Executive Function

In this flexible course, you will consider your role as a teacher leader and future administrator through the lens of Ten Mindsets of Transformational Leadership as outlined in Students Taking Charge: Implementation Guide for Leaders.* Then, you will identify a focus area for promoting leadership skills in others: your students, your colleagues, a committee, your department, etc. In the process, you will gain tools, insights, and leadership skills to take action as a transformational leader while building leadership capacity in students and colleagues.

Syllabus:

1. Engage with Ten Mindsets across multiple activity lists, or differentiated segments, throughout the course, and take action based on your personal mission.
2. Gain insights, tools, and resources for your classroom and for building leadership capacity in others — students and colleagues.
3. View the Mindsets through a systems-based approach, making connections to key components of your school’s and district’s goals, mission, and vision.
4. Connect with one of the authors and other teachers across schools and districts.
5. Explore scenarios and develop actionable steps to take on your leadership journey as you develop mindset-driven leadership skills!

Participants in this course will use Students Taking Charge: Implementation Guide for Leaders by Dr. Nancy Sulla, Julie Marks, and Tanya Bosco as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

In this course featuring flexible time engagement to meet the needs of school and district leaders, you will consider your role as an administrator through the lens of Ten Mindsets of Transformational Leadership as outlined in Students Taking Charge: Implementation Guide for Leaders.* Start from day one of the course to build your own Mindset-Driven Leadership Toolkit as you gather tools and insights to take action in your learning community and enhance your leadership skills,  leaving a legacy of influence.

Syllabus:

1. Engage with Ten Mindsets across multiple activity lists, or differentiated segments, throughout the course, and take action based on your personal mission.
2. Gain insights, tools, and resources for use in faculty meetings, observation conferencing, PLCs, learning walks, book clubs, and more. . . .
3. View the Mindsets through a systems-based approach, making connections to key components of school and district goals, mission, and vision.
4. Connect and engage with one of the authors and other school leaders to enhance your leadership network.
5. Curate and create artifacts to support your ongoing work as a leader.

Participants in this course will use Students Taking Charge: Implementation Guide for Leaders by Dr. Nancy Sulla, Julie Marks, and Tanya Bosco as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Explore a variety of classroom structures and strategies you can employ to help students take greater responsibility for their own learning, including self-assessment, goal-setting, self-regulation, learning choices, and reporting. Design a student responsibility plan that will work in your classroom.

Syllabus

1. Understanding how student responsibility impacts student achievement
2. Designing structures and strategies to build student responsibility in the classroom
3. Using a Great Student Rubric
4. Teaching students to self assess, set goals, and monitor progress
5. Building executive function skills that promote responsibility
6. Exploring the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Throughout history, major events have disrupted the norm to produce innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged students, teachers, and parents to identify new ways to provide “schooling” via remote connections. No one could have imagined that schools would close for months, leaving students to learn at home based on remotely delivered lessons. The pandemic was a wake-up call for schools: to be prepared to provide high-quality instructional experiences through structures and strategies that work as well at home as they do in school, such that students can learn anywhere, anytime. This course will help you rethink your instruction to foster academic resilience, facilitate learning acceleration, and ensure achievement and social emotional learning for all students. You will explore structures and strategies to support an innovative learning environment that works regardless of where students are, allowing students to learn anywhere, anytime.

Syllabus

1. Explore the unique nature and nuances of instruction that promotes learning anywhere, anytime
2. Map out plans and begin to design resources that promote the following:
   1. Student engagement
   2. Content delivery
   3. Executive function
   4. Social and emotional learning
   5. Assessment
3. Gain strategies and structures around 7 Attributes of a Hybrid Learning Environment.
4. Explore strategies and structures for addressing the needs of students with special needs, those who struggle academically, and English Language Learners.
5. Build knowledge of the capabilities of your district’s remote learning platform.
6. Explore opportunities to advance learning acceleration through purposeful facilitation strategies.

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

As more schools honor brain research on learning by offering students longer class periods and fewer courses per day, teachers are challenged to rethink the use of time for teaching and learning. This workshop will explore two models for teaching in the block and offer participants opportunities to design units and lessons to use in the classroom. Whether you envision students fluidly moving through activities of their own choosing or a more structured beginning-middle-end approach, this workshop will position you to enhance learning in a block-scheduling situation.

