Full Catalog of Upcoming Events

This brief overview presents examples of Number Talks and the why of using them in math classrooms.  There is a brief video with an accompanying page of resource links.

This outstanding course demonstrates a variety of engaging six-trait mini-lessons in intermediate classrooms. The strategies in this program will help you deepen students' understanding of the components of good writing and extend their writing skills.

You'll see multiple ways to strengthen students' writing by focusing on the specific traits of ideas, organization, word choice, voice, sentence fluency and conventions.

You will learn how to:

• teach a variety of five to fifteen minutes mini-lessons on each writing trait
• use mini-lessons to teach the qualities of good writing and help students apply those qualities to their own writing
• use modeling, shared writing, guided writing and independent practice to extend students' writing
• increase students' ability to create an abundance of ideas
• engage students in focusing on six trait characteristics while drafting, revising, and editing their writing
• challenge students to think about their writing in new ways
• expand students' writing through multiple activities focused on specific traits
• demonstrate each writing trait in multiple ways

Watch an excerpt from this course:

This video-based online course features experienced English teacher Mary Ellen Ledbetter as she works with middle and high school students. She demonstrates a variety of practical and manageable strategies that help students extend and revise their writing, improve their grammar and writing mechanics, and increase the sophistication and style of their written work. All English/language arts educators – whether first-year teachers or veteran instructors – will find new, time-efficient strategies they can immediately implement in their own classrooms to improve their students’ writing.

All English/language arts teachers want to help their students meet and exceed writing standards.  The purpose of this course is to demonstrate strategies and techniques for actively helping students strengthen the quality of their writing without teachers becoming overwhelmed by towering stacks of to-be-read papers.

You will learn how to:

• Boost each student’s writing competency with high-impact, student-interactive rubrics
• Design innovative writing practice activities that engage and benefit all your students
• Help students improve their grammar and language mechanics – and see the results in their writing
• Establish peer editing routines that really work
• Decrease your paper load while actually assessing students’ writing more frequently
• Give students the literary tools they need in order to effectively edit and revise their own writing
• Increase your students’ writing confidence, skills, and achievement

Watch an excerpt from this course:

Strategies! Strategies! Strategies! Significantly Increase Students' Writing Skills, Grades 6-12

Online Course

Course Objective/Goals-

This online course is organized around video clips of a seminar by experienced English teacher and national presenter Mary Ellen Ledbetter. You'll see Mary Ellen present and demonstrate practical, time-efficient strategies for improving the writing of middle and high school students across a range of genres. You'll find a wealth of techniques guaranteed to engage even the most reluctant writers and increase the quality of their written work. Also included are sample lesson plans integrating all ELA skills complete with mini-lessons and notes to teachers suggesting ways to use the print resources in their own classrooms.

Do you sometimes feel like you're spending more time reading and grading your students' writing than they do before submitting their assignments? Do you spend hours planning creative ways to fit in all the skills now required? If so, this is the course for you! You'll learn how to strategically take your students to the next level of writing with daily, easy-to-use techniques that maximize instructional time and minimize a classroom teacher’s paper load. You'll find dozens of practical and doable strategies to strengthen your writing instruction and achieve powerful results.

You will learn how to:

• Enhance students' writing across a range of genres using exemplary student models and guided analysis
• Incorporate literature assignments that help students use writing to make connections with the text
• Improve students' grammar and language mechanics – and see the results in their writing
• Inspire and challenge students to write daily using short, highly-engaging activities
• Address common grammar and usage-related errors often found in students’ writing
• Conference with students in ways that enhance their writing, decrease off-task behavior and greatly reduce your workload

Watch an excerpt from this course:

Improving Your Students' Descriptive Writing, Grades 6-12

Online Course

Course Objective/Goals-

In this video-based online course, experienced national presenter and English teacher Mary Ellen Ledbetter demonstrates, with her own middle and high school students, a variety of practical and manageable strategies that help students extend and revise their writing, improve their grammar and writing mechanics, and increase the sophistication and style of their written work. 
How can teachers actively help students strengthen the quality of their writing without becoming overwhelmed by towering stacks of to-be-read papers? The purpose of this course is to show classroom-proven techniques that maximize instructional time and minimize a classroom teacher’s paper load.  All English/language arts educators – whether first-year teachers or veteran instructors – will find new, time-efficient strategies they can immediately implement in their own classrooms to improve their students’ writing.

