Full Catalog of Upcoming Events

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the narrative genre.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the narrative genre.

This is a continuation of a review by Wendy Slade of the Science of Reading offered by GaDOE and Cox Campus.  This session dealt with differentiation.  Differentiated instruction is an approach whereby teachers adjust their curriculum and instruction to maximize the learning of ALL their learners.  It is not a single strategy but a framework so that teachers can implement a variety of strategies.  Differentiation can occur in a varying of the content, the process, the product, and/ or the environment.

This is a continuation of a review by Wendy Slade of the Science of Reading offered by GaDOE and Cox Campus.  This session dealt with developing a professional learning guide.  This guide was created to support those that desire to ensure effective equity and excellence in educator learning. You will gain a deeper understanding of the new standards for professional learning. These standards serve as indicators that support the learning, facilitation, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning.

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to take an in-depth look into how narrative writing is assessed on the Georgia Milestones English Language Arts assessment. This offering is the second narrative writing module in the Evaluating and Improving Student Writing series.

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to develop a clear understanding of student expectations for narrative writing as defined by the Georgia Standards of Excellence in grades 3-12. Participants will walk away with a comprehensive awareness of tools and strategies to support writers in the classroom. This offering is the first narrative writing module in the Evaluating and Improving Student Writing series.

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to explore the tenets of reading and evidence-based writing and how they are assessed on the Georgia Milestones English language arts (ELA) Assessment. An overview of the Georgia Milestones ELA constructed-response scoring philosophy is provided, along with a deep dive of the Item and Scoring Sampler, its accompanying Supplement, and the intended use of each resource. Teachers will walk away with a clear understanding of how to facilitate and evaluate reading and evidence-based writing throughout the school year, impacting student achievement in the classroom and beyond.

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to unpack the knowledge and skills assessed by the argumentative essay item on the Georgia Milestones English language arts (ELA) assessment in grades 6-8 and American Literature and Composition. Participants explore characteristics of the argumentative essay item, navigating the Georgia Milestones scoring rubric and writer’s checklist along the way. Authentic pieces of student writing and their associated scoring annotations will also be explored. This session is sure to enhance assessment literacy around the practice of argumentative writing!

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to unpack the knowledge and skills assessed by the opinion essay item on the Georgia Milestones English language arts (ELA) assessment in grades 3-5. Participants explore characteristics of the opinion essay item, navigating the Georgia Milestones scoring rubric and writer’s checklist along the way. Authentic pieces of student writing and their associated scoring annotations will also be examined. This session is sure to enhance assessment literacy around the practice of opinion writing!

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to unpack the knowledge and skills assessed by the informative/explanatory essay item on the Georgia Milestones English language arts (ELA) assessment in grades 3-8 and American Literature and Composition. Participants explore characteristics of the informative/explanatory essay item, navigating the Georgia Milestones scoring rubric and writer’s checklist along the way. Authentic pieces of student writing and their associated scoring annotations are also explored. This session is sure to enhance assessment literacy around the practice of informative/explanatory writing!

Join the GaDOE Assessment Development team to unpack the knowledge and skills assessed by the informative/explanatory essay item on the Georgia Milestones English language arts (ELA) assessment in grades 3-8 and American Literature and Composition. Participants explore characteristics of the informative/explanatory essay item, navigating the Georgia Milestones scoring rubric and writer’s checklist along the way. Authentic pieces of student writing and their associated scoring annotations are also explored. This session is sure to enhance assessment literacy around the practice of informative/explanatory writing!

Let’s Explore the Lexile and Quantile Hub: Tools for Educators, Students, and Families

Matt Copeland, Director of Educator Engagement at MetaMetrics, examines support resources available to fully understand Lexile and Quantile measures. Quick start guides, video tutorials, tools for teachers, and parent resources are shared.

General education teachers are often challenged in specific areas of need, with a specific group of students, or during certain times of the school year and need help to reach their goal of maximizing student learning.  This Teacher eLearning Bundle is a comprehensive library of 196 courses--with in-depth training on online teaching, technology, trauma, behavior, environment, instruction, engagement, English language learners, teaching students with exceptionalities, assessment--allowing teachers special help they need whenever they need it.

The bundle includes post tests at the end of each course which are automatically graded as well as transcripts that teachers can access to document their training.

This is NOT the required Substitute Teacher Training.  This additional training is for those substitutes who wish to improve their skills and knowledge.

Substitute Teacher Online Training is a flexible collection of 25 self-paced courses that can be completed in as little as 40 to 60 minutes each. The training focuses on the fundamental topics substitute teachers must be proficient in to be successful.

Topics include:

• Classroom management
• Discipline and instruction
• Confidentiality
• First aid/emergency
• Reading, writing, and math

Includes posttests at the end of each course that are automatically graded as well as transcripts and course certificates that teachers can access to document their training. 

 This is a recording of this meeting.

 A Public School Employee Retirement System representative will present a program on retirement for school employees under this retirement system.  Following the 45 minutes session, the floor will be opened for questions and answers.  Anyone interested may want to see this one minute video overview:  https://youtu.be/PJ2dA_cuq3g.

Have you thought about how you’ll be spending your days in retirement?
Invest 45 minutes in your future self and learn more about:
• Pension Plan:
Public School Employees Retirement System
• Identifying your needs and expenses in retirement
Will you be ready?

