simplify | streamline | strengthen | succeed
We offer over 100 workshops to schools. We partner with you to
assess the needs of your school. Our goal is to provide solutions-
based, high-quality professional development.
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts to build teacher capacityfor incorporating small group instruction into the Secondary classroom. Teachers are taughthow to
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts and a workshop styleapproach to build educator knowledge on the principles of Universal Design for Learning
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts to build teacher capacityfor incorporating small group instruction into the Secondary classroom. Teachers are taughthow to
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This is a follow up to Google Classroom 101. In this session, we will introduce the more advanced features of Classroom and G Suite, including
An introduction to Google Classroom as a Learning Management System. This training explores the many ways you can use Google Classroom to make your job
In this session, we will introduce the more advanced features of Teams (or G Suite) including the applications that can be used through Office 365
An introduction to Schoology as a Learning Management System. This training explores the many ways you can use Schoology to make your job easier. We
This is a follow up to Microsoft Teams 101. In this session, we will introduce the more advanced features of Teams, including the applications that
An introduction to Office 365’s Teams as a Learning Management System. This training explores the many ways you can use Office 365 Teams to make
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Teach the way students learn! So, how do students learn? This session will focus on learning styles and their definitions. We will scientifically identify your learning style and your students’ learning styles, and we will discover how to teach each type of learner. “If students can’t learn the way we teach, then we must teach the way students learn.” (Ignacio Estrada)
An old adage states: “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” The last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning. In this workshop, you will learn to shift your traditional education ideas and successfully implement inquiry-based instruction. You will learn to embrace the freedom and let go of control; embrace the process and let go of content (while still teaching standards); and embrace the struggle and let go of discomfort! This workshop will share strategies, routines, and classroom management protocols to make inquiry-based learning a reality in your classroom!
Do you ever wonder how to reach a student? In this fun and interactive session we will identify the reasons students resist investing in class, then pinpoint specific strategies to motivate students to learn. You will leave this workshop with the techniques to show students the value of learning on their own terms.
This workshop will give you strategies you can use to help your students understand that intelligence can be developed, the brain is malleable, and the best way to make their brain stronger and smarter is through doing challenging work! You will learn how current brain research has scientists and researchers excited about shifting attitudes toward learning. Bringing this knowledge and awareness to your students will increase their motivation and, ultimately, their success!
Practice makes PERMANENT! This session explores how implementing daily routines to engage students in meaningful conversations and discussions in their target language have the power
New year, new SEI model! Are you ready to implement Principle II: Integrated Instruction in Disciplinary Language and Content? We are taking a proficiency learning
When teaching special education students, engagement is key to success. Increasing interaction and a deeper understanding of materials can be a challenge unique to each
Who doesn’t need a brain break? No matter what you are teaching, where, or when, Brain Breaks are an integral part of learning. In this
This isn’t your father’s PE program! In this session, you will learn how to create a fun-filled and purposeful PE program for students at home
The best way to increase fluency is to offer opportunities for your students to repeat their reading, math, or writing facts. This session explores how
This class will explore the research on number talks and introduce ways to help students improve their mathematical mindset. We will look at how you
We are learning together in our new venture of virtual learning! Learning in a virtual environment is a privilege, and no one deserves this to
Providing information to students regarding their performance and progress is essential. As teachers, it is an important part of identifying students’ next steps and guiding
This course addresses the “new norm” of grading as a result of both formative and informative student assessment(s). As grading should be reflective of student
Transparency cannot exist without trust. Now, more than ever, we need to be as transparent as possible with families through consistent communication. This training emphasizes
This class is a review of the high-yield instructional strategy of direct instruction (with gradual release). Teachers will be asked to consider how to implement
WOW! This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for! This session gives you that little bit of self care that most of us let go.
This training session takes a closer look at Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Social and Emotional Learning has become a buzzword lately, for good reason.