You will learn how to:

• Boost each student’s writing competency with high-impact, student-interactive rubrics
• Design innovative writing practice activities that engage and benefit all your students
• Help students improve their grammar and language mechanics – and see results in their writing
• Establish peer editing routines that really work
• Decrease your paper load while actually assessing students’ writing more frequently
• Give students the literary tools they need in order to effectively edit and revise their writing
• Increase your students’ writing confidence, skills, and achievement

Watch an excerpt from this course:

Powerful, Practical Strategies for Working Successfully with "I Don't Care!" and Underperforming Students to Increase Their School Success, Grades 3-12

Online Course

Course Objective/Goals-

This online course features Ernie Chapin, an experienced teacher and national presenter. Ernie begins the course by providing background for why some students might not care about school or why they are underperforming. The course goes on to explore how students can become empowered to make better decisions for themselves, and how students can improve their self-belief. The focus then shifts to the student-teacher relationship, where Ernie provides strategies for building more effective connections with your students. The course concludes by providing strategies for establishing and enhancing classroom norms and goals. Supplementary print and digital resources are included.

You will learn how to:

• Identify underperforming students in your classroom
• Understand why students are underperforming
• Empower your students to make better decisions for themselves
• Improve your students' self-belief
• Build more effective relationships with your students
• Establish and enhance classroom norms and goals

Watch an excerpt from this course:

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders will review effective collaboration and coaching strategies for improvement. Attendees will identify the key essentials of effective coaching to improve outcomes for students, understand how to provide feedback with meaningful dialogue using evidence-based techniques, and review research findings on the benefits of effective coaching."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  " In this session, school and district leaders receive an overview of the key roles, responsibilities, and purposes of effective instructional coaches and understand how to build teacher capacity by providing evidence-based instructional coaching techniques.  "

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "Facilitators from the Office of School and District Improvement review how to implement, monitor, and support interventions at the school and district levels."

 This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  " School and district leaders will review how to implement continuous progress monitoring of students’ outcomes.  "

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "Join the Office of School and District Effectiveness to review effective program evaluation strategies and how to measure the impact of school- and district-level initiatives on student achievement to make informed decisions."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  " School and district leaders will review how to conduct and use classroom observations to monitor progress."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "In this session, school and district leaders receive an overview of the School-Based Continuous Improvement Team (CIT) for newly identified schools, outline the roles and responsibilities of the team, and guidance on how to leverage the continuous improvement team process to reach school improvement goals."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders will receive an overview of the leadership team audit process and how that data can be used at the district level to direct differentiated support for individual schools."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders receive an overview of the collaborative planning audit process and how that data can be used at the district level to direct differentiated support for individual schools."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders receive an overview of the school and district improvement planning process through the lens of short-term action plans (STAPs) and the district plan of support (DPS)."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders will discuss how to analyze Georgia Milestones data and determine how to use it at the school and district level to differentiate support."

This is copied directly from the GDOE website:  "School and district leaders will receive an overview of the Georgia School Assessment of Performance on Systems (GSAPS) and discuss how to use target actions to inform school improvement plans."

Join the GaDOE Science Team for this professional learning series focused on assessment for science educators. This workshop-style session will involve participants analyzing and developing three-dimensional science assessments for use in the classroom. Before attending this in-person session, participants are asked to complete the virtual portion: What is 3D Science? Click on this link to register for What is 3D Science?                             3571, CODE, GaDOE, What is the Big Deal with 3D Science?

Topic: Classroom Management for Disruptive Behaviors. This presentation goes through many of the disruptive behaviors that can derail learning in the classroom and shares evidence-based interventions you can use.

This presentation will focus on the variety of behaviors that show up in the classroom when teaching 4-7-year-old students. We are seeing more and more behaviors with this age group that typical interventions are not accomplishing the goal of decreasing the disruptions in the classroom.  Dr. Riffel will share scenarios from real students around the world and the interventions employed that really worked ameliorate these behaviors.

This class is limited to participants from Heart of Georgia RESA member systems.