Syllabus

1. Explore the neuroscience research for the “why” behind teaching in the block and how you can benefit from this research in the classroom
2. Explore two models for teaching in the block to identify your comfort level
3. Explore structures for maximizing learning in a block situation
4. Develop lesson plans for teaching in the block

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) plays a major role in one’s success in life and career. Being in touch with emotions, controlling them, setting and achieving goals, engaging with others in socially appropriate ways, demonstrating empathy toward others, establishing positive relationships, and taking responsibility in life are critical skills that are not necessarily included in school curricula. How can these critical skills be developed while students are not physically in school every day? In the hybrid learning model, synchronous instruction is redesigned to allow for, and in many cases, prioritize, Social and Emotional Learning. In this course, participants will explore a hybrid learning model, and develop strategies to prioritize collaboration, self-awareness, and responsible decision making skills. They are skills that are fostered every day in student-driven learning environments like the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom. Develop structures and strategies you can employ to build SEL in your classroom or school.

Syllabus

1. Developing an understanding of the core competencies of SEL as defined by CASEL.
2. Developing an understanding of the interplay among problem-based learning, structures, and teacher facilitation in a Hybrid Learning Environment.
3. Exploring how each of the core competencies of SEL are addressed through the goals of engagement, empowerment, and efficacy in a student-driven classroom.
4. Developing a set of structures for building SEL in a Hybrid Learning Environment.
5. Developing a repertoire of teacher facilitation strategies for building SEL in a Hybrid Learning Environment.
6. Developing learning activities that promote SEL in a Hybrid Learning Environment.

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Co-teaching classrooms can be powerful learning environments that maximize the effectiveness of two teachers to ensure that each and every student advances academically at accelerated levels. In a student-focused co-teaching classroom, both teachers have the flexibility to intensively help struggling students and see them make significant strides, while challenging advanced students to new heights, bridging the achievement gap. This workshop is great for either teacher or both teachers in a partnership to attend.

Syllabus

1. Build a stronger communication/collaboration partnership by understanding individual preferences for engagement in a partnership
2. Explore the four core modalities of co-teaching; group & guide, dual-focus facilitation, balanced benchmark, and individualized inspiration
3. Design co-teaching lessons that maximize the effectiveness of both teachers
4. Learn to leverage formative assessment grids and questions so that both teachers work seamlessly with students
5. Develop guidelines for students to participate successfully in a co-teaching classroom

Participants in this course will use It’s Not What You Teach But How by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Creating a learner-centered classroom requires teachers to design opportunities for students to actively engage in their learning and maximize their potential. Designing differentiated learning activities, facilitating those learning activities with meaningful questioning, using a variety of formative assessment strategies and student reflections, and leveraging strategies to build students’ executive function skills all lead to putting students at the center of their educational process. Craft a plan for positioning your students to be active participants in the learning process as you design a classroom learning environment that engages and empowers students, building a greater sense of efficacy for them and for you as their teacher.

Syllabus

1. Exploring opportunities to know and understand your students
2. Designing differentiated learning activities for engaging different types of learners
3. Developing meaningful questions to promote learning through teacher facilitation
4. Designing formative assessments for teacher use and for student self-assessment
5. Exploring basic strategies for building executive function in your students

Participants in this course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, It’s Not What You Teach But How as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

The engineering design process is a set of steps for creating that which does not yet exist. Help your students develop thoughtful solutions to open-ended problems, no matter what the subject area. Design authentic, open-ended problems for your students to solve using IDE Corp.’s Design Process.

Syllabus

1. Understanding the “place” of design process as creating that which does not exist (referencing the STEM science/engineering juxtaposition but realizing that the IDE Design Process can be used in all subjects)
2. Exploring the difference between convergent and divergent thinking
3. Understanding the six steps to the IDE Design Process (formulate, explore, ideate, sift, simulate, advocate)
4. Understanding the importance of empathy in the IDE Design Process>
5. Engaging students in activities that require them to use the design process
6. Understanding the importance of efficacy in the classroom
7. Exploring the importance of consensus in decision-making and the tools students can use to achieve consensus

Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

We’re all familiar with STE(A)M courses and STE(A)M hours; but what about a classroom or school that exudes a culture of STE(A)M thinking? How can we position students to use design thinking, exemplify the use of math practice standards, and experience the cross-cutting concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards throughout the day? This course will focus on designing instruction to reflect a STE(A)M culture across all activities of the day. Participants will design lesson plans and structures to use with their students.