This training session will explore how online teaching has necessitated an agreement in Digital Citizenship. Digital citizenship is more than just avoiding harms online. It
In this training session, teachers will be asked to use the knowledge they gained in other sessions to consider how they can shift their mindsest
In this training session, teachers will be asked to use the knowledge they gained in other sessions to consider how they can shift their mindsest
In this training session, teachers will be asked to use the knowledge they gained in other sessions to consider how they can shift their mindsest
This training looks at the Flipped Classroom Instructional strategy from a remote learning perspective. We will explore how you can use the Flipped Classroom instructional
An introduction to purposefully selected online resources teachers can use virtually to support student learning. The trainer will guide teachers in exploring apps and websites
This training focuses extensively on video conferencing for individual, small group, and whole group instruction. We will explore multiple services for communicating with students in
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts and a workshop styleapproach to build educator knowledge on the principles of Universal Design for Learning
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts to build teacher capacityfor incorporating small group instruction into the Secondary classroom. Teachers are taughthow to
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
In this workshop, you will become familiar with and be able to describe, draw, and explain all 8 Thinking Organizers. You will also be able to explain the “thinking process” and “key words” for each Thinking Organizer, and be able to give multiple examples of how they can be used in your own classroom and across multiple content areas. You will also be given a suggested guideline for implementation and will learn how to introduce and use them in the classroom consistently and with purpose.
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts and a workshop styleapproach to build educator knowledge on the principles of Universal Design for Learning
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts to build teacher capacityfor incorporating small group instruction into the Secondary classroom. Teachers are taughthow to
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
Empower Consultants use a visual presentation along with handouts and a workshop styleapproach to build educator knowledge on the principles of
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
In this workshop, you will become familiar with and be able to describe, draw, and explain all 8 Thinking Organizers. You will also be able to explain the “thinking process” and “key words” for each Thinking Organizer, and be able to give multiple examples of how they can be used in your own classroom and across multiple content areas. You will also be given a suggested guideline for implementation and will learn how to introduce and use them in the classroom consistently and with purpose.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
If you’re just finishing your first or second year of teaching and feel that things could have gone more smoothly, then let’s refresh those classroom management strategies! In this workshop we will look specifically at procedures you can teach before, during, and after a lesson, as well as what rules you may want to implement. Harry Wong will be proud!
Teach the way students learn! So, how do students learn? This session will focus on learning styles and their definitions. We will scientifically identify your learning style and your students’ learning styles, and we will discover how to teach each type of learner. “If students can’t learn the way we teach, then we must teach the way students learn.” (Ignacio Estrada)
An old adage states: “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” The last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning. In this workshop, you will learn to shift your traditional education ideas and successfully implement inquiry-based instruction. You will learn to embrace the freedom and let go of control; embrace the process and let go of content (while still teaching standards); and embrace the struggle and let go of discomfort! This workshop will share strategies, routines, and classroom management protocols to make inquiry-based learning a reality in your classroom!
Teaching writing doesn’t have to lead to piles of difficult grading! In this workshop you will learn how assigning your students 2-3 “low stakes” writing tasks each day ultimately leads to better writing from your students on the “regular” writing assignments. You will walk away from this session with lots of ideas for short writing tasks– and do a little practice yourself along the way.
Wondering how to make your reading block more effective? This workshop reviews the big 5 areas of reading instruction, explains how much time to spend in each of the areas, and gives real ideas to take back to your classroom to make that reading block more powerful! We will also explore strategies for identifying and addressing the areas in which your students have gaps or are ready for a challenge.
In this workshop you will learn how to assess and provide instruction in small groups for reading. We will focus on giving you tools, assessments, and teaching strategies for a differentiated reading classroom. You will come away with planning tools, assessment ideas, and a better understanding of how to implement small groups that are effective for student achievement.
Planning is one of the most powerful tools for creating strong and effective classrooms; however, often teachers tend to over or under plan, or spend hours planning things that are not highly impactful. In this session we will model and walk you through how to “plan smarter, not harder and longer” using the resources currently in use on campus to create effective, purposefully planned lessons based on standards.
Do your students struggle with vocabulary? Do they forget important information? Do they flounder as they try to use academic language in class? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, come and learn the most powerful, simple-to-implement strategy of them all: anchor charts! In this workshop you will learn the purpose behind anchor charts, how to make one, and how to use them in your classroom. Your students will begin to better understand content, use academic vocabulary, and their comprehension will immediately increase!
In this workshop we will investigate the research showing the strong connection between a student’s vocabulary and their overall academic success, especially in the areas of text comprehension and writing. This is nothing new, but how do you really navigate and implement Graves’ four components of effective vocabulary instruction? What does Isabel Beck say about the TIERS of Vocabulary and how to teach them? This workshop will inspire you to do more with vocabulary in a whole new way!
