Description:  This two-day workshop will introduce teachers to the foundations of the Strategic Instructional Model® (SIM® ) and will prepare them to implement research-based interventions to help students acquire strategies for writing and editing a variety of types of paragraphs for eff ecti ve writt en communication. This strategy is targeted towards students in grades 4 through 12 who struggle with written expression.  The Paragraph Writing Strategy is a strategy for organizing ideas related to a topic, planning the point of view and verb tense to be used in the paragraph, planning the sequence in which ideas will be expressed, and writing a variety of topic, detail, and conclusion sentences.

Please note:  Participants in this workshop ideally would have already received professional development in the SIM® Sentence Writing Strategy, the precursor to the Paragraph Writing Strategy, in order to provide students with the minimum sentence writing skill prerequisites needed to successfully write paragraphs.  The Sentence Writing Strategy Workshop is scheduled for October 4-5, 2012 at River’s Crossing in Athens.

Cost: $275 (includes instructor’s and student lessons manuals (The Instructor’s Manual features a systematic sequence of instructional procedures; the Student Lessons Manual features exercises that correspond to the instructional procedures), packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoints (support teacher development and implementation of the Paragraph Writing Strategy) sent electronically following the workshop. Successful completion of this workshop will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: UGA Gwinnett Campus

Click here to view the complete flyer for more information!

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Description**:   Teachers face a tremendous challenge to meet the diverse needs of learners in classes that demand the presentation of a massive amount of course content. In particular, students whose reading and written expression skills are not up to grade level will struggle immensely in content area classes.  This workshop will introduce teachers to the foundations of the Concept Mastery and Framing Routines, and will prepare them to implement these research-based interventions to help students acquire the critical components of the vast amount of content presented in the general education curriculum.  Teachers use the Concept Mastery Routine to define, summarize, and explain a major concept and where it fits within a larger body of knowledge.  Teachers use the Framing Routine to transform abstract main ideas and key topics into a concrete representation that helps students think about and talk about the key topic and essential related information.

Research Summary:  These routines have been successfully field tested in general education classrooms (primarily in middle and high school settings) characterized by significant academic diversity, including students judged to be at risk for academic school failure as well as students with learning disabilities.  In the research, a combination of instructional models involving general education and special education teachers, both individually and collaboratively, were successfully tested.  Research has demonstrated that consistent and explicit instruction and use of each routine is a key ingredient for instructional success.  The routines are designed for collaborative use between the teacher and students during group instruction to help a teacher provide instruction more sensitive to the learning needs of individuals in the group.

**This workshop can be taken separately or in conjunction with the Content Enhancement: Unit Organizer Routine Workshop scheduled for November 1, 2012.

Cost: $125 (includes parking pass, instructor’s manuals, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoint presentations sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction. Successful completion of  both workshops will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.)

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605

Click here to see the complete flyer for more information!

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Description**:   Teachers face a tremendous challenge to meet the diverse needs of learners in classes that demand the presentation of a massive amount of course content. In particular, students whose reading and written expression skills are not up to grade level will struggle immensely in content area classes.  This workshop will introduce teachers to the foundations of the Strategic Instructional Model® (SIM®) and the Unit Organizer Routine, and will prepare them to implement these research-based interventions to help students acquire the critical components of the vast amount of content presented in the general education curriculum.  Teachers use the Unit Organizer Routine to plan units; introduce and maintain the big ideas in units; and show how units, critical information, and concepts are related.

Research Summary:  These routines have been successfully field tested in general education classrooms (primarily in middle and high school settings) characterized by significant academic diversity, including students judged to be at risk for academic school failure as well as students with learning disabilities.  In the research, a combination of instructional models involving general education and special education teachers, both individually and collaboratively, were successfully tested.  Research has demonstrated that consistent and explicit instruction and use of each routine is a key ingredient for instructional success.  The routines are designed for collaborative use between the teacher and students during group instruction to help a teacher provide instruction more sensitive to the learning needs of individuals in the group.

**This workshop can be taken separately or in conjunction with the Content Enhancement: Concept Mastery and Framing Routines Workshop scheduled for November 2, 2012.

Cost: $125 (includes parking pass, instructor’s manuals, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoint presentations sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction. Successful completion of  both workshops will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.)

