The Effective Schools Conference Series is the cornerstone of CPSI's professional development program. For the 2009-2010 school year, four conferences have been scheduled targeting specific areas of school improvement. Sessions will be held in the K-State Student union on the Kansas State University campus. Each session is scheduled to be held from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Gretchen Goodman has served the last 34 years as a practicing public school teacher serving in the capacity of elementary and secondary teacher, instructional support teacher, RTI intervention specialist, and staff development leader. Gretchen believes and promotes the concept that we can adapt our classrooms so that ALL children can learn. Gretchen has developed and gathered together dozens of activities and strategies to accomplish these goals. Gretchen is the author of several books including Interventions for Struggling Learners: Putting RTI into Practice, and co-author of The More Ways I Teach, The More Students I Reach. Participants will learn strategies to make the curriculum more accessible to all students.
JoBeth Allen conducts collaborative action research with teachers who are exploring issues of educational equity and social justice in relation to literacy teaching and learning. A professor at the University of Georgia in Language and Literacy Education, her classes include poetry, composition, difficulties in literacy teaching and learning, and critical pedagogies. Her newest book is Creating Welcoming Schools: A Practical Guide to Home-School Partnerships with Diverse Families, available from Teacher’s College Press. This session will explore how diverse families and teachers across the country have created partnerships that support student learning. Participants will critique “parental involvement” events and explore opportunities that extend learning.
Jim Knight is a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He is an international speaker who has spent more than a decade studying instructional coaching. Knight has written several books on the topic including, Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction, published by Corwin Press & NSDC (2007). His new book, Partnership Learning: Scientifically Proven Strategies for Fostering Dialogue During Workshops and Presentations, was published by Corwin Press in late 2008. In this session, Jim Knight will provide an overview of the approach to coaching described in Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction. He will provide a definition of what coaches do, a summary of the components of coaching, and a review of the partnership approach, which is the theoretical basis behind this approach. Expect to leave this session with a framework for practical use of instructional coaching.
Ellin Oliver Keene has been a classroom teacher, staff developer and adjunct professor of reading and writing. For sixteen years she directed staff development initiatives at the Denver-based Public Education & Business Coalition. She served as Deputy Director and Director of Literacy and Staff Development for the Cornerstone Project at the University of Pennsylvania for four years and now consults with schools and districts around the country. Ellin is author of To Understand (Heinemann, 2008), co-author of Mosaic of Thought (2nd Edition, 2007) and Assessing Comprehension Thinking Strategies (Shell, 2006), as well as numerous chapters for reading textbooks and journals and education policy journals. Participants will discuss essential elements of literacy instruction that include an intensive focus on comprehensive learning and then begin a planning process oriented toward their own setting.
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