Do you want to make an impact on student achievement? Then this workshop is for you! We will discuss how curriculum mapping encourages teachers to be curriculum designers via authentic examination, collaborative/collegial conversation, and student-centered decision making. You will learn about the 4 types of curriculum maps and how to implement them, as well as how to design your daily lesson plans to reflect best practices in the classroom and integrate your new maps. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we’re just giving you the tools to adjust the drive to fit the road upon which you travel!
It’s one thing to read a standard and get a general sense of what it’s about, but what does it really say? This workshop will provide you with a simple method to deconstruct (unwrap) the wording of any standard to help you understand its meaning inside and out. “Unwrapping” will help you thoroughly comprehend what each standard explicitly and implicitly indicates. Join us as we explore how you can make “unwrapping” the very first step in planning effective instruction and assessment. (Suitable for teachers in all grades.)
Do you ever wonder how to reach a student? In this fun and interactive session we will identify the reasons students resist investing in class, then pinpoint specific strategies to motivate students to learn. You will leave this workshop with the techniques to show students the value of learning on their own terms.
Did you know that research has demonstrated that high-quality assessment for learning has a significant impact on student learning and motivation, thus representing a positive strategy for closing achievement gaps? In this workshop, you will learn to differentiate between formative assessment, summative assessment, assessment for learning, and assessment of learning. You will also have the opportunity to critique your own assessment practices for quality and identify new classroom assessment practices to use.
This workshop will give you strategies you can use to help your students understand that intelligence can be developed, the brain is malleable, and the best way to make their brain stronger and smarter is through doing challenging work! You will learn how current brain research has scientists and researchers excited about shifting attitudes toward learning. Bringing this knowledge and awareness to your students will increase their motivation and, ultimately, their success!
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Building fluency in math has the reputation of being a bit boring. It’s time to scrap the flashcards & timed tests and have some fun with fluency! In this workshop, we will share with you our hands-on games designed to create strategic thinkers and build fluency in math! Use them for your daily warm- up or bell-work, or to spiral the skills you want your students to keep sharp. A daily dose of Math Fluency Games will hone your students’ math skills so they are test-ready!
This workshop will focus on tools to get students involved in rich discussions about mathematics. Critical for instruction, Strategy Talks for Math will deepen student understanding, create more flexible thinkers, and help students make connections among various mathematical strategies. You will learn the difference between Number Talks, Solution Talks, and Fluency Talks, and how you can implement them in your classroom!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
Wondering how to make your reading block more effective? This workshop reviews the big 5 areas of reading instruction, explains how much time to spend in each of the areas, and gives real ideas to take back to your classroom to make that reading block more powerful! We will also explore strategies for identifying and addressing the areas in which your students have gaps or are ready for a challenge.
In this workshop you will learn how to assess and provide instruction in small groups for reading. We will focus on giving you tools, assessments, and teaching strategies for a differentiated reading classroom. You will come away with planning tools, assessment ideas, and a better understanding of how to implement small groups that are effective for student achievement.
Do your students struggle with vocabulary? Do they forget important information? Do they flounder as they try to use academic language in class? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, come and learn the most powerful, simple-to-implement strategy of them all: anchor charts! In this workshop you will learn the purpose behind anchor charts, how to make one, and how to use them in your classroom. Your students will begin to better understand content, use academic vocabulary, and their comprehension will immediately increase!
In this workshop we will investigate the research showing the strong connection between a student’s vocabulary and their overall academic success, especially in the areas of text comprehension and writing. This is nothing new, but how do you really navigate and implement Graves’ four components of effective vocabulary instruction? What does Isabel Beck say about the TIERS of Vocabulary and how to teach them? This workshop will inspire you to do more with vocabulary in a whole new way!
As learners are held to higher standards, we must tweak our lesson delivery. In this session we will explore how to dig deep into an Anchor Text while considering the essential question. You will learn how to teach your students to become more sophisticated readers by embracing close reading while reading between the lines. You will leave with the knowledge to teach your students to read like detectives and write like investigative reporters– a skill essential to students’ success in middle and high school, especially when learning in cross-linguistic environments where one language informs another. Your students will take risks more often and use the English language. If they use the language, they will own it. The ultimate assessment is writing about it!
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
Teaching writing doesn’t have to lead to piles of difficult grading! In this workshop you will learn how assigning your students 2-3 “low stakes” writing tasks each day ultimately leads to better writing from your students on the “regular” writing assignments. You will walk away from this session with lots of ideas for short writing tasks– and do a little practice yourself along the way.
