Student engagement has never been more crucial in our educational setting than it is now. Maintaining high levels of engagement needs to be a priority for teachers as we educate our students in remote, face-to-face, and/or blended learning environments. This course, Engaging Students in a Digital Classroom, focuses on strategies and tools to engage students in synchronous and asynchronous learning. There will be a strong emphasis on supporting teachers with concrete strategies and resources to help create and design online tasks that engage learners in a student-centered environment. By the end of this course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of strategies to engage student learning and have a toolbox of digital resources to utilize in the classroom. This course will be conducted in an asynchronous online setting utilizing Google Classroom as the delivery platform. Participants meet virtually via online communities to discuss and share lessons and strategies. Personal Google accounts will be required to access the course.

This is a Hybrid course. Four meetings are synchronous on "Google Meet" - 1/10, 1/24, 2/7 and 2/28 from 4:30 to 6:00PM. All other classwork will be done asynchronously. Writing like a historian means that students can explore and explain the connection between historical figures and the ideas and events of their lifetime, using specific evidence from informational text. During this course, teachers will: ● Explore the process of creating a writing unit based on informational text in Social Studies ● Develop lessons that include anticipation guides as well as formative assessments which build connections between reading and the writing process ● Integrate discussion and collaborative learning into the writing process Personal Google accounts are necessary to access the course. An array of engaging print and digital resources will be provided during this course which will invigorate the Social Studies classroom.

This course will cover a variety of tools that can help teachers create lessons and help their students create and engage in class. Tools include Google Forms( Updates and Escape Rooms), Google Drives (Basics, Tour of Drive, Docs and Slides, Peardeck and Flashcard Factory, Kami, and Go Guardian, Edpuzzle and Screencastify.

Students with challenges grow in idiosyncratic and often unpredictable ways. In this webinar Jeffrey Benson, author of Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL, will explore the diverse ways students learn, the opportunities to stretch the environment for atypical learners, and share tools to help teachers hang in through the ups-and-downs of student development. The webinar will provide participants opportunities to make plans for the very specific challenging students right now in their classes.

This in-service will introduce participants to the Bitmoji application. Bitmoji is a free app that creates a cartoon image of a person. Participants will have the opportunity to create their own Bitmoji. They will learn how to make a clickable, linked virtual space using Google Slides. Students will be able to access these slides and click on curated resources. This in-service is for educators in K-12 classrooms. This is an asynchronous course, and you will need a personal Gmail account.

Webinar Series from We Belong: 50 Strategies to Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management We Belong - Building Community to Revolutionize Classroom Management Belonging is the foundation for a positive learning environment. If your students feel they belong, learning will improve and behavioral disruptions will diminish. This series will offer targeted strategies that will increase belonging, support learning success, and promote social-emotional growth. Strategies to Build Belonging This session will focus on why belonging is so critical to student success. Participants will be asked to examine their own practices, procedures, and protocols to determine if those actions help or hinder a sense of belonging among their students. Other topics covered include ways to create a classroom culture that promotes belonging, strategies to build trusting relationships with and among students, and ways to honor student voice and choice.

This course is designed for all teachers to learn how to do more with G-Suite's apps. We will explore ways to use the apps not only to create engaging lessons and activities for students but also help the teacher be organized. We will learn how to create Hyperdocs using Docs and Slides, practice using some advanced features of Docs such as the research tools and version history, learn how to use Bitmojis with G-Suite apps to personalize activities, explore ways to use Google Earth in each subject area, and learn advanced ways to use Google Forms, such as creating self-grading quizzes and escape rooms. For teacher organization, we will explore Google Calendar and Google Keep.

In this ONLINE webinar, Jeffrey Benson author of Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL, will provide very specific strategies and activities that integrate social and emotional skills (SEL) into our daily work in classrooms. In this way, SEL is not another curriculum. When explicitly woven into the standard lessons, SEL can relentlessly build student competencies, and improve academic performance. Perhaps most importantly, we can have a lasting impact on how students see themselves as members of their communities in and out of school.

This course is designed to help educators decrease their students' feeling of being overwhelmed and increase their ability to focus to improve learning. Participants will be introduced to digital tools that support engagement strategies that increase student participation and motivation in a face-to-face or virtual classroom. Participants will be shown how to devise interactive moments, boost student engagement, and encourage students to share their learning. In addition, participants will be looking at spotlight tools introduced by the EdTech guru, Dr. Monica Burns. Through her podcasts and articles, participants will be provided with actionable ideas and helpful tips to put into practice immediately. An array of digital tools, templates, and strategies will be provided to help educators embed interactive moments into synchronous and asynchronous lessons.

Adventures in AR Who's ready for a mission?! Join us to learn more about the wonders of the planet; educators will get to explore the physical side of Mars through immersive experiences. Get hands-on with 3D Bear AR - an innovative learning application that allows users to build Augmented Reality scenes using virtual 3D models and their surroundings. Explore space agriculture to learn how hydroponic farming is useful to grow and yield plants for nutrition and sustainability.

Webinar Series from We Belong: 50 Strategies to Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management Belonging is the foundation for a positive learning environment. If your students feel they belong, learning will improve and behavioral disruptions will diminish. This series will offer targeted strategies that will increase belonging, support learning success, and promote social-emotional growth. Strategies to Promote Social Emotional Learning and Improve Classroom Management In this session we will examine how social-emotional competency impacts belonging and can decrease issues with classroom management. We will share strategies designed to build belonging and how these strategies can help you integrate social-emotional learning into your content area. This will include practical strategies that will also promote safety, consistency, and high levels of student engagement.

Dominique Smith will lead a webinar that will focus on school wide mind shifts to restorative practices and school equity thereby creating a culture of achievement for all students. This session will focus on a practical blueprint for creating a cooperative and respectful classroom climate in which students and teachers work through behavioral issues together.

In this webinar, hands-on STEAM activities will help educators to understand more about how telescopes work, discover how to see the Universe in full color, and learn how astronomical data collection is via telescopes. Can you incorporate information on the photo editing software they'll learn. How telescopes use filters to take images and how we can manipulate them for full color of celestial bodies.

Webinar Series from We Belong: 50 Strategies to Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management We Belong - Building Community to Revolutionize Classroom Management Belonging is the foundation for a positive learning environment. If your students feel they belong, learning will improve and behavioral disruptions will diminish. This series will offer targeted strategies that will increase belonging, support learning success, and promote social-emotional growth. At the end of a year, it's good to decide what practices you want to keep doing, which ones you need to stop doing, and what you would like to start doing. This final session will walk you through a reflection of your year and share strategies that will help you get the next school year off to a successful start.