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605

Click here to see the complete flyer for more information!

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Description:   The purpose of the conference is to create a forum for dialogue across the boundaries of specific (sub)disciplines that explores the possibilities and challenges related to the dialogical self. As such, the Seventh International Conference on the Dialogical Self is open to psychologists and scholars of other social sciences and arts.

Keynote Speakers:
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Clark University
Miguel Goncalves, University of Minho, Portugal
Hubert Hermans, Radboud University of Nijmegen
Peter Raggatt, James Cook University

Featured Lecturers:
Vincent Hevern, Professor and former Chair of Psychology – LeMoyne College
John Rowan, Fellow of the British Psychological Society
Henderikus Stam, University of Calgary

The conference program is now available on the Dialogical Self web page.  Click here for more information!

Click here to view the complete registration flyer!

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Description**:  Fundamentals of Paraphrasing and Summarizing Strategy is designed to systematically teach the fundamental skills students need to be able to identify and paraphrase main ideas and details.  Fundamentals contains lessons on paraphrasing words, phrases, and sentences, as well as lessons on identifying main ideas and details in paragraphs and short essays. Specific instruction includes paraphrasing passages where main ideas are not clear, as well as generalizing to Standardized tests.

**This workshop can be taken separately, or in conjunction with the Word Identification Strategy Workshop scheduled for October 18, 2012.

Cost: $125 (includes parking pass, refreshment breaks, instructor’s manuals, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoint presentations sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction. Successful completion of both workshops will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.)

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605

Click here to view the complete flyer for more information

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Description: In this exciting, stimulating, and intensive one-day workshop at the University of Georgia, teachers, administrators, counselors, and teacher educators will:
• Learn about the five principles for change to better meet the needs of working-class and poor students
• Develop research-based teaching practices sensitive to working-class and poor children and families
• Reflect on formative assessment of working-class and poor students across the curriculum
• Take away powerful classroom ideas for incorporating social class-related content
• Get ideas for establishing positive relationships with working-class and poor families

Instructors:
Dr. Mark Vagle, University of Minnesota, College of Education and Human Development
Dr. Stephanie Jones, Associate Professor, Elementary and Social Studies Education

Cost: $125 (includes workshop materials)

Location: UGA Gwinnett Campus, Lawrenceville, Georgia

Time: 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Stay an extra day and attend the Reading Turn-Around Workshop scheduled for October 19, 2012!

Click here to see the complete flyer!

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Description**:  The Word Identification Strategy teaches a series of steps students can take which promote the successful reading of words not immediately recalled from memory. It provides a functional and efficient strategy to help challenged readers successfully decode and identify unknown words in their reading materials.   Using a mnemonic device, students are taught to use various tools (beginning with the least time-consuming) including word structure analysis and using other readily available resources to correctly read unfamiliar words.  The strategy is based on the premise that most words in the English language can be pronounced by identifying prefixes, suffixes, and stems and by following three short syllabication rules. The strategy steps include using contextual clues, breaking words into their morphemic parts (prefix, suffix, root), following three short syllabication rules. and basic phonetic analysis.  This strategy can also prompt students to predict the meanings of some words, which enhances the understanding of vocabulary found in both isolation and text.  In a research study, students made an average of 20 errors in a passage of 400 words before learning this strategy. Having learned the Word Identification Strategy, students reduced their errors to an average of three per 400 words. Reading comprehension increased from 40 percent on the pretest to 70 percent on grade-level passages.

**This workshop can be taken separately or in conjunction with the Fundamentals of Paraphrasing and Summarizing Workshop scheduled for October 19, 2012.

Cost: $125 (includes parking pass, refreshment breaks, instructor’s manuals, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoint presentations sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction. Successful completion of  both workshops will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.)

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605

Click here to view the complete flyer for more information

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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(Click the “previous entries” button below to see more archived events!)

Description:  This two-day workshop will introduce teachers to the foundations of the Strategic Instructional Model® (SIM)® and will prepare them to implement research-based interventions to help students acquire strategies for writing and editing sentences for effective written communication. The Sentence Writing Strategy series, a two-part program that includes Fundamental and Proficiency levels, is targeted towards students in grades 4 through 12 who struggle with written expression. In addition to a writing strategy, students can be taught 14 sentence patterns with four types of sentences: • simple • compound • complex • compound-complex.

