SIM 2011 International SIM Conference

Note: Minimum registration for each session is 10 participants. We will cancel any session that does not have at least 10 participants registered by June 1.

Participants should bring their own laptop computers to preconference sessions.

SESSION CANCELLED: Classroom Culture: Revisiting the Cooperative Thinking Strategies, Community Building Series, and Socially Wise Program

8:00 am

Room: TBA
Presenter: Sue Vernon, KUCRL
Registration fee: $150

This full-day workshop will explore the professional development packages and supplemental professional development CD programs related to the Community Building Series and the Cooperative Thinking Strategies.  The Community Building professional development CD programs are designed to accompany each instructional manual in the series to prepare teachers to create safe, supportive learning communities in their classrooms and to facilitate integration and academic success of students with learning disabilities and other at-risk students in inclusive classes. The Cooperative Thinking Strategies professional development CD programs accompany the instructional manuals in the series and are designed to prepare teachers in inclusive classrooms to teach students to be positive, productive members of a team and to work together to organize and effectively complete different types of thinking and solving activities.

In addition, this workshop will discuss an interactive multimedia (IM) program for youths with social-adjustment issues. The Socially Wise Program provides instruction designed to provide alternatives to behaviors that often result in formal and informal reprimands from authority. The benefits of the new program include the fun factor of innovative, creative technology to teach skills and its potential use as a preventive or remedial option in a variety of settings (for example, group homes, detention centers, probation programs). We will present the results of the field tests that demonstrated the effectiveness of using an IM format for teaching social skills.

The following materials are included in this workshop:

• The SCORE Skills Professional Development CD
• The THINK Strategy Professional Development CD
• The BUILD Strategy Professional Development CD
• The LEARN Strategy Professional Development CD
• The Talking Together Professional Development CD
• The Following Instructions Together Professional Development CD
• The Taking Notes Together Professional Development CD
• The Organizing Together Professional Development CD
• The Socially Wise Program CD

Please bring your laptop to this session.

Creating an Impact School

8:00 am

Room: Griffith Ballroom
Presenter: Jim Knight, KUCRL
Registration fee: $80

This all-day workshop describes high-leverage activities educational leaders can employ to design professional learning that has an unmistakable impact on teaching. The content of the session draws from ideas described in Jim Knight’s Unmistakable Impact and is based on more than 18 years of research on professional learning conducted at the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.

This session will describe how schools and districts can focus their professional learning on easy-to-understand professional learning targets; how workshops, professional learning communities, and other forms of professional learning can support implementation of school improvement targets; and what principals, coaches, and central office staff need to do to accelerate professional learning. The session will address the following questions:

• What are the complexities of helping relationships?
• What is the partnership approach and why is it an essential foundation for professional learning?
• Why is an instructional target important?
• What are the step-by-step procedures leaders can follow to create school improvement targets?
• How can leaders best get schoolwide commitment to implementing the target?
• How can principals best lead and support implementation of the school improvement target?
• How should workshops, intensive learning, teams and other forms of professional learning be designed to ensure impact on student learning and teacher practice?
• How can instructional coaches be best used to support professional learning?
• How should central office and school leaders work together successfully to support professional learning that makes an impact?

Participants will receive a copy of the book, Unmistakable Impact, A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction.

SESSION CANCELLED: Feeling a Little Wordy?

8:00 am

Room: TBA
Presenter: Paula Lancaster

Registration Fee: $70

Come explore Wordsmith, WordSLEUTH, and Word Shop, three new software programs designed to build vocabulary-related knowledge and skills. Wordsmith is a fun computerized game show that teaches the meaning of common prefixes, suffixes, and root words. WordSLEUTH and Word Shop rely on animated characters and fun story lines to provide instruction on the Word Mapping and LINCS Vocabulary strategies, respectively. During this session, you will have an opportunity to play with the programs, learn about the research results, and discuss how to implement each program individually or as part of comprehensive vocabulary instruction.  Participants will receive the three CDs. Please bring your laptop to this session.

