2007-2008 National Professional Development Catalog
Downloadable Professional Development Catalog (PDF)
Here is our online catalogue for 5 day national institutes, 3 day national and regional institutes, a summit, and the OB educator course. We are pleased to announce 52 offerings for 2007-2008. Before you register, please keep the following important information in mind:
General logistics for our PD offerings:
Please note that within 10 days after you register you will receive a confirmation email letting you know whether you have been accepted into the course or have been placed on the wait list. About 6 weeks before the offering occurs, you will receive a logistics letter with air and ground travel information, the hotel name and location, and other helpful details, as well as travel and special needs forms that you will need to fill in and email or fax back to ELS.
- All national 5-day institutes begin at 8:30 a.m. on the first day, and end at 1 p.m. on the 5th day. If you are not local, you will need to arrive the night before. Ending at 1 p.m. will allow you to arrange transportation to arrive home the evening of the last day no matter where the institute is held. ELS will take care of your room arrangement starting the night before the event starts. ELS will also arrange for all meals, beginning with breakfast on the first day, except for one evening "out on the town" when you will be responsible for your own meal. Local participants will receive lunch. A separate logistics letter for local participants will be sent out two weeks before the institute begins to alert you of any other meals/times you will be required to attend.
- All national 3-day institutes begin at 8:30 a.m. on the first day, and end at 3 p.m. on the 3rd day. If you are not local, you will need to arrive the night before. ELS will take care of your room arrangement starting the night before the event starts. ELS will also arrange for all meals, beginning with breakfast on the first day of the institute. Local participants will receive lunch. A separate logistics letter for local participants will be sent out two weeks before the institute begins to alert you of any other meals/times you will be required to attend.
- After you sign up and are accepted into a Summit, you will receive a logistics letter that will explain start and end times, travel information, etc. Most meals and lodging are arranged and paid for by ELS.
- After you sign up and are accepted into the Lewis and Clark OB educator course, you will be sent a logistics letter that will explain start and end times, travel information, etc. Most meals are arranged and paid for by ELS. Before and after trip lodging is not provided by ELS.
- Regional 3-day institutes: Specific information about the regional institutes in your region will be sent to you after you register on the ELS website. Room and board is paid for by the school, but ELS will make all arrangements.
Considerations before registering:
If you cannot attend the entire duration of the professional development offering, please take it at another time. The success and spirit of our institutes and summits depends on full participation. Late arrivals or early departures impede the building and sustaining of a productive institute culture, as well as growth in your own learning. You and your principal or school director should read the MOU carefully regarding cancellation policies and policies for late arrivals and/or early departures.
A word about our professional development:
ELS professional development is unique in that it asks teachers and administrators to be learners and to fully experience what it means to read, write, assess, and do math, science, and art the "EL way." This means that in each of our offerings, facilitators model active pedagogy and participants engage in the social construction of meaning by collaborating in small and large groups. It also means that in every institute, participants experience a slice of a learning expedition that explores significant content in science or humanities and provides the context - and motivation - for learning specific learning process skills (e.g., reading or writing) or disciplinary skills (e.g., using primary sources or analyzing data). These topics, while sometimes useful for expeditions at various grade levels, are not meant to be "take home" units; instead, they are conceived of as good models that will engage adult learners and model curriculum design, instructional practices, and learning process skills applicable to all grade levels. Typically, participants stay in "learner" hat for the bulk of the institute; the rest of the institute is spent in "teacher" hat, debriefing and applying lessons learned to oneÕs own classroom or school practice.
ELS PD is also unique in that our institutes bring together participants who teach (or administer) kindergarten through 12th grade; come from urban, suburban, and rural schools; teach a wide range of content areas; and have been members of the Expeditionary Learning Schools network for differing lengths of time. This diversity of background and experience allows our institutes, summits and OB courses to create truly heterogeneous classrooms and offers the opportunity to forge a network-wide professional learning community.
Please consider these general ELS professional development Learning Targets:
- I contribute to a productive and collaborative professional learning community.
