22^nd Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference

L-1. Using Data to Focus Improvement $350

Schools that successfully improve student achievement use data regularly to guide decisions about instruction, student support and professional development. Easy-to-use processes are taught, and participants learn how data are vital to the school improvement process.

L-2. Prioritizing, Mapping and Monitoring the Curriculum $350

In a world of high-stakes testing, this module helps schools keep the curriculum on target. Participants learn the benefits of prioritizing, mapping and monitoring the curriculum and gain a deeper understanding of what they want students to learn, which learning is most important and how to know if the curriculum is being taught.

L-3. Designing Assessment to Inform Instruction $350

Participants learn to link curriculum, assessment and instruction; use assessment to improve learning; recognize good instruction; and use effective, research-based instructional strategies, tools and processes to observe and study assessment and instruction.

L-4. Aligning Teacher Assignments and Student Work to Rigorous Standards $350

Schools may adopt standards that ask students to learn at high levels, but classroom assignments often do not match the standards. Participants learn a process to analyze teacher assignments and student work to determine if the assignments really require students to complete high-quality work that helps them meet standards.

L-5. Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture $350

Schools cannot improve when the culture does not support improvement. In the push to improve quickly, the school’s culture often is forgotten. Participants learn what culture is and why it must be cultivated; what roles leaders play in growing the culture; and what tools and strategies are available to help leaders foster a culture that supports improvement, high expectations and student well-being.

L-6. Providing Focused and Sustained Professional Development $350

Professional development is a powerful tool for changing schools, yet frequently is done poorly and results in little or no positive change. Participants examine the characteristics of professional development in high- and low-performing schools, learn how to structure successful learning for the staff and learn how schools can create a professional learning community.

L-7. Personalizing School to Engage Students in Learning $350       Cancelled

When standards are raised, extra help is necessary for students to achieve at higher levels. Participants learn how to make schools learner-friendly using effective extra-help programs, successful transition programs and meaningful advisement that includes parents.

L-8. Organizing Resources for a Learning-Centered School $350       Cancelled

How can schools more effectively use time and resources for teaching, planning and professional learning? This module adds practical tools and processes to the leadership toolbox, including how the school staff can work together to improve achievement and how it can use technology in instruction.

L-9. Communicating to Engage Stakeholders in School Improvement $350        Cancelled

Effective communication is key to improving the school community. Often the best intentions are sidetracked by poor communication. Participants learn how to communicate effectively, decide who needs to know what and why, involve people at the right times, and measure the impact of communication has on schools and quality instruction.

L-10. Leading Schoolwide Literacy Initiatives $350

Literacy is a national problem that has become a top education priority for the federal government and educators across the nation. School leaders must be able to recognize effective literacy instruction and observe and meet with teachers about good literacy practices. Students need a complete set of complex reading, writing and language skills to handle a variety of texts in school and beyond. This module helps participants learn how to effectively lead school literacy efforts.

L-11. Leading Schoolwide Numeracy Initiatives $350         Cancelled

Getting and keeping a good job in today’s economy require an ever-increasing breadth and depth of mathematical skills and concepts. School leaders must know how to recognize effective numeracy instruction and encourage it across the curriculum. This module helps participants provide schoolwide numeracy leadership.

L-12. Coaching for School Improvement $350

Schools undergoing transformational school improvement processes often need external coaches to help them through the processes. Participants learn how to add value to various school improvement situations by using a variety of strategies and techniques.

L-13. Using Root Cause Analysis to Reduce Student Failure $350

Improving student learning by changing school and classroom practices both requires and results in changes to a school’s culture. Culture also impacts how and what improvements are made to benefit student learning. Data can be a powerful lever to explore inequities, expose systemic biases, and change beliefs and practices needed to improve the achievement of disenfranchised students. Participants gain analytical tools to uncover the real problems that school leaders need to address to close achievement gaps in schools. (Using Data to Focus Improvement and Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture are recommended prerequisites for this module.)

L-14. Assessing Academic Rigor to Ensure Grade-Level Proficiency and College Readiness $350

Although school leaders generally recognize the importance of rigor, many are not thoroughly and accurately measuring, monitoring and encouraging it. Too often, rigor is a vague concept that means instruction is hard, tough and sometimes boring. In this module, school leaders learn how to use tools and strategies to determine whether rigor exists in the school.

L-15. Leading Change with Effective School Improvement Teams $350        Cancelled

The heart of leadership is the willingness to assume responsibility. Schools that make and sustain improvement use teams to lead school reform. Effective teams understand the forces that influence the change process and can direct these forces for continuous school improvement. Participants learn how to lead rather than react to change, to collaborate and distribute leadership, and to design and organize teams to improve student achievement.