In this workshop we will investigate the research showing the strong connection between a student’s vocabulary and their overall academic success, especially in the areas of text comprehension and writing. This is nothing new, but how do you really navigate and implement Graves’ four components of effective vocabulary instruction? What does Isabel Beck say about the TIERS of Vocabulary and how to teach them? This workshop will inspire you to do more with vocabulary in a whole new way!
As learners are held to higher standards, we must tweak our lesson delivery. In this session we will explore how to dig deep into an Anchor Text while considering the essential question. You will learn how to teach your students to become more sophisticated readers by embracing close reading while reading between the lines. You will leave with the knowledge to teach your students to read like detectives and write like investigative reporters– a skill essential to students’ success in middle and high school, especially when learning in cross-linguistic environments where one language informs another. Your students will take risks more often and use the English language. If they use the language, they will own it. The ultimate assessment is writing about it!
Mentor Texts are a powerful way to show your students how to write well. Often we tell students our expectations and review rubrics, but forget the power of sharing an exemplary piece of writing! Come and see how the artful use of Mentor Texts can transform all types of writing in your classroom.
The ability to write a Constructed Response is a critical skill for the 21st-Century student. A Constructed Response question is often an assessment that requires a student to apply their knowledge, skills, and critical thinking abilities in order to develop an answer to a question. Come and learn how to teach your students to use a thinking organizer to simply and successfully construct a written response to an open-ended question! Teaching your students this writing method will help them develop their higher- level thinking skills and master a critical test-taking skill.
This workshop will provide you with the most efficient way to help students attack (annotate) text. Simple, quick, and powerful, these routines for Attacking the Text will be your classroom staple! Your students’ comprehension will immediately increase and the routines will be embedded in their minds, which will improve comprehension of text during test taking!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
It’s one thing to read a standard and get a general sense of what it’s about, but what does it really say? This workshop will provide you with a simple method to deconstruct (unwrap) the wording of any standard to help you understand its meaning inside and out. “Unwrapping” will help you thoroughly comprehend what each standard explicitly and implicitly indicates. Join us as we explore how you can make “unwrapping” the very first step in planning effective instruction and assessment. (Suitable for teachers in all grades.)
Do you ever wonder how to reach a student? In this fun and interactive session we will identify the reasons students resist investing in class, then pinpoint specific strategies to motivate students to learn. You will leave this workshop with the techniques to show students the value of learning on their own terms.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Are you thinking of starting Math Centers in your classroom? This workshop will assist you in starting (or refining) your Math Centers. We will share strategies for setting up centers with ease and keeping your students engaged and learning mathematics in a purposeful, thoughtful way. You will walk away with ideas for center activities and proven methods for running math centers effectively. Teaching math with differentiation has never been this simple!
Students love science– why not use it to your advantage? In this workshop you will learn how to use your students’ love of science to make writing accessible and enjoyable. We will show you how to make fun and meaningful connections to science standards that will have your students writing up a storm!
In this session we will take an in-depth look at Writer’s Workshop, a research-based approach that includes all the necessary components that a writing block needs. You will become familiar with the flow of Writer’s Workshop, receive guidance on management techniques to ensure success, look at the progression of writing standards, and work with materials that are easy to implement.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Writing Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the writing kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
In this workshop, we will explore interactive grammar activities and color-coded architecture that make learning grammar meaningful, engaging, and colorful! We will build a beautiful wall from the small elements of language. The fundamentals of grammar act as the foundation in building students who can write! When you implement this system of a color-coded Grammar Wall, your students are provided a concrete, colorful method for learning the functions of parts of speech and sentence structure. You will learn explicit routines for introducing and reinforcing the parts of speech, and strategies that promote students’ use of fundamental grammar in oral and written expression, in a way that is hands-on and FUN! Standards for Speaking and Listening (SL.1 and SL.6) Language (L.1 – L.6) and Writing (W.1 – W.6).
It often seems as though students look at a list of “theme words” on the Internet and figuratively throw a dart at one they like. There’s a better way! In this workshop you will learn how to teach your students a structured (and not too difficult) way to write a sentence that truly describes the theme of what they have just read.
High School | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways. You don’t have to be an English teacher to embed these easy-to-teach writing strategies within your daily routines and your specific content area. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Elementary | This workshop will provide you with simple, quick, and easy strategies to engage your students in writing thoughtfully about all academic content areas. These powerful, short writing strategies will enhance content learning in many ways and provide opportunities for students to practice the different genres of writing outside of the Literacy Block. If a student can thoughtfully write about a subject, they can master the material!
