Enthused Learning Can Tailor Professional Development for Your School or District to Improve Student Learning…

...by Creating More Thoughtful Classrooms Using Effective Questioning

Want to create classrooms where students are engaged, thinking is deep, and learning goes beyond “rote memory” to understanding and meaningful application?  This is a challenge for all teachers—and Enthused Learning has resources to help!

Learn more about training for improved classroom questioning.
 

How does your classroom “measure up?”   

In classrooms where teachers use effective questioning:

•  All students are accountable to respond correctly to all questions…Teachers don’t depend upon “volunteers” to answer

• Students and teachers practice “think time” to give everyone a chance to think and formulate a correct answer

• Everyone in the class listens with respect to all answers and thinks about them…It’s not just the teacher who evaluates responses

• Teachers expect that student answers will be thoughtful…Students know the “language of thinking” and understand the level of cognition required to respond to teacher questions

• Students share their thinking processes – and they learn how to learn

• Student pose questions—because they understand that questions are the way to learn

…by Developing Leaders Who Focus on Instruction

The key to improved student learning is what goes on in the classroom—effective teaching and learning.  The job of school and district administrators is to motivate teachers to use effective practices…and to monitor that teaching--to “keep the eyes on the prize” and to stay focused.  Yet, often school leaders don’t have a clear picture of what they can do to ensure continuous
and constant improvement of instruction in their schools.

• Foundational workshops help administrators think about their new and changing role in creating schools that are meeting the needs of all their students.  

• More advanced training opportunities work with leadership teams—administrators, lead teachers, and sometimes parents and students—to develop a shared vision and work together toward continuous school improvement. 

At Enthused Learning, we use the best from research and experts from both business and education to create professional development for leaders to learn how to be the “lead learner” of their faculty and staff.  Facilitators pull from the work of Fullan, Marzano, Barth, Schmoker, Senge, Lambert, the Change Leadership Group at Harvard, the HOPE Foundation and others, including standards from NAESP, IEL, and ISLIC.

More information about training for instructional leadership
 

…by Establishing Ways for Teachers to Collaborate

Research is consistent and clear: student learning improves in schools where teachers have opportunities to work together in meaningful ways, learning from one another.  To produce
results for students, these collegial meetings should be structured so that they have a specific agenda, with specific, measurable outcomes. This can be done in a single workshop—or, in
work over time with a school or district,  incorporating the following kinds of things:

·         Creating an understanding for the value and need to collaborate

·         Helping schools find the time (through scheduling, etc) for collaboration

·         Learning one or more strategies for results-oriented collaboration

·         Developing skills to facilitate collaborate

More about specific strategies offered by Enthused Learning.

…by Creating Schools That Expect and Support High-Performance

This workshop was designed for leadership teams and faculties who want to address their school’s culture.  Based on a framework developed by Jackie Walsh, Beth Sattes, and Chris Corallo (all former staff at Edvantia, Inc.) participants learn skills and tools to address core beliefs and strategic structures that contribute to the nurturing and sustaining of a positive school culture.  The goal is to create a school where all students and adults are continuously learning, and where accountability for success is distributed among all members of the school community.

Participants explore three spheres of beliefs:

• Ability and Achievement…All students can learn to high standards

• Efficacy and Effort…Individual effort leads to academic achievement.  Each individual—student, parent, administrator, teacher, or staff member—can make a measurable difference in student learning.

• Power and control…Collaboration, or working together, leads to increases in learning, improvement, and achievement.

To investigate beliefs at a deep level, participants learn skills of reflection, dialogue and inquiry.  As another way to affect beliefs, participants are encouraged to think about structures that can be put in place to impact beliefs:  structures in the physical environment, in school policies and procedures, and in relationships.

To learn more about this workshop experience (two to four days) contact Enthused Learning
 

"I cannot even enumerate the many ways in which I will use the knowledge and skills derived form this session!! Thank you!"

"I wish I had had this training before I became a principal.  The information and activities are very useful for principals and others involved in creating high performing learning cultures."

"Much of this learning is core to all school improvement efforts and will therefore become central to my work."

"The workshop was intellectually rigorous; exemplary.  Very effective trainers!  They modeled collaboration and passionate commitment to core beliefs.  Thank you so much for sharing the research, resources, and the stories in leading our minds to think about high-performing learning cultures!"

"Jackie and Beth are great presenters!  I loved the “flow” from one to the other.  They showed great passion, could relate well to participants, and really knew the material!"

"It was terrific:  the pace, the content, the activities, the opportunity for sharing and the terrific presenters!  Thank you!"