacy, the skills most relevant to elementary students, a collection of tools for teaching the skills, and a professional network of educators with whom to share ideas.
[hr]Digital Storytelling with Interactive Fiction (NAGC 2012)
Learn how to build a story and a world in which the reader is an integral part. Digital storytelling is a genre growing in popularity which merges the skills of telling a story with computer tools, particularly those which enable students to incorporate multimedia elements. Teachers who want to focus on the power of text often feel limited to tools like word processors. The resurgence of a form of computer gaming called “Interactive Fiction” brings a powerful new tool to teachers who want to explore new ways for students to create content in an engaging, flexible, and unique way.
[hr]Nonlinear Learning: Teaching in Three Dimensions (TeachMeetNJ 2011)
School has a tendency to work like the bus to camp. At the start of the year, we pile all the students on the bus, the teacher drives us to camp, and the kids all get off. The problem comes when later the students have to make the journey on their own. Without the bus or the driver, they get lost, miss turns, and lose track of where they’re going. During this session, teachers will learn how to embrace and facilitate the different starting points, routes, and destinations our students may have in their nonlinear routes to learning.
[hr]Gifted Education
Gifted Education: It's Not Just for Pull-Out Anymore (C-MITES 2013)
Every teacher has had or will have gifted students in their classroom. Some of them will be identified, and others may just be “lurking,” waiting for their abilities to be recognized. Traditionally we deal with these students in the elementary grades by enrolling them in pull-out programs and classes. It is as if they only have special needs two hours a week. But gifted learners are gifted all the time, and every teacher needs to know how to meet their needs in many different situations. During this workshop, attendees will learn how to recognize gifted learners and their educational needs, 21st century tools and skills for differentiating the K‑6 classroom, and how to collaborate and co-teach with the gifted support teacher and grade level colleagues
[hr]Differentiation in the Diverse Classroom
As classrooms become more and more diverse, teachers are faced with a daunting challenge: design learning experiences that address a broad variety of needs, interests, and readiness. This workshop will help teachers grapple with the complex task of understanding and meeting all of their students’ needs with modern differentiation techniques and strategies.
[hr]Elementary Mathematics
Math As a Mindset: Classroom Culture, Problem Solving, and the Common Core
Galileo considered mathematics to be the language we use to understand the universe. With it, we recognize patterns, model complicated phenomena, and solve problems. But in the elementary classroom, so often math is reduced to a series of isolated skills and computation techniques. In this workshop, we will learn to bring back the beauty and the mystery of math. Using a collection of mindsets for classroom culture (such as “It’s Gonna Be Messy” and “Think The Avengers, Not the Lone Ranger”) and some simple classroom routines (like “Say It Another Way”, “Paper-Free Math”, and “Catch Me If You Can”), learn how to transform math learning in your classroom and give your students the confidence to solve any problem like a math pro.
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