Do you like puzzles? Discover where to find online, easy-to-use strategies to beat the cube as you practice the step-by-step directions and algorithms. Learn how to teach fractions and ratios with the cube. Come have fun as you practice the cube yourself! Whether you solve it or not, you’ll be able to show your students how they can learn the cube. Great as an incentive for small group centers in your class. (Recommended for Grades 4 and higher, but can be modified for younger students.)
Come try your luck in our very own geography bee (just like the National Geographic Geography Bee for grades 4-8). We’ll set the classroom up and hold our own mock bee. Learn about resources from National Geographic online, and how to host a bee at your school. You will also explore premade online lessons to teach geography, math, reading, science, and more!
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Science Foundational Practices Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the science kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
Take your students to court and increase their understanding of how our court system and government work! In this workshop you will play the Bill of Rights online game “Do I Have a Right?”, the Sandra Day O’Connor game from iCivics. In addition, you will participate in a Mock Trial by teaming up, preparing for court, then trying your case before the jury. Will you win your case? Take home all the materials needed to have your own mock trial next year! (Recommended for Grades 3 and up due to reading needed, but could be modified for younger students.)
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in athletics! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for Growth Mindset can be applied to the field/court/track.
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful. Former professional and college players and coaches will transform your football program by working with you and your team designing workouts, drills and plays specifically for you!
This workshop will focus on improving your ability to build a team and teach the details of the game, while also giving information on how to develop not only players’ individual skill sets but the culture of a team as one. You will leave enlightened with offensive and defensive concepts that will enhance your coaching knowledge and help your team become successful.
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent. Professional hurdler and track star, EJ Martin, will guide you through all the ins and outs of creating an effective track program–meshing new ideas with your own!
Using practice time equitably by increasing activity and decreasing inactivity will make a difference when attempting to develop the technically distinguished athlete(s). Work to rest ratios must always be at least 2:1 if athletes are to be cognitively engaged and exposed to the types of repetition necessary. This workshop will explore practice tactics and how to better utilize your time as a coach in your attempts to develop talent.
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring the elements of basketball coaching to your elementary, middle, and high school coaching staff. Coaching clinics are designed to liven up any basketball program and step up your game to a whole new level!
Former NBA all-star Isaiah Rider and former IBA and ASU alum Donnell Knight work together to bring students the game of basketball and share their inspirational stories of overcoming life’s challenges to reach the height of college and professional sports. Through their systematic basketball camps, children learn the game and skills of basketball and get “life training” in the process. The camps focus on basketball skills for all levels, working together as a team, respect for all people, and learning the power of the mind over matter and circumstance.
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple, 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
In this workshop, we will reveal effective daily problem solving routines and structures that help students to think and communicate mathematically about real-world math problems! We will dig into the Problem Types in math, introduce daily routines for working through word problems, and give you structures for error analysis that are all student driven.
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
In this workshop we will explore effective routines and strategies your students can use to successfully break down nonfiction text. You will leave the workshop with functional, informational, and persuasive text, and the activities that will help your students be successful with expository text.
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
In this interactive workshop you will learn the ins and outs of successful Centers/Stations through your own hands-on experience with ready-made centers! You will leave with a handful of ideas, management tips, and strategies to implement or enhance the Centers/Stations you use in your classroom.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Let us help you create a perfectly-balanced literacy block for you and your students! This workshop will explore the elements of balanced literacy and the research behind it, as well as how to teach basic skills, cover content and standards, assess, group, and plan effectively.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Literacy Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the literacy kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
After you have selected the type(s) of small grouping(s) you will use, you will need to decide what the rest of the class is doing. This workshop will give you models, hands-on examples, and effective tips and tricks for implementing work stations or project-based learning in your classroom. This session teaches the basics and demonstrates explicit modeling of stations for all grades and all content areas.
Today’s student learns best when exposed to multiple modes of media. Helping them get all of the information they need from videos, images, passages, songs, and interactive experiences can be a daunting task. Get ready to explore how you can use tools such as interactive notebooks, graphic organizers, and reflective journals to help your students make the connections necessary to succeed!