Syllabus

1. Develop activities and visual resources for creating a STE(A)M Culture
2. Understand the engineering design process
3. Design authentic problems to build STE(A)M mindsets
4. Infuse transformational technology
5. Integrate the arts through design

Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

“Students don’t know what they don’t know.” (Sulla 2015) How do you get a clear sense that all students are learning? In this course, you will explore strategies to become a masterful facilitator of learning, becoming a guide in the learning process. While the standards drive the “what” of classroom instruction, teachers have power of the “how”.  Keeping the end goal in mind helps to select and design appropriate instructional activities for student mastery. Become a facilitator of instruction to meet the demands of standards-based curriculum and actively engage with students during their thinking process.

Syllabus

1. Explore the role of a facilitator in an active learning environment
2. Empower students to become active participants in the learning process
3. Leverage differentiated learning opportunities to achieve mastery of the standards
4. Develop strategies for getting to know your students
5. Explore the facets of facilitation
6. Develop tools and strategies for purposeful and active facilitation
7. Create facilitation questions to promote higher-order thinking

Participants in this course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, It’s Not What You Teach But How as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Co-teaching classrooms can be powerful learning environments that maximize the effectiveness of two teachers to ensure that each and every student advances academically at accelerated levels. In a student-focused co-teaching classroom, both teachers have the flexibility to intensively help struggling students and see them make significant strides, while challenging advanced students to new heights, bridging the achievement gap. This workshop is great for either teacher or both teachers in a partnership to attend.

Syllabus

1. Build a stronger communication/collaboration partnership by understanding individual preferences for engagement in a partnership
2. Explore the four core modalities of co-teaching; group & guide, dual-focus facilitation, balanced benchmark, and individualized inspiration
3. Design co-teaching lessons that maximize the effectiveness of both teachers
4. Learn to leverage formative assessment grids and questions so that both teachers work seamlessly with students
5. Develop guidelines for students to participate successfully in a co-teaching classroom

Participants in this course will use It’s Not What You Teach But How by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Explore the power of problem-based learning in the classroom. Design a problem-based task, a rubric to drive instruction, and a scaffold of rich and diverse learning activities to implement with your students

Syllabus

1. Understanding how “Raising Academic Rigor,” “Engaging Students in Learning,” and “Building Student Responsibility for Learning” go hand-in-hand
2. Developing authentic, open-ended, problem-based tasks that create a felt-need to learn (expectations adjusted if the participant has taken the introductory course)
3. Designing analytic rubrics to offer clearly articulated expectations, a roadmap for all learners, and challenges for gifted learners
4. Designing a scaffold for learning to develop differentiated learning and practice activities
5. Developing one or more other structures to support the unit, e.g.:
   • Formative Assessments to drive instructional planning
   • Facilitation Questions to probe students’ thinking at higher cognitive levels
   • Facilitation Grid to manage your ongoing student facilitation

Watch IDE Corp.’s YouTube video “What’s the difference between project-based learning and problem-based learning?“.

This course will use your choice of Dr. Nancy Sulla’s books, Students Taking Charge In Grades K-5 or Students Taking Charge In Grades 6-12 as a resource. Only one is required. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

How will schools catch up with the curriculum after the spring closing of schools? How can teachers make the most of their time with students to cover a lot of curriculum. It all comes down to Power-Standards: those standards that drive the mastery of other standards. It’s all about starting with the end in mind, which is typically application of learning, building a “felt need” for students to learn, and then providing differentiated learning activities toward achievement.

Syllabus

1. Deconstruct your standards to identify the power-standards.
2. Develop maps to relate your power-standards to related content
3. Generate related problems to drive instruction through the power-standards.
4. Develop lesson plans to start your year

Participants in this course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, It’s Not What You Teach But How as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Explore the structures and strategies you can use to gather formative assessment data to drive instruction that is targeted for increased student achievement. Design formative assessments for use with your students.

