Professional Development Topics

Below are various offerings for workshops and seminars that Kathy can provide. Most workshops can be customized to suit the time available for professional development and the audience. Furthermore, the descriptions provide a reference for discussion about what your school's professional development needs are and can be altered to better meet your goals.

1. Differentiated Instruction

Differentiation is not a novel notion to educators.  Even those who are not aware of the exact term differentiation realize that in a classroom of students, there are those who are more advanced learners and those that are far below grade level expectations. There are students who have a proclivity for the arts and others who have a tendency to favor the sciences. Some students are content sitting for most of the day at a desk, whereas others are clamoring for time to move about the room or school campus. Teachers who employ differentiation are aware of student differences and capitalize upon opportunities to challenge all learners taking into account learner interests, readiness, and learning styles. This workshop presents the definition of differentiation, suggestions for introducing differentiation to students, engaging instructional strategies, concrete differentiation strategies and specific examples that can be used directly or adapted to meet the needs of all levels of learners. Publication: Lesson Design for Differentiated Instruction, Grades 4-9 by Kathy Tuchman Glass with a foreword by H. Lynn Erickson (© 2009, Corwin Press)

2. The Six Traits of Writing: Instruction and Assessment

Vicki Spandel and a whole host of teachers, along with Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, created a model for writing called the Six Traits. This model refers to six qualities of good writing:  word choice, organization, idea development, sentence fluency, conventions, and voice. Research findings support that students show a considerable improvement in writing performance when the six-traits model is used appropriately in the classroom as an instruction and assessment tool. This workshop provides teachers with an overview of the model, plus engaging lessons, rubrics, other assessments, and strategies with an emphasis on how they are incorporated into an existing standards-based curriculum instead of a stand-alone program. This workshop can be tailored to those who are brand new to the model or those familiar with the six traits who need further support. Publication: Curriculum Design for Writing Instruction: Standards-Based Lesson Plans and Rubrics by Kathy Tuchman Glass with a foreword by Carol Tomlinson (© 2004, Corwin Press)   

3. Curriculum Design for Writing Instruction

Getting students to produce their best writing is sometimes challenging. In this workshop, Kathy presents a step-by-step backward curriculum design process for standards-based writing units incorporating lessons and assessments that improve students' writing performance. The design process emphasizes the need for teachers to define success for students prior to writing and measure achievement through appropriate and well-articulated genre-based assessments.  Presentation includes explanation and modeling of step-by-step curriculum design process, genre-based writing rubrics, other assessments, and standards-based writing lessons that can be used immediately in classrooms.  Publication: Curriculum Design for Writing Instruction: Standards-Based Lesson Plans and Rubrics by Kathy Tuchman Glass with a foreword by Carol Tomlinson (© 2004, Corwin Press)

4. Curriculum Design/Essential Understandings/Guiding Questions

Kathy works with teachers to design curriculum. She introduces a backward design model and collaborates with teachers to apply what they have learned to revise or create a comprehensive unit of study. This workshop focuses attention on the explanation, use, and creation of essential understandings plus unit and lesson guiding questions to frame standards-based units of instruction. The premise for using essential understandings and questions is to guide students to comprehend the essence of the content, know the concepts that drive each lesson, and maximize their learning potential by gleaning the heart of the curriculum. It is through a concept-driven unit that students come to appreciate and learn facts and skills as they are not taught in isolation, but rather through a deeper lens.

5. Curriculum Mapping (curriculum year overview)

Teachers work with Kathy in grade level teams or representatives to create a curriculum overview that defines a comprehensive instructional path for the school year. Many teachers have a draft of a yearly plan or the standards plotted, but this project is much more involved. Kathy leads teachers step-by-step through the journey of developing a curriculum year overview or curriculum map. Using this process to delineate all they need to teach in a given school year, teachers establish meaningful connections between content areas, account for district or state content standards, and personalize their overview with specific information that includes: school adopted texts and related materials; subject-specific resources and materials; interdisciplinary connections; guiding questions; skills, activities, and assessments. During the process of creating the map, teachers collaborate in a meaningful way to coordinate instruction both horizontally and vertically. Publication: Curriculum Mapping: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Curriculum Year Overviews (© 2006, Corwin Press)

6. Instructional Strategies

What a teacher teachers is just as important as how a teacher teaches it. Many teachers are incredibly knowledgeable about a subject area but are lacking in their ability to deliver the information effectively. In this workshop, Kathy presents a myriad of instructional strategies that assist teachers to deliver compelling and enticing curriculum. Teachers can implement the ideas presented to check for understanding, review information studied, preview upcoming unit topics and concepts, and interact and apply new information. This workshop addresses a combination of learning styles to engage students in the learning process.

7. New and Returning Teacher Support

Studies show that a significant percentage of the newly hired best and brightest teachers leave within the first five years of teaching if these teachers are not given adequate support. In this workshop, Kathy provides 1st and 2nd year and returning teachers with the strategies, tools, and support they need to be successful. These topics are addressed in the workshop:

• differentiated instruction
• classroom management
• lesson planning
• instructional strategies
• active participation strategies
• questioning strategies

Copyright ©2006, Kathy Glass Educational
Consulting. All Rights Reserved.