- I can explain why each ELS institute features a slice of a learning expedition.
- I can distinguish when I need to be in "learner" hat vs. "teacher" or "administrator" hat.
- I apply what I have learned and experienced to my own classroom or school.
- I share my learning and help to make school-wide the active pedagogy and disciplinary knowledge I experienced at the institute.
We look forward to seeing you at one of our many off-site PD opportunities.
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
OUTWARD BOUND EDUCATOR COURSES
Lewis and Clark
Participants will experience an abbreviated learning expedition that integrates the adventure and challenge of wilderness with rigorous academic content. They will canoe on the broad, swift Missouri River, pass limestone bluffs and navigate intricate sandbars while reliving a portion of Lewis and Clarkâs Corps of Discovery journey through the Continental Divide. This section of the Missouri remains the most unchanged since Lewis and Clarkâs time, and provides abundant wildlife and unspoiled terrain. The seven day course offers educators from Expeditionary Learning Schools and others the opportunity to learn wilderness skills, geography, geology, and history while vividly experiencing a time, a place, and a mission.
SUMMITS
Endangered Species: Using Art and Technology to Create a Science Field Guide CD
Participants in this interdisciplinary learning expedition will be exposed to the beauty and complexity of a fragile ecosystem and discover how they can affect the preservation of endangered species. Participants will create an interactive field guide to Maine's endangered birds as a means of exploring best practice and the role of multimedia technology in learning. They will learn about Maine's coastal ecology and wildlife through interviews with leading naturalists, fieldwork at estuaries and coastal breeding grounds, and research. Participants will document their learning though the creation of beautiful and accurate watercolor paintings, digital video and still image production, audio production, and writing. All of these media will be combined to produce a CD-ROM that connects the study of ecology to best practice in Expeditionary Learning. This particular guide is scientific, but the skills learned here can be applied with equal value to projects that are centered on historical, geographical, cultural, or literary material. Teachers of varied disciplines are welcome.
NATIONAL INSTITUTES
Arts and Humanities Institute
Participants will experience first-hand how the arts enliven and deepen teaching and learning by engaging in several learning experiences in the context of a compelling humanities topic. The facilitators will model how to infuse the arts into expeditions at every level: as a window onto historical content; through art forms used to represent thinking and teach artistic skills; and through arts-informed instructional practices. A featured learning experience will be a project leading to an artistic product through which participants will hone artistic skills, enlarge their artistic vocabulary, and learn significant content knowledge.
Assessment - Introduction
Offered regionally - Go to regional registration for the description and registration for this course.
Assessment: Creating Assessment Plans
Requirement: Attendance at the Introduction to Assessment Institute or equivalent on-site professional development.
This institute deepens participants' knowledge and understanding of the ELS assessment framework and provides modeling and instruction on creating learning experience plans that embed appropriate and balanced assessments of learning as well as assessment for learning strategies. Participants will experience and deconstruct the following: How to create clear learning targets for learning experiences in the outcome areas named on the Learning Experience template; how to connect learning experience targets to daily lesson plan targets; how to accurately match the assessment method to the learning target; and how to create accurate and high quality assessments of learning.
Assessment: Grading and Reporting
Requirement: Attendance at the Introduction to Assessment Institute or equivalent on-site professional development.
In this institute, participants will examine the role portfolios, grades and reporting systems play in communicating with outside audiences about student progress. Participants will learn how clear learning targets, connected to standards, can be used to tighten and align communication and reporting systems. Participants will also analyze different parts of the ELS portfolio system to determine purposes and audiences for each part of the system. Attendance at either a national or regional 3 or 5 day Assessment institute is required to attend.
Early Literacy Institute
In this institute, participants will have five days to experience powerful instructional practices to explicitly teach phonemic awareness, decoding skills, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension strategies, and writing to emergent readers and writers. Participants will learn relevant content and pedagogy concerning early literacy and experience a slice of a learning expedition in which best practices in early literacy instruction will be modeled. The institute will include several learning experiences, including readers' theatre, fieldwork, and book clubs. Through models and examples, participants will learn to integrate the teaching of early literacy into expeditions and develop reader's and writer's workshops for the primary grades.