Syllabus

1. Developing formative assessments across four categories: temperature gauges, breakpoint assessments, student-­directed assessments, and comprehensive assessments
2. Using formative assessment data to differentiate classroom activities
3. Using formative assessment data to drive facilitation of instruction
4. Designing formative assessment grids to allow participants to easily collect and track assessment data while moving about the room and facilitating instruction

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Explore how executive function supports the critical life skills of conscious control, engagement, collaboration, empowerment, efficacy, and leadership. Develop activities and strategies for classroom use, as well as targeted facilitation to improve students’ executive function.

Syllabus

1. Understanding the six levels of increasingly complex life skills that depend upon executive function
2. Identifying activities and structures that build executive function focused around the critical six levels of life skills
3. Understanding how teacher facilitation builds the executive function skills around the critical six levels of life skills
4. Designing structures for the classroom to create a culture of executive function
5. Developing tools for teacher facilitation to create a culture of executive function

This course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, Building Executive Function: The Missing Link to Student Achievement as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

In this course, participants will leverage choice and technology to provide students with the ultimate differentiated learning environment. They will develop differentiated digital activity lists rooted in rigorous instruction that offer multiple ways to learn and apply content. Participants will explore autonomy, purpose, and mastery as motivators in all learning environments. They will design differentiated activity lists to put students in charge of their own learning, creating a structure that allows students to make decisions within a structured framework. Making informed decisions is an essential life skill that teachers can support with intentional classroom practices.

Syllabus

1. Exploring ends-based teaching as a foundation for differentiation.
2. Understanding the difference between learning and practice activities.
3. Connecting student choice and voice to empowerment and academic achievement.
4. Exploring UDL strategies to consider cognitive levels and learning styles when developing learning and practice activities for anywhere, anytime.
5. Building a differentiated digital activity list to provide students choice in how and when they engage in learning and practice activities.
6. Exploring the role of the teacher in an environment that empowers students to take more responsibility for their learning.
7. Exploring the role of technology to leverage opportunities for differentiation in differentiated digital activity lists.
8. Developing instructional videos and activities to support differentiation in digital activity lists.

Participants in this course will use Reinventing the Classroom Experience by Dr. Nancy Sulla as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 credit hours.

Deepen your knowledge of the power of problem-based learning in the classroom with a focus on implementation strategies. Design differentiated activity lists with multiple ways for students to learn, develop content facilitation grids and questions to support student-driven learning, and implement four types of formative assessments throughout the PBL unit. Note: Participants will apply course content to a previously created Problem-Based task and rubric.

Syllabus

1. Designing activity lists that offer students required activities, choice activities (offering more than one way to build a concept or skill), and optional activities (offering extension opportunities to those who are advanced) from a brainstormed scaffold for learning
2. Developing facilitation grids, laying out skills and concepts to assess student learning as the teacher facilitates instruction.
3. Designing facilitation questions to move students to higher-order thinking.
4. Understanding the role of the Four Types of Formative Assessment to support progress monitoring and growth.
5. Creating a transfer task as a venue for students to apply, or “transfer,” their learning from an authentic PBL unit to a new real-world context

Watch IDE Corp.’s YouTube video “What’s the difference between project-based learning and problem-based learning?“.

This course will use your choice of Dr. Nancy Sulla’s books, Students Taking Charge In Grades K-5 or Students Taking Charge In Grades 6-12 as a resource. Only one is required. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.

Executive function is critical to all students’ academic achievement; and we now know it can be developed and accelerated. Enhance your academic lesson plans by fostering the six key aspects of executive function, intentionally building critical achievement prerequisites in students.

Syllabus

1. Understanding how executive function is inextricably linked to the academic achievement of students at all developmental levels through the lens of six levels of increasingly complex life skills
2. Understanding how executive function develops and how growth can be accelerated
3. Understanding the difference between learning and practice activities, and the importance of purposeful “grappling” with content
4. Developing learning and practice activities aimed at building executive function across the seven key components: working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, reasoning, problem-solving, and self-regulation
5. Creating a plan to implement structures that build executive function in the learning environment
6. Learning to facilitate instruction by asking questions that lead to the development of greater executive function

Watch Dr. Nancy Sulla’s YouTube videos “Executive Function: The Missing Link to Student Achievement” and “All Students Can Learn with Executive Function“.

This course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book, Building Executive Function: The Missing Link to Student Achievement as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC. 25 contact hours.