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: UGA Gwinnett Campus

Cost: $275 (includes refreshment breaks, 2 instructor’s manuals, 2 student lessons books, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and power points sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction)

Successful completion of this workshop will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants.

For more information, click here to view the complete flyer!

Click here to see all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Description:  This two-day workshop will introduce teachers to the foundations of the Strategic Instructional Model® (SIM) and will prepare them to implement the FUNDAMENTALS IN THE THEME WRITING STRATEGY. This research-based intervention helps students acquire strategies for writing and editing a theme by using a basic structure and framework to plan and write effectively. With incremental instruction (including learning sheets to accompany direct instruction) students are taught how to gather information, organize it using a diagram, and write a theme with a structure that includes an introduction, body, conclusion, and connecting paragraphs with appropriate transitions.

This strategy is designed and found to be most appropriate for students in grades 6 through 12 (although some have taught the strategy successfully to 4th graders). Students who can write complete sentences and well-organized paragraphs respond most successfully to instruction in the Theme Writing Strategy.

Instructor: Kathy Boyle-Gast, Communication Sciences & Special Education, SIM® Professional Developer

Location: River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605

Cost: $250 (includes refreshment breaks, parking pass, instructor’s manuals, packets of training materials, as well as supplemental handouts and PowerPoint presentations sent electronically following the workshop to augment instruction. Successful completion of this workshop will provide 1 PLU for eligible participants)

Click here to see the complete flyer!

View a listing of all upcoming Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Workshops!

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Information:  Registration for the annual GACIS Fall Conference and the GaDOE Curriculum Directors’ Conference on September 26-28, 2012 is now open. The GACIS keynote speakers will be Doug Sovde and Melissa Fincher. Sovde works for Achieve as Director, PARCC Instructional Supports and Educator Engagement and Fincher is the Associate Superintendent, Assessment and Accountability with the Georgia Department of Education. Lucy Calkins, John Barge and Mike Buck will be keynote speakers for the GaDOE Curriculum Directors’ Conference. Calkins is Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Barge is State School Superintendent of Georgia and Buck is Chief Academic Officer. In addition to these speakers, updates from the Department of Education and best practices from Georgia educational leaders will be shared.

Registration Fees

GACIS Fall Conference:

Current Member of GACIS (7/1/12-6/30/13):  On or before 9/10: $200          After 9/10: $215
Nonmember (incl FY13 GACIS membership): On or before 9/10: $275             After 9/10: $290
Nonmember (incl FY13 GACIS and GAEL):  On or before 9/10: $400                 After 9/10: $415

(If you attended the 2012 GAEL Summer Conference and joined GACIS and GAEL, your membership is current. If not, you will need to register as a Nonmember)

GaDOE Curriculum Directors’ Conference:  On or before 9/10:  $100   After 9/10: $115

New Curriculum Leaders Program:

Current Member of GACIS (7/1/12-6/30/13): FREE
Nonmember (includes GACIS membership): $ 75

*If you register as a nonmember for GACIS, you are automatically considered as a member for purposes of registering for the New Curriculum Leaders Program. If attending the GaDOE Curriculum Director’s Conference as well, please be sure to register separately for that event.

Click to view the complete brochure!

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Description: This conference is designed for educators, researchers, policymakers, elected officials, civic and business leaders and concerned citizens to learn more about the top education issues facing our State.

Cost:  $125 (includes conference materials, refreshment breaks and Thursday lunch)

Keynote addresses will be given by:

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith: John E. Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools, Lynch School of Education, Boston College
• John Barge: State School Superintendent of Georgia
• Gregory Miller: Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at SunTrust Banks
• Andy Rotherham:Co-founder and partner -Bellwether Education

Click to view the working agenda and the complete flyer!

PowerPoint Presentations:

John Barge State of Education Conference 9.20

Marilyn Cochran-Smith Presentation

Gregory Miller Economic Update Fall 2012_v1

Andy Rotherham State of State 2012

DOE State of Education Presentation

Sheneka Williams Presentation

Eric Houck Presentation: Promises Made, Promises Kept_SOTS2012

Elizabeth DeBray SOS 2012

Kristin Bernhard State of Education Conference

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