Effective Practices for English Language Learners Institute
This institute features best practices and theory of English language development in the ELS context. Participants will experience a slice of a learning expedition that embeds ELL practices such as front-loading and techniques for teaching sentence structure and content-related vocabulary development. Modifications of reader's and writer's workshops, scaffolding for collaborative learning, and opportunities for oral language development will also be considered. The last part of the institute will be devoted to time to embed practices and techniques learned into learning experience plans for your own classroom. The institute will also address classroom structures, routines, and rituals to engage, support, and help all students become an integral part of the learning community.
Math K-8
This institute will address the following issues in mathematics teaching: How to create a need to know and use math; how to design compelling contexts for math; how to use active pedagogy in math; how to enable students to become meta-cognitive about their mathematical understandings and problem-solving strategies; and how to build a collaborative mathematics learning culture that supports the social construction of meaning. Participants will experience, first-hand, a compelling context for learning math and will explore how to sequence mathematics instruction to promote deep understanding of mathematical concepts. Through active participation in and debriefing of mathematical learning experiences, participants will learn how to design their own mathematical learning experiences.
Math 6-12
In this institute, teachers and principals will be mathematical learners, investigating topics in geometry and algebra while experiencing active pedagogy. Over the three days, participants will learn about the five characteristics of ELS math classrooms by experiencing how they enhance their own mathematics learning. They will also learn about and experience specific practices to foster those characteristics in their own math classrooms. Participants will make connections to their math classrooms and work with colleagues to make careful plans to incorporate one or more practices into their own teaching of mathematics.
Primary Institute
In this institute, participants will experience and analyze the structures, culture, and curriculum that forge great Expeditionary Learning primary classrooms. Participants will experience a slice of a primary expedition that includes a compelling topic, fieldwork, and creation of a high-quality product. This "slice" will also be used as the vehicle to explore important issues in creating engaging expeditions for primary students. These issues include: Topics that build excitement about learning as well as important background knowledge and schema for subsequent expeditions; scaffolding for participation structures (active pedagogy); integrating and motivating literacy; encouraging critical thinking skills; and, assessment. In addition, the structures necessary for creating exemplary primary classrooms will be examined: Daily and weekly schedules; classroom set-up; classroom management; and crew (or morning) meetings. Participants will also explore the roles of ritual, repetition, rhythm, and joy in the primary classroom. If you are interested in learning about how to teach reading and writing in the primary grades, please take our Early Literacy institute.
Reading 1 Institute
This reading institute introduces a research-based framework for teaching reading comprehension K through 12 and across the content areas. Participants will learn about the seven comprehension strategies, will become aware (metacognitive) of how they use these strategies in their own reading, and will experience the teaching of these strategies in the context of a compelling topic in order to learn how to teach reading through content and motivate both reading and content understanding. Facilitators will model the reader's workshop, which is a generative structure for explicitly teaching comprehension strategies. Participants will also experience literature circles and learn how to create their own mini-lessons for teaching comprehension strategies.
Reading 2 Institute
This advanced institute will deepen participants understanding of the comprehension strategy framework presented and experienced in Reading 1. This institute focuses on the explicit teaching of comprehension strategies not covered in Reading I (determining importance, synthesizing, and monitoring for comprehension) and continues the focus on reading in the context of learning expeditions. In addition, this institute concentrates on how to devise and implement a strategy study to ensure that students deeply understand and internalize each individual strategy as well as how to orchestrate the use of several strategies. This strategy study is modeled throughout the course of the institute. Non-fiction book clubs will be introduced, and the emphasis on Socratic Seminars and other structured discussion protocols will continue. Participants will gain experience with planning and implementing strategy studies, readers' workshops, Socratic Seminars, book clubs, and the use of the Learning Experience planning template.
Science Institute 3-12
In this institute, 3-12 teachers will be immersed in a compelling topic that provides the context for learning significant biology concepts and processes. The facilitators will model active pedagogy to demonstrate the following: how to build curiosity, create and sustain a "need to know", embed the teaching of literacy in science content, and engage students in representing their thinking.