This fun-filled workshop is sure to help you turn your classroom into a powerful place of thinking and learning! We will introduce 8 specific graphic organizers, explain when and why to use them, and model how to deconstruct texts (reading) and then construct texts (writing). With these tools, your students will become masterful at organizing their own thinking processes! We will also share practical applications for using graphic organizers in reading, writing, and when sharing in student discussions. This training is a true game changer when implemented in the classroom setting! (This training is focused toward ELA, Science, and Social Studies.)
When we say that students have trouble with comprehension, what do we mean? Teaching students how to effectively interact with text (in all subjects) must be modeled so that students can eventually do it on their own. In this workshop you will be shown practical ways to teach your students What Good Readers Do in any content area. You will learn how to model Think-Alouds, why they are so important, and discover meaningful ways your students can demonstrate their thinking. This session will include application for all content areas and grade levels.
There is a fundamental flaw in teaching methods of the past; the teacher does most of the teaching and learning in math. The teacher is modeling, talking, sharing, and communicating mathematically, and is therefore getting stronger as the year progresses. This course is designed to give you the tools and strategies for you to shift your math discourse to the students and empower them to serve up the math talk! Explore & experience the 5 Teacher Productive Talk Moves of mathematical instruction.
Manipulatives can be key in providing effective, active, engaging lessons in the teaching of mathematics. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies show that using manipulatives when teaching math can positively affect student learning. In this session, teachers will learn how to effectively use manipulatives to help all students connect ideas and integrate their knowledge, which leads to a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
Dig into the big ideas of addition and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach counting & addition: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing addition. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of addition!
Spend some time working out the big ideas of subtraction and learn how to teach it to your students effectively and efficiently. This workshop will share the scope and sequence of how to foster enduring understanding as you teach subtraction: by helping students develop the capacity to model with mathematics, teaching them how to use manipulatives, and pinpointing which tools and recordings students should use when learning and sharing subtraction. The session is full of meaningful practice and will deepen your knowledge of subtraction!
What is multiplicative reasoning, and how can students use it to Master Multiplication & Defeat Division? Come and learn the pedagogy and sequence of how to best teach Multiplication and Division. You will receive concrete, visual, and abstract models, and learn the best ways to teach and model these coordinating operations. Hands-on and lots of fun, take-away activities are of highest priority in this workshop!
This workshop is designed to make fractions fun and fearless for everyone– including you! You will engage in learning activities that strengthen your own conceptual knowledge as we cover these big ideas: models for fractions, equivalence and comparison of fractions, working with all 4 operations with fractions, and real-world applications of fraction problems. Through problem solving and examining student work, you will critique the reasoning of others. The course balances content and pedagogy, encompassing elements and strategies of effective instruction and application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
In this workshop we will introduce 5 great routines for building math communication in your classroom. These routines are a sure-fire way of turning the math talk over to your students. This workshop is full of math talk, math vocabulary, and math writing (journaling). Come prepared to talk math!
Integers, solving algebraic equations, geometry… what’s the point? Help your students understand the why behind the math! In this workshop we will take some of the major topics from our middle school math blocks and model the concrete to pictorial to abstract progression. You will leave knowing how to make math come to life!
Do your students struggle with word problems? If so, this workshop is for you! In this session, we will show you a simple 3-part strategy for “closely reading” a math word problem. Students will be so successful with this routine that they will begin comprehending and solving word problems like never before! The power is in the simplicity of the routine– students begin using it naturally each time they see a word problem, which leads to the outcome we all hope for: better math scores!
In this workshop, we will share a variety of easy-to-use guided math techniques, including how to create, organize, implement, and manage small, guided math groups designed to better meet your students’ needs – from those who excel in math to those who struggle with basic math skills. We will show you how to implement guided math using your current math curriculum, and how to create and manage timesaving, easy-to-implement math centers for the rest of the class while you work with guided math groups.
This is an engaging, hands-on workshop to help you navigate your Empower Math Kit. You will become familiarized with each component of the math kit, learn strategies on how to effectively implement it, and receive guidance in planning for your students with the available activities.
This workshop will help you make the most of Engage NY MATH. Engage NY is a rigorous curriculum that can feel cumbersome to plan and teach. We will break it down so that is feels manageable, effective, and fun for you and your students! We will look at each of Engage NY’s components and your specific schedule to effectively plan for student learning. Together, we will dig in and experience lessons so we can fully understand Engage NY’s intention for you and your students.
