WELCOME BACK to #TeamMURSD PROFESSIONAL LEARNING 22-23
We are so excited to welcome you back for the 22-23 academic year - a year we hope will be collaborative, invigorating and focused on enhancing inclusive, Tier I practices that support all learners! For our first PD day of the year, we'll be welcoming Dr. Katie Novak, a nationally renown expert on Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to kick us off. Dr. Novak will deliver the keynote, and help us see how UDL framework attends to all three strands of our professional learning - helping us better understand, support and engage our students. Dr. Novak will also lead us in an exploration of our DCAP (thanks to all the MURSD educators who helped guide important revisions to this resource) and help us consider how we'll know if the inclusive practices we learn about and implement this year actually impact student learning.
What you'll need for the day
All you'll need for the day is yourself, dressed in comfy clothes, and your laptops. We'll have some lawn games and fun at lunch, which will be provided.
Signing up for Session 1: Below we have provided a pallet of workshops all of which connect to our understand, support and engage theme, and highlight a framework, practices, or mindsets that we think will support our efforts to build stronger, inclusive, Tier I practices. As usual, you will use TeachPoint to register the workshop you will attend. We ask that you do so before noon on Monday, August 29th.We hope you feel the structure and workshop offerings are interesting, useful, and help you think about school and district goals in new ways.
On August 30th, the sign in code for the PD sessions will be 08/30/22. Here are the link to the sign-in instructions. If you run into trouble, Alyssa has devised a troubleshooting document that may be helpful. Please send any additional questions to Alyssa Lacasse ([email protected])
MTSS - creating inclusive and equitable systems
Join Dr. Katie Novak to engage participants in a deeper dive into Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and how to think about the MTSS framework to understand how we think about supporting students' academic, social-emotional and behavioral needs. She'll also help us think about how PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) can optimize Tier I through co-planning, data-based decision making and ongoing professional learning. This is a great workshop for folks who want to better understand MTSS and situate their own work in the framework. It's also a great session for all teachers, student support providers and paraprofessional who would like a little more time learning from Dr. Novak. (Auditorium)
UD What? The what, the how and the why of Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Come to this workshop to learn about what Universal Design for Learning is and what it is not. Whether you are an administrator hoping to learn more about UDL for your staff or you are a teacher who wants to apply components of UDL into your classroom, this session will help you understand how to remove barriers so that every student can be successful. You will walk away with simple ideas that you can implement right away! Come with devices as you'll have some time to explore on your own. This is a great workshop for all educators at any level who work with students in classrooms. Facilitated by Liz Garden. (Media Center)
Tier I Reading and Writing Strategies across the Curriculum
During this workshop, which is applicable to teachers or support providers in any discipline, you will learn a unique method for teaching students how to be metacognitive while reading so they are aware of when their comprehension has failed and of how to correct their understanding of the text.In addition, you will learn a unique way to teach students how to visualize the text so they are able to make the abstract concrete and truly understand the information or story.Since independence is the ultimate goal, during the last step of the process, students are taught how to assess their understanding of the text.This program enriches your classroom curriculum and your students will quickly become more engaged in the text (novel, science, social studies, math word problems, etc.) and overall daily instruction.Students will also see the correlation between reading and writing.If they truly understand what they read, they will be better able to demonstrate understanding through writing. This workshop is designed for any educator grades 3-12 who is interested in building these skills into their repertoire. Facilitated by Katherine Kerrigan Wang. (PDC)
Strength-based approaches to teaching, learning and student support using Thrively
In this workshop educators will have a chance to think about strengths-based approaches to teaching and student support by learning about the numerous tools in Thrively available to better get to know their students, including the new Hope Survey and Well-Being Index. Teachers will learn how to use this data to help build stronger relationships and inform their practice and. Additionally, attendees will learn more about Goals and Highlights components in Thrively which will help teachers and students document their growth in the MURSD Portrait of a Learner. Other feature such as lessons, playlists and journals will be addressed as additional resources to support students and instruction. Facilitated by Thrively (Room 221). - Session Slides. - Zoom Link
Building Community through Civic Action
In this interdisciplinary workshop, explore strategies and resources that can help you design learning experiences that:
are authentic and connected to a local community issue or challenge.
encourage student research and empathy mapping to determine what the specific challenges are and possible actions to address them.
have students collaboratively develop (using the design thinking process) possible solutions to address the identified challenge.
promote engagement with the local community to actively advocate for proposed solutions.
In this session we will explore how the use of the high quality instructional practice of Project Based Learning supports growth in the skills identified in the Portrait of a Learner Competencies and the inclusive practices of Universal Design for Learning framework. Anyone with a working knowledge of Project Based Learning is encouraged to attend, no mask or cape required! Facilitated by SLN PBL. (lol - couldn't resist another acronym) (Gathering Room - 2nd floor near stairs)
Culturally responsive strategies to better understand, support and engage all learners in music education
This session will focus on the sharing strategies to understand, support and engage our students as learners and musicians. We will focus on how we build curriculum and performances that are culturally responsive to the students we teach, and allow us to develop the relationships that make our work successful. The result of this workshop will be the identification of practices that we agree to consistently implement in our teaching throughout the continuum of a student's musical experience, as well as questions we have that future professional learning might address. This workshop is appropriate for music teachers at any level. Please bring your laptops. (Band room)
Comprehensive mental health interventions across the Tiers
In this recorded session, facilitators from Thriving Minds, a collaboration between the Rennie Center, BRYT, and the Massachusetts school mental health consortium provide an examination of the MTSS framework and how student support providers can think of their roles and the services they provide in this framework. It is a nice introduction to Thriving Minds and raises some important questions that we may want to explore further to continue building our Tier I (and 2 & 3) supports. This workshop is appropriate for all counselors or other social-emotional and behavioral student support providers. Access recording here. (watch where you are most comfortable - counseling center may be a good spot)