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?
National studies have shown that professional development should be ongoing and provided in small, pertinent groups. Aligning with this thinking, Aligned Interventions comes directly to your school, uses your own school’s data, looks at your school’s instruction, and provides personal professional development designed with your specific needs in mind.
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.
Look at the list of current sessions available and choose the ones that are just right for you and your staff. Then contact us at alignmentrules@aol.com so that we can plan a schedule which accommodates your busy calendar. We request that an administrator also attend the training and monitor the in-class implementation of strategies taught.
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.
Do your students score well on classroom assessments, yet not on the SOL? This interactive session helps teachers to evaluate their currently used English/Language Arts assessments and learn to create, select, or revise assessments such that they accurately measure students’ mastery of state-required essential skills and knowledge. Each participating teacher (or grade level team if multiple grade levels are present) is asked to bring one teacher-made and one teacher-selected reading test with them to the session. (Suggested participants: grades 3 – 11; Suggested time: 3 hours)
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 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)
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)
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 small-group management tips used to identify and target individual multiple intelligences and motivate reluctant learners. You can even collect and exchange ideas about alternate activities useful for students taking the VGLA. (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 3 hours)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Just as in “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,” boys and girls actually learn differently! Differences in learning styles can also be the result of differences in culture, ethnicity, and exceptionalities. It is very true that all children can and do learn, but it is also a reality that they can and do learn differently. This session seeks not to merely stereotype students, but rather to help teachers learn how to differentiate their instruction based on the research of those who have studied the successful learning of students in various categories. If our instruction ignores the fact that students have different needs, how can we ever expect to adequately meet them all? (Suggested participants: grades 2 – 12; Suggested time: 2-3 hours)
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