Join us as we explore and discuss specific practices and examples of Growth Mindset in math! This interactive workshop is an in-depth examination of how the practices and understandings for growth mindset can be applied to math.
This hands-on workshop explores backward mapping, a necessary and critical step in planning for effective student learning. You will look at the standards, deconstruct and sequence learning targets, build or analyze your assessment, and then plan your lessons. This type of planning ensures that each portion of the standard has been taught prior to the assessment and that you have considered every element prior to starting instruction.
This workshop will uncover the truth about text structures and text features. You’ll gain ideas for how to teach both text structures and features, and learn how they impact comprehension.
The Lexicon Luau will literally be a word party! Come explore vocabulary methods that are fun and effective, discover new practice routines, watch videos on vocabulary instruction in the classroom, and share ideas that you will really use in your classroom journey. This workshop will focus on practical application of vocabulary instruction within the CC Standards for Language.
Need to increase your students’ comprehension? Want to help your students love reading? Need new tips and tricks? Come discover powerful, easy-to-implement strategies that will increase your students’ comprehension and help them develop a love for reading!
This workshop will show you how to pick the correct text for each child by blending the Reading A to Z books with Empower Literacy Workstations. Learn how to make your centers more powerful, purposeful, and productive by differentiating, while planning effective instruction for a variety of learners.
The Common Core State Standards has experienced shifts in literacy, namely in the balance of literary and informational text in the upper grades. In this workshop we will look at what the standards say about the shift, how to address the shift while you are planning, and what strategies you could incorporate in your classroom to use more informational text.
We all want our students to dive in and be engaged in quality literature. In this workshop we will examine how the unique approach of having your students analyze literature by writing and responding to letters through journaling will lead to increased involvement with text. We will work through how to set up the journals, which question stems to use, what it will look like in classroom instruction, and provide examples to bring back to your classroom.
Teach the way students learn! So, how do students learn? This session will focus on learning styles and their definitions. We will scientifically identify your learning style and your students’ learning styles, and we will discover how to teach each type of learner. “If students can’t learn the way we teach, then we must teach the way students learn.” (Ignacio Estrada)
Wondering how to make your reading block more effective? This workshop reviews the big 5 areas of reading instruction, explains how much time to spend in each of the areas, and gives real ideas to take back to your classroom to make that reading block more powerful! We will also explore strategies for identifying and addressing the areas in which your students have gaps or are ready for a challenge.
In this workshop you will learn how to assess and provide instruction in small groups for reading. We will focus on giving you tools, assessments, and teaching strategies for a differentiated reading classroom. You will come away with planning tools, assessment ideas, and a better understanding of how to implement small groups that are effective for student achievement.
Do your students struggle with vocabulary? Do they forget important information? Do they flounder as they try to use academic language in class? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, come and learn the most powerful, simple-to-implement strategy of them all: anchor charts! In this workshop you will learn the purpose behind anchor charts, how to make one, and how to use them in your classroom. Your students will begin to better understand content, use academic vocabulary, and their comprehension will immediately increase!
In this workshop we will investigate the research showing the strong connection between a student’s vocabulary and their overall academic success, especially in the areas of text comprehension and writing. This is nothing new, but how do you really navigate and implement Graves’ four components of effective vocabulary instruction? What does Isabel Beck say about the TIERS of Vocabulary and how to teach them? This workshop will inspire you to do more with vocabulary in a whole new way!
Do you ever wonder how to reach a student? In this fun and interactive session we will identify the reasons students resist investing in class, then pinpoint specific strategies to motivate students to learn. You will leave this workshop with the techniques to show students the value of learning on their own terms.
This workshop introduces small group routines for all content areas and all grade levels. Getting started with small groups can be tricky, but this course will give you the knowledge you need to effectuate small grouping in your classroom in a way that fits your teaching style. Get a great start to small groups in this session!
This workshop will give you strategies you can use to help your students understand that intelligence can be developed, the brain is malleable, and the best way to make their brain stronger and smarter is through doing challenging work! You will learn how current brain research has scientists and researchers excited about shifting attitudes toward learning. Bringing this knowledge and awareness to your students will increase their motivation and, ultimately, their success!
This workshop will introduce you to the transformative power of the arts in instructional practice and school culture. Learn how to blend arts, science, reading, writing, and math to make classroom learning come to life! You will participate in an engaging project and leave with practical strategies to implement right away– hands-on, make and take at its finest!
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