Session Topics

Professional Development

Is your instructional staff not only highly qualified and certified, but also highly effective? Where are your strengths? What are your instructional weaknesses? Why not allow Aligned Interventions Educational Services to help you look at and analyze your test data, your instruction, and your assessments to find the answers to these questions?

Aligned Interventions helps administrators analyze their school’s strand data, determine which training is needed for particular teachers, and implement professional development tailored to provide specific, instructional strategies necessary to improve students’ academic achievement.

Our professional development sessions are both intimate and interactive. Discussion is open and strategies are practical such that they can be used for the next day’s instruction. We even give participants assignments to complete in their classrooms! Desiring not to “hit it and quit it,” Aligned Interventions provides a full list of relative topics from which you can plan a year-long or a semester’s series of studies. New topics are added annually and administrators can alter or suggest additional topics to be researched and presented. Teachers can gain recertification points upon request.

Although the suggested range of participants in the session descriptions includes the lowest to the highest recommended grade level, it should be understood that not all grade levels would be trained in the same session. In order to remain relevant, participating teachers would actually be either grouped by grade level or in clusters such as K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and the number of participants should not exceed 20 to 25 including administrators. In instances wherein the suggested time is 2 – 3 hours, the session can be shortened or lengthened depending on the wishes of the administrator and the participants’ need for practice of the skills taught.

Our professional development also emphasizes team building and accountability. All sessions are relevant, interactive, practical, and very affordable! Sessions may be created to meet the specific needs of school staff or selected from topics such as the following:

English Curriculum Alignment

How well does your school’s reading curriculum align with the state’s intended curriculum? This session invites teachers to bring their teacher manuals and curriculum guides to the session and learn how to effectively teach state standards rather than relying on the adopted teaching series. Often purchased instructional products are mass produced for various states and, while they are aligned by topic or word search, may not be deeply aligned with the specific intent of state standards. Allow this session to help you fully prepare your students for academic success as measured by your specific state assessments. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 11; Suggested time: 3 hours)

How Direct Is Your Direct Instruction?

What instructional model do your teachers follow to assure maximum attainment of student achievement? This session arms teachers with the same Direct Instruction Model used by Brazo Sport Texas and adopted by Richmond City Public Schools to close their achievement gap such that all students could experience academic success. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2-3 hours)

Data-Driven Instruction – Students vs. Numbers

How do your teachers decide what needs to be taught, assessed, reviewed or re-taught? This very practical session provides information and practice in making these daily instructional decisions, based on real student data. Learn how to let your data be your guide. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 3 hours)

Differentiated Instruction – Every Student Counts!

Is your instruction truly meeting the needs of all students? This practical and interactive session helps teachers focus on each subgroup so that no child is left behind. Gain evaluative tools and classroom management tips used to identify and target individual learning styles and multiples intelligences which motivate reluctant learners. We will also share and exchange ideas about activities useful for students talking alternate state assessments. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 3 hours)

Building Volumes of Vocabulary (Across Content)

How many of your teachers teach vocabulary with the age-old strategy of having students write the definitions of words from a dictionary? Learn in this session why this antiquated strategy continues to fail our children and gain other meaningful and engaging options that actually facilitate vocabulary development in all content areas. Word-study is an essential element of all instructional areas, not just English, for misconceptions about word meanings hinder comprehension of all types of texts. Obtain suggestions for helping students build vocabulary through making links across words and across content areas. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2-3 hours)

Explicit Phonics Instruction

How phonologically aware are your Pre-K – Grade 2 students? Does your primary instruction teach students how to isolate, identify, segment, substitute, manipulate and blend phonemes such that they can spell, read, or build even unfamiliar words? This interactive session shows teachers how to use reading and writing to provide explicit phonics instruction so that students learn how to spell and how to read any word, rather than learning to spell and recognize only specific words selected by the teacher or your adopted reading program. (Suggested participants: grades K – 2; Suggested time: 2 - 3 hours)

Building Decoding Strategies (Across Content)

What do your students do when they encounter unfamiliar words in text? Do they have the necessary word-attack skills needed to support reading fluency and comprehension? Are your teachers equipped to help students over these hurdles or are they still encouraging students to “sound it out”? This session shares activities which will engage students in meaningful and memorable ways, helping them to problem solve unknown words while continuing to focus on the meaning of text. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 8; Suggested time: 2 hours)

Aligning Writing Instruction with the State Curriculum

How intentional are your K - 4 elementary teachers about teaching writing standards, now that the SOL Writing Test does not occur until fifth grade? With all of the demands on instructional time to prepare students for tests in other subject areas, has writing instruction been placed somewhat on the back burner? In your primary grades, is the writing of letters, words, and sentences the main thrust of writing instruction rather than the writing process? When lower grades focus on planning, composing, and revising; fourth and fifth grade writing instruction can focus on facilitating finishing touches such as revisions like elaboration and development of content and editing mechanics like spelling, grammar, and word choice. Learn in this session how to assure that all grade level teachers work together to teach authentic writing composition. (Suggested participants: grades K – 5; Suggested time: 2 – 3 hours)

Building Comprehension Strategies (Across Content)

The most challenging category of questions on English standardized tests across the country is test items which require the demonstration of comprehension of printed materials. This session is designed to provide instructional strategies designed to help students improve reading comprehension skills in various genres and content areas. How can we expect students to interact and respond appropriately to text that they are unable to read and comprehend? (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2-3 hours)

Effectively Teaching Test-Taking Strategies

Do you have pockets of success wherein some classes seem to always make and exceed the benchmarks, yet others get relatively close but can’t seem to make it over the hurdle? It may be that along with some teachers having more experience and stronger instructional strategies, there are also teachers and students who simply are not good test takers. Statistics show that familiarity with test structures accounts for 40% of students’ success with assessments. In this session learn how to arm your students with tested and proven strategies that will not only make them more test savvy, but will also help them to finally make it over the hump and possibly go even higher! (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2 hours)

Aligning Brain Research & Instruction

Is the instruction in you building “brain-friendly”? There exist volumes of research on how the brain learns and retains information, but unfortunately we as educators don’t always instruct in ways that make learning easier. In this session, find out how you can make learning more interesting, more engaging, and more memorable for your students. Who said that teaching and learning have to be difficult? (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2-3 hours)

Managing the Classroom with Good Instruction

Are your teachers unable to teach because they’re too busy telling students to sit down and be quiet? Students, like adults, are usually very sociable beings and generally don’t leave home in the morning with the objective to get in trouble at school. Learn in this session how to prevent behavior problems with interesting, actively engaging, worth-talking-about, good instruction. Gain tips on how to spend more time teaching and less time addressing negative behavior. (Suggested participants: grades K – 12; Suggested time: 2 hours)

Look at the list of current sessions available or create your own session topic! Choose the ones that are just right for your specific site and staff. Then contact us at alignmentrules@aol.com so that we can plan a schedule which accommodates your busy calendar. We suggest that an administrator also attend the training and monitor the in-class implementation of strategies taught.