Workshop Descriptions

Here are title and descriptions for the workshops for your convenience.

Monday, July 311:15 – 3:00 p.m.Teach Like a Pirate Yo Ho Ho!! (Keynote Review)

Now that you've seen the pirate, Dave Burgess, in action, come and bring a spring upon your cable! Let's dive into Dave's Teach Like a Pirate methods, see some in action, and bring out the pirate in our teaching.

Monday, July 311:15 – 3:00 p.m.Visual Literacy: Learning To Look Closely Using The Cultural Arts

As our culture moves from an oral tradition to a visual one, strong visual literacy skills will be increasingly essential to interpreting the information around us. This professional learning session will provide you with critical looking skills, as well as tools and techniques for enhancing the visual literacy of others. Teachers will learn how to build visual literacy and learn ways to incorporate the cultural arts in all content areas. We will examine how works of art “provide evidence” to strengthen literacy, observational and interpretive skills and engage students in interdisciplinary thinking about the world around them.

Monday, July 311:15 – 3:00 p.m.Turn On, Tune In: Focusing Learners

Experience a hands-on session focusing on how to provide seamless supports for students struggling with executive functioning. Develop an understanding and empathy for students who have difficulty prioritizing tasks, organizing materials and turning in assignments. Learn some practical systems and routines as well as strategies to address this performance disability. Brainstorm possible approaches to the “passive failer”, the student who seems to have lost interest in school all together.

Monday, July 311:15 – 3:00 p.m.Reading and Writing with Primary Sources

This workshop focuses on reading and writing strategies for working with primary sources by integrating Universal Design for Learning. Participants will experience the activities first-hand. We will also explore several interactive primary source tools that anyone can use in their classroom. Strategies for students who need differentiation. This is a great session for secondary teachers and uses techniques that any teacher using text can use.

Monday, July 311:15 – 3:00 p.m.The Nuts and Bolts of Universal Design for Learning

You will leave this workshop with a basic understanding of the principles of Universal Design for Learning and how to incorporate UDL in your daily Literacy Block. You will have an opportunity to write a lesson plan that you may use immediately and we will share ideas on how we use UDL in our classroom every day. Come see what UDL is all about and how to make it work for you!

Tuesday, August 11:15 – 3:00 p.m.Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Culturally responsive teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Join us for an interactive session on ways to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy into your Common Core lessons. Included will be activities on the building blocks of a culturally relevant pedagogy: Vision Framework, Curriculum Approaches and Instructional Practices.

Tuesday, August 11:15 – 3:00 p.m.Mindful Leadership: A Mindfulness-based Professional Development Workshop for All Educators

This workshop introduces the research and practices of the mindfulness-based approach to use in the classroom. Mindfulness helps teachers and students manage their emotional and mental stress, create well-being and refresh their energy. Its aim is to transform individuals and the classroom climate, while building and nurturing positive interpersonal relationships.

Tuesday, August 11:15 – 3:00 p.m.Growth Mindset & Achievement: Empower yourself and your students

Explore how Growth Mindset affects instruction and learning. It can be a powerful tool for access and equity in all subject areas. You will gain practical ideas to take back to your school and classrooms in helping student develop a growth mindset.

Tuesday, August 11:15 – 3:00 p.m.Mindfulness: Does it live up to all the hype?Mindfulness is one of the latest trends in education and beyond, but can it really live up to all of the hype? This session will be led by a classroom teacher with over 25 years of experience teaching in high-poverty schools and sifting through the latest trends in education. Attendees will participate in a variety of mindfulness practices and discuss and explore the potential pitfalls and benefits of implementing mindfulness. It is intended for a diverse audience: from the most skeptical critic of mindfulness, to the most experienced and mindful practitioner, and everyone in between.

Tuesday, August 11:15 – 3:00 p.m.Nurturing Student Voice to Develop SEL Competencies

Have you ever considered what tools help you implement SEL? Student Voice provides a means of accessing and cultivating the relationships that create what SEL seeks to construct; making learning challenging, engaging, and meaningful. Through Student Voice we learn about the many challenges students face and the ideas they have to improve those issues, which helps students develop their five SEL competencies. This session will offer educators an introduction to Student Voice as well as strategies to integrate Student Voice in your school. You will walk away with knowledge on how to effectively elicit Student Voice and provide meaningful opportunities for students to contribute to their learning and develop students’ five SEL competencies.

Wednesday, August 22:15 – 4:00 p.m.Building Relationships, Not Walls

1 out of 3 students in California cannot identify a single caring adult. However, students have identified relationships are crucial for their success in college, career and community life. In this workshop, we're going to take a look at statewide data on Californians for Justice Relationship Centered Schools campaign, and the solutions students have identified that will integrate social emotional learning into school life. (old How socially just is your classroom? As educators and members of the school community we are constantly making decisions that affect ourselves, our students, our schools and more broadly, our communities and society at large. A social justice lens is a transformative quality improvement tool that sets out a process for analysis and decision making in our classrooms and schools. Using a social justice lens can ensure equitable learning environments for all students. In this session participants will learn how to develop and apply a social justice lens to use when working with students and parents.)

Wednesday, August 22:15 – 4:00 p.m.Trauma-Informed Practices, Social Emotional Learning, and Restorative Justice

This session will explore trauma-informed practices and social emotional learning as critical components of Restorative Justice and how to incorporate them into the classroom and school environment. During the first part of the session, participants will learn how trauma impacts students’ development and how to use trauma-sensitive techniques to support students' emotional and behavioral regulation and promote learning. Then, participants will engage in a demonstration of a restorative circle activity that can be used in classrooms to promote Social Emotional Learning.

Wednesday, August 22:15 – 4:00 p.m.Countering Trauma in the Classroom

Help students find educational success with tools that counter trauma. Spoiler Alert: #8 is teacher self-care! Share and take away practical applications in this interactive workshop.

Wednesday, August 22:15 – 4:00 p.m.Improving African American Student Achievement Through Systematic Collaboration and Leadership

The Riverside County African American Achievement Initiative (RCAAAI) was established to impact policies, procedures and practices that affect African American student achievement and their preparedness for college and career. This work is done by a collaborative network of representatives from school districts, higher education institutions, faith-based communities, community organizations, parents and students. Workshop attendees will learn a systematic approach to establish effective collaborative networks, gather data from student focus group interviews as well as state and local achievement measures.

Attendees will also get an update on the work that supports the creation of equitable learning environment in Riverside County schools.

Titles and descriptions are subject to change.