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Professional Development
Public Schedule
Go-To Quick-Response Activities for Improving Content Knowledge, Retention and Performance Across the Curriculum
Learn how to incorporate quick, low risk, high reward writing and thinking tasks into daily instruction during this in-person workshop. Walk away with a bank of prompts and activities that can be used to increase student engagement and participation in class activities, encourage students to reflect on growth and feedback, and build student accountability for the learning process.
Date
November 11, 2024
Location
MUJC, PD Center, 340 Central Ave, New Providence, NJ
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
4-12
Activities That Promote Close Reading and Thoughtful Text-Based Response
Attend this workshop to learn how to incorporate quick, low-risk, high-reward thinking and writing tasks into your daily instruction. Based on the most current cognitive research on student understanding and retention of content, these content-rich “quick writes” and ready-to-use exercises require little to no advanced planning, can be used in any subject area at any grade level, and, best of all, won’t have you lugging any papers home to grade at night! Walk away with a bank of prompts and activities that can be used to increase student engagement and participation in class activities, strengthen content knowledge, and build student accountability for the learning process.
Date
November 14, 2024
Location
RPDA – at The Royal Banquet Hall, 613 Hope Rd, Eatontown, NJ 07724
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
4-12
Improving Cross-Curricular Engagement, Understanding and Constructed Response with Sentence Expansion
The sentence expansion framework introduced in this online workshop provides opportunities for students to develop the habit of building information-rich sentences while learning course content. Using this framework, a basic sentence is expanded by including details from the content that students are studying. The tools and strategies provided in this workshop guide students as they learn to develop content-rich, mechanically-correct sentences within the context of everyday learning. Sentence expansion is a highly effective strategy for improving and reinforcing content knowledge, can be assessed quickly by the educator and can easily be used in little time across all content areas.
Date
November 15, 2024
Location
Online
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
3-12
Feedback that Works – Streaming Teacher Feedback and Getting Students to Apply it!
How much time do you spend annotating student work with thoughtful feedback, only to find those papers quickly tossed in the trash upon return? What does a rubric score really mean to the typical student? During this in-person workshop, participants will learn to prioritize writing skills and use clear criteria to set and model expectations before writing and use these same criteria after writing to provide streamlined, usable feedback to students. This skill-based system raises student accountability while decreasing teacher workloads, which is a win, win!
Date
November 21, 2024
Location
MUJC, PD Center, 340 Central Ave, New Providence, NJ
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
4-12
The Core Four – Essential Assignments that Improve Writing Skills and Content Knowledge
During this in-person workshop, participants will learn how to plan, teach and assess four key assignments that significantly impact student achievement. How to teach the four essential writing assignments: vocabulary cards, the 10% summary, the compare and contrast essay, and the argument essay, will be discussed.
Date
December 18, 2024
Location
MUJC, PD Center, 340 Central Ave, New Providence, NJ
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
4-12
Four Activities that Apply the Science of Learning to Help Students Learn and Remember Content
The Retrieval Routine turns the most recent cognitive research on student understanding and retention of content into a series of four short, classroom-friendly activities for teachers in all subject areas. These five to ten minute activities help solve the problem of our students forgetting critical information and develop greater learning accountability. Improving knowledge retention and content understanding will be discussed during this online workshop.
Date
January 7, 2025
Location
Online
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
6-12
Picture This! Overcoming Student Writing Resistance in the Content Areas by Using Graphics
Graphics have great versatility when it comes to building content-area skills, and quizzing is proven to deepen understanding and increase retention. This online workshop guides educators in using curriculum-based graphics (charts, diagrams, maps, primary source images, etc.) to build content vocabulary, help students fine tune observation and analysis skills, and even anticipate test questions. Combined with a manageable system for grading writing in the non-ELA classroom, teachers will see greatly improved subject-area performance with just a few minutes of practice each week.
Date
January 7, 2025
Location
Online
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
5-10
Writing Roadmap
Writing Roadmap: Improving Writing Skills and Habits Through Meaningful Preassessment , Purposeful Focus Correction Areas, and Strategic Instruction
Three one-hour, pre-recorded video modules.
Date
Pre-Recorded, Anytime, Asynchronous Access
Location
Online
Offered in Collaboration with Central Intermediate Unit 10 in PA
Instructor:
Kristine Gibson
Grade:
K-12
Introduction to the Collins Writing Program
Six one-hour, pre-recorded video modules:
1. Overview of the Five Types of Writing, With a Focus on Type One
2. Improve Student Retention and Understanding of Content With Type Two Writing
3. Types Three, Four, and Five Writing: Focus on Selecting Critical Writing Skills
4. Teaching Critical Writing Skills to Mastery and Making Peer Editing Work
5. Help Students to Retain and Use Critical Content Vocabulary
6. Integrating the Five Types of Writing
Date
Pre-Recorded, Anytime, Asynchronous Access
Location
Online
Offered in Collaboration with Central Intermediate Unit 10 in PA
Instructor:
John Collins
Grade:
3-12
Online Graduate Courses
Writing Without Borders: Using Writing and Thinking Across the Curriculum as a Tool for Improved Student Performance in Every Content Area
Online/independent format (Four 90 Minute Online Zoom Sessions and Virtual One-on-One Sessions including final portfolio conferences).
June 12 – November 6, 2024
Date
Location
Google Classroom and Zoom
Instructor:
Cheryl York McDonough, JD
Grade:
4-12
Meeting Real World Literacy Demands in CTE Schools
Online/independent format (Four 90 Minute Online Zoom Sessions and Virtual One-on-One Sessions including final portfolio conferences.)
June 5 – October 30, 2024
Date
Location
Google Classroom and Zoom
Instructor:
Cheryl York McDonough, JD
Grade:
CTE Teachers
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