Executive function is critical to students’ academic achievement and social-emotional learning. Focusing, shifting attention from one activity to another, working toward a goal, persisting in a task, catching and correcting errors, and managing time are all executive function skills that students need to be successful in any learning environment. Executive function skills often determine student resilience and success. The good news is that executive function skills can be developed and accelerated. Participants will explore six key life skill areas that are uniquely supported by executive function and design instructional plans to intentionally build these critical achievement prerequisites in all learners.

Syllabus:

1. Understanding how executive function is inextricably linked to the academic achievement and social-emotional learning 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 instructional activities aimed at building executive function across the seven key components: working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, reasoning, problem solving, inhibitory control, and self-awareness
5. Developing an implementation plan that includes powerful facilitation strategies and purposeful structures to develop executive function and promote learning acceleration for all learners

Participants in 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.

How can teachers help English Language Learners (ELLs) thrive in their classrooms? This VLC will offer strategies based on 7 Essential Elements for ELL Support: Physical Space, Scaffolding, Resources, Explicit Language Instruction, Facilitation, Emotional Wellness, and Social Engagement. Participants will learn actionable strategies to implement to help both students and teachers thrive. Strategies will be tailored to each participant’s grade level and subject area.

Syllabus:

1. Understanding the “7 Essential Elements for ELL Support”
2. Recognizing the role that students’ academic backgrounds have in implementing these elements
3. Learning strategies for each of the 7 Elements
4. Making assessment work for ELLs
5. Eliciting feedback from your ELLs

How can you ensure that each of your learners is able to access learning and succeed in any learning environment? How can teachers make the most of their time with students to cover a lot of curriculum? The teacher’s role as a facilitator of learning has become more relevant than ever. Explore strategies to help students navigate their learning environment to build academic resilience, accelerate student learning through a focus on the power standards, and support social-emotional learning and executive function. This course will help you rethink instruction to prioritize differentiation and scaffolds that will meet all learners’ needs. Participants will deconstruct their curriculum to identify and teach to the power standards in ways that build foundational standards in the process.

Syllabus:

1. Exploring and developing strategies to help students manage and self-regulate in any learning environment (inclusion, self-contained, or other)
2. Gaining strategies and structures to support differentiated student engagement
3. Developing purposeful opportunities for students to self-assess and reflect, as well as to support students’ executive function and social-emotional learning
4. Exploring opportunities to build a learning community with parents, caregivers, aides, and/or paras to create an optimal learning environment
5. Deconstructing your standards to identify the power standards and develop maps to connect your power standards to related content
6. Generating related problems to drive instruction through the power standards
7. Exploring formative and summative assessment strategies to encourage a data-driven environment that pushes students to higher achievement

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.

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 that can be used remotely or in person.

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 instructional activities
3. Using formative assessment data to drive facilitation in any environment
4. Designing formative assessment grids to allow participants to easily collect and track assessment data from students working in class and remotely

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

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 digital 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 structures and strategies.

Syllabus:

1. Exploring ends-based teaching as a foundation for differentiation
2. Understanding the difference between the 5 types of instructional activities
3. Connecting student choice and voice to empowerment and academic achievement
4. Exploring cognitive levels and learning styles to develop 5 types of instructional activities for learning 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 Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book Reinventing the Classroom Experience as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC.

Equitable and culturally responsive teaching practices raise the level of rigor and maximize potential for all learners. In this course, you will explore the role of teacher as curator and facilitator to reflect on your learning environment that accepts, appreciates, and advocates for cultural differences and social justice. Participants will explore and brainstorm problems focused on instructional and social equity. They will navigate and design culturally responsive resources, structures, and facilitation practices to address bias in and beyond the classroom. This course will position participants to leverage students’ culture, language, and life experiences into rigorous academic achievement.

Syllabus: 

1. Establishing working definitions of equity, bias, and social justice in the classroom
2. Developing strategies and structures for prioritizing a culturally responsive classroom through needs identification, resource-access, and tuned facilitation
3. Developing learning activities through a culturally relevant lens to meet cognitive levels and learning styles
4. Designing differentiated opportunities for students to learn in an environment that promotes executive function through structures and facilitation
5. Exploring the role of facilitator and facilitation strategies to build and maintain relationships and trust with students
6. Brainstorming problems to address social justice and equitable access and opportunity issues within the students’ neighborhood
7. Empowering students to become active participants in the learning process

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

Explore the power of the 6 Ps of PBL. Design a PBL  task, a rubric to drive instruction, a scaffold of rich and diverse learning activities to implement with your students, and a plan for facilitating the learning.

Syllabus:

1. Understanding how “Raising Academic Rigor,” “Engaging Students in Learning,” and “Building Student Responsibility for Learning” go hand-in-hand
2. Exploring the 6 Ps of PBL: place, problem, project, profession, phenomena, and pursuit-based learning
3. Developing authentic, open-ended, problem-based tasks that create a felt need to learn
4. Designing analytic rubrics to offer clearly articulated expectations, a roadmap for all learners,  and challenges for gifted learners
5. Designing a scaffold for learning to develop differentiated learning and practice activities
6. Developing one or more other structures to support the unit, e.g.:
   1. Formative Assessments to drive instructional planning
   2. Facilitation Questions to probe students’ thinking at higher cognitive levels
   3. Facilitation Grid to manage your ongoing student facilitation

Participants in this course will use Dr. Nancy Sulla’s book Students Taking Charge as a resource. The assigned book must be purchased in advance. Access to MyQPortal is included for all participants while enrolled in the VLC.

Participants will explore how executive function supports the critical life skills of conscious control, engagement, collaboration, empowerment, efficacy, and leadership. As you develop activities and strategies for your learning environment, your IDE consultant will guide you through the process of targeting your facilitation to improve students’ executive function. Throughout the course, participants will reflect upon and communicate their classroom experiences to receive virtual coaching from an IDE consultant.

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.

Participants in 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.

How can teachers help English Language Learners (ELLs) thrive in their classrooms? This VLC will offer strategies based on 7 Essential Elements for ELL Support: Physical Space, Scaffolding, Resources, Explicit Language Instruction, Facilitation, Emotional Wellness, and Social Engagement. Participants will learn actionable strategies to implement to help both students and teachers thrive. Strategies will be tailored to each participant’s grade level and subject area.

Syllabus:

1. Understanding the “7 Essential Elements for ELL Support”
2. Recognizing the role that students’ academic backgrounds have in implementing these elements
3. Learning strategies for each of the 7 Elements
4. Making assessment work for ELLs
5. Eliciting feedback from your ELLs