Workshops

Implementing Effective Classroom Management Strategies

In today’s schools, beginning and veteran teachers often deal with behavior issues that disrupt learning and destroy the classroom climate. Setting the classroom climate involves reviewing behavior expectations at the beginning of the year and establishing classroom procedures, routines, and principles to guide student behavior. By teaching the social skills explicitly and modeling acceptable behavior, teachers set the tone and establish the criteria for responsible and respectable student behavior.

Agenda for One-Day Workshop

  • Current Research on Classroom Management
  • Needs Assessment of Audience Members
  • Routines, Procedures, and Behavior Expectations
  • Classroom Climate
  • Cooperative Learning Strategies

Agenda for Two-Day Workshop

One-Day Agenda plus the following...
  • Teaching and Assessing the Social Skills
  • Minor Behavior Problems
  • Difficult Behavior Problems
  • Student-Teacher Conferences
  • Action Plans for Implementation

In the one- and two-day workshops, teachers learn strategies to handle minor behavior problems before they escalate into more serious issues. They learn how to utilize both short-term and long-term solutions to solve problems that disrupt the learning process and sometimes alienate students. By using a repertoire of strategies such as social contracts, cause and effect models, problem-solving logs, conferences, and class meetings, teachers can meet the challenges created by disruptive students.

We offer both one- and two-day workshops on implementing effective classroom management strategies. The one-day workshop helps educators learn how to apply strategies to help change their classroom climate. The two-day workshop covers all the day one information, and also discusses specific behavior problems and action plans for establishing solutions to those problems.

Recommended Texts

  • Burke, K. (2008) What to do with the kid who...developing cooperation, self-discipline, and responsibility in the classroom (3rd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
  • Burke, K. (2009). Facilitator’s Guide for What to do with the kid who...developing cooperation, self-discipline, and responsibility in the classroom (3rd ed). Includes a CD of most templates in the book.
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Authentic Performance Assessments Aligned to Standards

Knowledge and facts are usually measured by using traditional assessments like quizzes and tests, but performances, projects, products, and portfolios need to be assessed using a variety of assessment tools. The Balanced Assessment Model shows how teachers can create multiple assessments that differentiate the needs of their learners, address the multiple intelligences, and correlate learning to state standards. Performance assessments focus on the application of knowledge as demonstrated in a performance related to real-life experiences.

Agenda for One-Day Workshop

  • Standards-Based Teaching
  • Performance Task Curriculum Units
  • Student Checklists Correlated to Standards

Agenda for Two-Day Workshop

One-Day Agenda plus the following...
  • Rubrics Developed from Student Checklists
  • Logs, Journals, Metacognitive Strategies
Other Options:
  • Graphic Organizers Used as Assessments
  • Teacher-Made Quizzes and Tests
  • Student Portfolios
  • Interviews and Conferences

For example, when teachers design a performance task that requires students to prepare an advertising campaign to introduce a new product, they are asking students to create tangible outcomes like brochures, posters, television commercials, radio ads, and PowerPoint presentations. Since these outcomes are creative and subjective, they require criteria-based tools to show students descriptors of quality before they create their products. In addition, these performances require a repertoire of tools to assess student understanding of curriculum goals and standards. Using checklists, rubrics, logs, journals, metacognitive strategies, graphic organizers, interviews, and conferences to assess student learning provides a balanced approach to assessment and evaluation.

We offer one- and two-day workshops on authentic performance assessments aligned to standards. The one-day workshop helps educators learn about performance task curriculum units and how to create student checklists for those units. The two-day workshop covers all the day one information, but also delves into additional types of performance assessments.

Recommended Texts

  • Burke, K. (2010). How to assess authentic learning (5th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Standards-Based Teaching

The emphasis on academic standards, standardized tests, and No Child Left Behind legislation has generated a need to focus on integrating the big ideas, essential questions, and specific vocabulary of state standards into classroom assessments. Classroom assessments sometimes come from the teacher or the textbook and do not specifically correlate to the state standards upon which most state standardized tests are based.

Agenda for One-Day Workshop

  • Overview of Standards-Based Teaching
  • Balanced Assessment
  • Teacher Checklists Using the Language of State Standards
  • Student Checklists Correlated to the State Standards
  • Introduction to Rubrics

Agenda for Two-Day Workshop

One-Day Agenda plus the following...
  • Analytical Rubrics Developed from Student Checklists
  • Common Assessment Rubrics Created by Teacher Teams for Power Standards
  • Action Plan for Implementation

Therefore, students may learn textbook words like “thesis statement” only to be asked to write a “focus statement” on their high-stakes tests. It is confusing to students when they learn how things “compare and contrast” but are asked about the “similarities and differences” on the state test. Teachers should use the vocabulary from the state standards when they create their checklists and rubrics. Checklists provide the scaffolding students need to complete a task, and rubrics provide the descriptors of quality telling students if they have met or exceeded the standards. Both assessment tools provide valuable feedback to students, teachers, and parents and are critical elements in a standards-based curriculum.

We offer both one- and two-day workshops on standards-based teaching. The one-day workshop provides educators with an overview of standards-based teaching and balanced assessment, and examines the use of checklists and rubrics. The two-day workshop covers all the day-one information, but also examines rubrics in more depth and discusses how to use an action plan to implement rubric use in the classroom.

Recommended Texts

  • Burke, K. (2006). From standards to rubrics in six steps: Tools for assessing student learning, K-8. Thousand Oaks, CA:. Corwin Press.
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Creating Student Portfolios to Monitor Student Achievement

Student portfolios provide an ongoing assessment tool to monitor student growth over time. They can be used to differentiate learning and assessment and provide evidence of improvement. Portfolios are portraits of the students as learners. They allow students to demonstrate what they have learned using a variety of multiple intelligences. They also help teachers show the progress both regular education and special education students make towards meeting or exceeding the standards.

Agenda for One-Day Workshop

  • Reviewing Types and Purposes of Portfolios
  • Designing a Multiple Intelligences Curriculum Unit
  • Developing Performance Task Curriculum Units
  • Collecting Items for Portfolios

Agenda for Two-Day Workshop

One-Day Agenda plus the following...
  • Selecting Items to Meet Standards
  • Reflecting Strategies for Metacognition
  • Utilizing Checklists for Self-Assessment
  • Developing Rubrics to Assess Portfolios
  • Conducting Portfolio Conferences
  • Organizing Portfolio Exhibitions

Teachers use unit portfolios to focus on one specific area like “Egypt” or “Fractions” and capture the key ideas of the topic. They also use standards portfolios to provide concrete evidence that their students have met the standards. Portfolios require a management system that helps students collect, select, reflect, and self-assess their work in order to achieve deep understanding of the content and themselves. Portfolios contain written work, artwork, individual and group work, goal-setting, reflections, disks and videos, rough drafts and final drafts, and other items that showcase progress, process, and product.

Recommended Texts

  • Burke, K., Fogarty, R., & Belgrad, S. (2008). The Portfolio Connection: Student work linked to standards, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Upcoming Events

Balanced Assessment 2-Day Workshop

Understand why educators need to balance formative and summative assessments correlated to the "language of the standards" (LOTS)

Sept 29th-30th, 2010Boston, MA
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Balanced Assessment 2-Day Workshop

Understand why educators need to balance formative and summative assessments correlated to the "language of the standards" (LOTS)

Oct 13th-14th, 2010Dallas, TX
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Assessment Institute

This institute brings together North America’s leading experts and practitioners on assessment to share the research and practical applications that are proven to dramatically increase student learning.

Oct 24th-26th, 2010Calgary, AB - Canada
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