Secondary Schools Institute
Participants will develop a beginning understanding of the Expeditionary Learning model in a middle or high school setting. To reach this goal, participants will experience and debrief the following: a slice of a science or humanities expedition; the crew (advisory) structure, and workshops on the ELS assessment framework. Through the slice, participants will be introduced to effective instructional practices, the design of learning expeditions, and reader's and writer's workshops.
Writing 1 Institute
This writing institute introduces a research-based framework for teaching students writing process and the 6+1 traits of writing across the content areas. Participants will experience, first-hand, how a compelling topic motivates writing to learn and learning to write. Through active participation in and debriefing of writer's workshops, participants will learn how to explicitly teach writing traits and revision techniques in the context of academic content. Participants will also learn about the components of the Expeditionary Learning Schools' model of the Writer's Workshop, and will have the opportunity to create and revise their own writer's workshop.
Writing 2: Humanities Focus
In this institute, participants deepen their knowledge of the framework for teaching writing introduced in Writing 1. Participants will learn additional techniques for teaching writing traits, as well as experience writers' workshops on traits not covered in Writing I. Participants will build background knowledge about a compelling humanities topic and respond to a writing invitation that will deepen their understanding of the content studied and allow them to hone their writing skills. During this writing project, participants will take their work through the entire writing process (from pre-write to finished product), and will experience successive drafting, revision, and editing workshops on that same piece of writing. Participants will also have the opportunity to create a writing project for their own investigation or expedition that will involve a similar scaffolding of writers' workshops. This institute will offer a variety of ways to craft mini-lessons on the writing traits; strategies for offering oral and written descriptive feedback; and techniques to sequence writing workshops so that students can create polished writing pieces.
Writing 2: Science Focus
In this institute, participants deepen their knowledge of the framework for teaching writing introduced in Writing 1. Participants will learn additional techniques for teaching writing traits, as well as experience writers' workshops on traits not covered in Writing I. Participants will build background knowledge about a compelling science topic and respond to a writing invitation that will deepen their understanding of the content studied and allow them to hone their writing skills. During this writing project, participants will take their work through the entire writing process (from pre-write to finished product), and will experience successive drafting, revision, and editing workshops on that same piece of writing. Participants will also have the opportunity to create a writing project for their own investigation or expedition that will involve a similar scaffolding of writer's workshops. This institute will offer a variety of writing to learn science strategies; ways to craft mini-lessons on the writing traits; strategies for offering oral and written descriptive feedback; and techniques to sequence writing workshops so that students can create polished writing pieces on science content.
Site Seminars
Pocatello Site Seminar
PCCS is a K-8 Expeditionary Learning School in its ninth year of implementation. A challenging and rewarding part of our implementation effort has been to build a strong professional community with a shared set of powerful instructional practices. To meet that challenge, we have identified a specific set of instructional practices (brought back from ELS professional development institutes) and committed to using those practices in every classroom K-8. Since teachers naturally modify practices based on the grade level that they teach, the next part of our challenge was to be intentional about the way these common practices were vertically integrated throughout the school. Our early work with IVI (Intentional Vertical Integration) suggests significant benefits for both teachers and students. The staff, students and parents at PCCS are eager to share this work with ELS teachers and administrators throughout the network. You will have an opportunity to observe these practices in classrooms as well as participate in collaborative thinking with the PCCS staff. We welcome the opportunity to think with you and discuss ways that Intentional Vertical Integration could work at your school with instructional practices chosen by your staff.
Genesee and School 58 Site Seminar
This site seminar will give participants a comprehensive vision of Expeditionary Learning in two schools with different styles of implementation. Come explore essential details of active pedagogy, and learn specific tools and protocols to nurture quality teacher and student work. The site seminar will emphasize four strands of EL work: Learning Expeditions; Assessment;
School & Classroom Culture; and Integration of the Arts.
For further information, please e-mail pd@elschools.org
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