You will be given a copy of the text to accompany the class.  

Every evening on the news, there are multiple stories about violence and anger erupting. Workplace and school violence are increasingly a reality. Using a brain-based approach, this session looks at the underlying causes of anger, anxiety, and violence; how they develop; and the tools that can be used to change those responses. Emotions are processed 200 to 5,000 times faster than thought. To change behavior, the motivation for the behavior must be changed. This session will provide understandings on how that can be used with family, relationships, institutions, and oneself.

The workshop:

• Provides understandings of origins of anger, anxiety, and avoidance
• Gives a language to talk about brain regulation, integration, and emotional competence
• Provides tools for educators to address and reduce anger, anxiety, and avoidance
• Helps educators manage the “classroom dance” that occurs between the educator and the students
• Provides the tools to motivate good behavior
• Identifies the differences in male and female emotional processing

There is a $50 out of Heart of GA RESA area fee.

You will be given a copy of the book after you register for the class.

n this workshop, you will learn and practice many techniques/exercises that will help students/parents build emotional resources in school and at home.

Workshop Objectives

1. Provide educators tools to read the emotional body language of students.
2. Provide strategies for regulation of behavior from the prefrontal cortex.
3. Identify key issues in the brain development of adolescents.
4. Understand the hippocampus and its creation of stories that guide behavior and identity.
5. Learn strategies to reduce adult stress and compassion fatigue.
6. Use a brain-based approach to the emotional realities of parents and parenting.

Has teaching ever felt more stressful?

External pressures, environmental factors, previous experiences, fear, anger—all these and more create stress and tension in the classroom. Emotional distress interrupts and can harm—even destroy—effective teaching, learning, and emotional wellness in teachers and students.

But how do these emotions develop in you and your students? The fact is many of us suffer from some form of emotional poverty. Think of it as an absence of emotional resilience or resources. Written for educators, not psychologists, Emotional Poverty, Volume 2 helps you understand and overcome emotional poverty so you can build more effective classrooms and safer schools.

You’ll get:

• Practical strategies for creating a more emotionally healthy classroom
• Deeper understandings of adolescent brain development
• Cues to recognize emotional stress in yourself and students
• Techniques to develop a student’s prefrontal cortex and build emotional resilience
• Tools to overcome your stress, compassion fatigue, or secondary traumatic stress
• Solutions for dealing with angry, emotional parents and other adults

You will be given a copy of the book upon completing the form in your registration confirmation email.

This workshop is a comprehensive approach to understanding poverty. Bridges Out of Poverty uses the lens of economic class and provides concrete tools and strategies for a community to alleviate poverty.

Participants will review poverty research, examine a theory of change, and analyze poverty through the prism of the hidden rules of class, resources, family structure, and language.

Throughout the workshop, participants will receive specific strategies for improving outcomes, but the focus of the workshop is to provide a broad overview of concepts.

You will be given a free copy of the book upon completion of the form that will be in your registration confirmation email.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty: 10 Actions to Educate Students

This training fulfills the prerequisite for the A Framework for Understanding Poverty Trainer Certification.

This web-based training gives you in-depth information to help you understand class differences and 10 actions you can implement the next day in the classroom to achieve impact. This workshop is based on the book A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D.

After participating in this workshop, you will:

• Use concrete strategies that impact the achievement of students from poverty
• Better understand how economic class affects behaviors and mindsets
• Develop stronger relationships with their students to impact behavior and achievement
• Identify key instructional strategies that meet the needs of the under-resourced learner
• Understand the hidden rules of economic classes and how they apply to their classrooms
• Reduce their discipline referrals

10 Actions to Educate students include:

• Resources
• Relationships
• Hidden rules
• Mental models
• Family structure
• Updated case studies
• Family dynamics
• Your personal experience with class
• The role of language registers
• Discourse patterns and story structure
• The importance of relationships

What is ENGAGE Georgia?

Georgia’s Department of Education has partnered with Graduation Alliance to provide an extra layer of support for K-12 students and their families to boost school engagement and academic success during the school year. Students who choose to participate in the program will be assigned an Academic Success Coach who will answer questions, connect them with resources, and develop a plan to help the student stay on track and engaged with their schooling.

How does it work?

Coaches reach out to students by phone, email, text message, and more to provide support such as:

• Guidance on technical and teacher access

• Encouragement and motivation to help students stay on track with their studies

• Organization and study tips

• Educational resources and exercises to help strengthen reading and math skills

• Referrals to local nonprofit organizations that can provide social-emotional support

What does it cost?

ENGAGE Georgia is state-funded and completely free to students.

How do I sign up?

Go to ParentsGA.GraduationAlliance.com, call 404.618.1106, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to get started.

When you register for this CODE class, you will receive in the email confirmation more information on the program.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the argumentative genre.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the narrative genre.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the argumentative genre.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the narrative genre.

These materials use the writing standard for this grade and walk a teacher through the steps of looking at the writing standards, pre-assessment, the vocabulary necessary to understand the expectations, short writing exercises, longer writing exercises, and post-assessment.  A step-by-step process is followed with brief videos that may be used by the teacher or with a class. Rubrics are provided for assessing.  All materials center on the argumentative genre.