PATHWAY 1

JANUARY 30

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING: BUILDING MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS

How can teachers build a learning community, instead of just managing a classroom? By building relationships, students will feel more comfortable seeking support, collaborating, and taking ownership of learning. In this session, participants will:

• Define the social-emotional learning (SEL) core competencies
• Explore strategies like the "5-Whys" protocol
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to integrate SEL into their class culture

CLASSROOM CULTURE: BUILDING A CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE COMMUNITY

Culture is the set of values, goals, and practices that help a community thrive. In a culturally-responsive classroom, all students feel respected for the experiences, passions, and skills they bring. In this session, participants will:

• Define The Clover Model and the 7 principles of culturally responsive teaching
• Explore strategies that foster a sense of belong, student agency, reflection, and physical comfort
• Build and get peer feedback on a plan to design a culturally responsive classroom community

FEBRUARY 27

SEL: SELF-MANAGEMENT AND CRITICAL GROWTH MINDSET

Social-Emotional Learning skills include developing an awareness of students’ own emotions and mindsets. Once students have an awareness of these aspects of their ‘self’, leveraging them to regulate and manage their emotions and behaviors can empower students to have their voices heard in positive ways. At BetterLesson, we firmly believe that in order to set students up for success in their futures, teachers must ensure that students learn and practice these social-emotional skills and habits of success while they are in school, and internalize and apply them to themselves and their relationships with others. In this session, you will experience active pedagogy and collaborative learning processes to support you to understand key ideas in self-management and growth mindset.

STOP THE SLIDE: USING DATA TO ADDRESS ACADEMIC GAPS

Students will need support addressing learning gaps more than ever as they grapple with the "COVID slide". There are no shortcuts—just fundamental teaching principles, in a new context. In this session, participants will:

• Define the 5 tips for stopping the slide, including universal design for learning, mastery-based models, and more
• Explore strategies and tools
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to address gaps

APRIL 17

DIVERSE STUDENT POPULATIONS: SUPPORTING ENGLISH LEARNERS AND STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Scaffolds, equity, access, and relationships—this is how teachers meet diverse student needs. Though distance or flexible learning poses new challenges, teachers can use universal design principles to support every student. In this session, participants will:

• Define the challenges and potential of distance learning for different students
• Explore real-world scenarios and the tools and strategies to address them
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan for supporting all students

ENGLISH LEARNERS: BUILDING LANGUAGE SKILLS THROUGH PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

Diversity and inclusion benefit all learners. The tools we use to support English Learners or those who are struggling can build language skills, teach problem-solving, and increase engagement for all students. In this session, participants will:

• Define Problem-Based Learning, specifically to develop language skills (PBELL)
• Explore strategies that build student agency, communication, and background knowledge in English Learners as well as other student groups
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to support all students

PATHWAY 2

JANUARY 30

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP: CREATING SAFE AND THRIVING DIGITAL LEARNING SPACES FOR STUDENTS

In an atmosphere where digital learning is increasingly becoming the norm, it is important to support our students with the skills they need to be successful in flexible learning communities. Digital citizenship skills support students, teachers, and leaders in navigating the myriad of challenges and opportunities in a digital space, while learning how to thrive in these environments. In this Virtual Workshop, participants will

• Define key digital citizenship skills, such as developing positive online communication, information literacy, and media balance
• Explore strategies for supporting a implementation of digital citizenship using teacher scenarios
• Build an actionable next step by planning and reflecting on implementing skills development

MAKE TECH MORE MEANINGFUL: THE SAMR DIGITAL INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK

When choosing technology, we might consider 4 ways it could change the learning task: substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition. This model ensures we have the right tool for the task. In this session, participants will:

• Define SAMR
• Explore a variety of tech tools to understand how they make learning more efficient or meaningful
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to evaluate their tech integration

FEBRUARY 27

CLASSROOM CULTURE: BUILDING A CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE COMMUNITY

Culture is the set of values, goals, and practices that help a community thrive. In a culturally-responsive classroom, all students feel respected for the experiences, passions, and skills they bring. In this session, participants will:

• Define The Clover Model and the 7 principles of culturally responsive teaching
• Explore strategies that foster a sense of belong, student agency, reflection, and physical comfort
• Build and get peer feedback on a plan to design a culturally responsive classroom community

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING: BUILDING MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS

How can teachers build a learning community, instead of just managing a classroom? By building relationships, students will feel more comfortable seeking support, collaborating, and taking ownership of learning. In this session, participants will:

• Define the social-emotional learning (SEL) core competencies
• Explore strategies like the "5-Whys" protocol
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to integrate SEL into their class culture

APRIL 17

MEANINGFUL TASKS: DESIGNING ENGAGING LEARNING EXPERIENCES

 Learning tasks have many goals: introducing new material, group work, discussion, assessment, and more. One of the most challenging parts of flexible learning is to engage students while in different learning environments, especially when working asynchronously. In this Virtual Workshop, participants will:

• Define the pillars of a meaningful learning task (purpose, strategy, modality) in flexible learning environments 
• Explore scenarios from real classrooms that introduce various strategies and tools to support engagement in flexible learning environments
• Build an engaging learning task and evaluate a task for successful implementation

STOP THE SLIDE: USING DATA TO ADDRESS ACADEMIC GAPS

Students will need support addressing learning gaps more than ever as they grapple with the "COVID slide". There are no shortcuts—just fundamental teaching principles, in a new context. In this session, participants will:

• Define the 5 tips for stopping the slide, including universal design for learning, mastery-based models, and more
• Explore strategies and tools
• Build and get peer feedback on their plan to address gaps

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