Fusion Reading™ for SIM Professional Developers: Getting Ready to Conduct Professional Development and Instructional Coaching Sessions

8:00 am

Room: Meeting Room 1
Presenters: Irma Brasseur-Hock, Don Deshler, and Mike Hock, KUCRL; Sue Woodruff, Independent Professional Developer; and Pam Leitzell, Independent Consultant

Registration fee: $40

One of the Center’s newest interventions is Fusion Reading™. Fusion Reading is an evidence-based program for students in grades 6 through 12. The program is a supplemental reading program appropriate for struggling adolescent readers, including those with disabilities. Although clearly based on the reading strategy work of the Center, the structure of the program is a major departure from the current SIM Learning Strategies Curriculum. Thus, preparing to do professional development and instructional coaching with Fusion Reading requires thinking about professional development and planning to support implementation in a different way. To address this need, we will offer an introductory workshop that focuses on the tools and supports that SIM Professional Developers need to feel competent in conducting professional development in Fusion Reading. If you are interested in adding to your SIM professional development portfolio and in taking the initial step to position yourself to conduct Fusion Reading professional development, attend this workshop. As part of this workshop, two new certification plans will be introduced: one for people who want to coach Fusion Reading, and one for people who want to conduct professional development. In addition, concrete plans for sustaining Fusion Reading in schools or districts will be addressed.

Introduction to the All-New GIST 2.0

8:00 am

NOTE:  The GIST 2.0 software will not be ready for distribution at this session.  Please register if you would like to come and take a look at what is coming with the new GIST 2.0, but you will not receive the software, and there will be no registration fee.

Room: Meeting Room 2
Presenters: Keith Lenz, SRI International; Peter Lenz, Velvet Bridge; and Sherri Wagner, Moxxisoft Solutions
Registration fee: $65

This session will cover the new and upgraded features in GIST 2.0. Users will learn how to improve their current GIST/cet organizers. Plus, users will learn how to work GIST’s new course system builder to design well-connected, organized, comprehensive teaching content. Participants will receive the GIST 2.0 software.

SESSION CANCELLED: Teaching Students to be Savvy Test-Takers

8:00 am

Room: TBA
Presenter: Jean Schumaker, Edge Enterprises
Registration fee: $90

There is nothing quite like being faced with a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a ticking clock to shake a student’s confidence. This half-day session for Learning Strategy professional developers will be focused on a package of three strategies: Test-Taking, Essay Test-Taking, and FIRST-Letter Mnemonic. Learn about these strategies (in brief) and take away ideas for conducting professional development sessions.  Help teachers to empower students to approach tests and the testing situation with proven strategies that can help students to perform more successfully. Participants will receive all three books and the Test-Taking CD.

Content Enhancement Tutorial: Order, Clarifying, and Question Exploration Routines

1:00 pm

Room: Meeting Room 2
Presenter: Keith Lenz, SRI International
Registration fee: $70

Are you in a content enhancement rut?  Are you routinely using only a few routines?  Do you wonder about what you are missing?  This session will highlight three Content Enhancement Routines used less frequently by SIM Professional Developers. Why are we focusing on these routines? Read on…

• Fill up teacher and student toolboxes with some great tools for studying. The ORDER Routine aligns higher-order skills with systematic procedures. To check and summarize content learning, including discrete facts and comprehension, students are guided in identifying key lesson content and its expository relationships and in graphically representing what they know. The products of the routine include improved comprehension and a device useful for reference and further studying.
• Sometimes students require more than just a definition to solidly acquire critical ideas or topics, and the Clarifying Routine could be just what they need you to use. This routine is used to focus on a topic and then explore related details and their importance to the critical ideas and concepts. Using this routine, teachers can help students master the meaning of targeted words and phrases.
• A routine that can have significant effect on student understanding of critical information, and even on their writing production, is the Question Exploration Routine. Carefully unpacking the critical question can ensure that students understand a body of content information to arrive at a main idea answer.

Registration fee includes the three manuals.

Technology Every Professional Developer Should Know

1:00 pm

Room: Media Room
Presenters: Amber Nutt and Aaron Sumner, KU-CRL
Registration fee: $50

Learn to confidently integrate new technology into your professional development and instructional coaching. We’ll focus on best practices for online file-sharing, video conferencing, basic video production, and social media. We’ll also include plenty of time for hands-on activities. Be sure to bring a laptop and your questions.

SESSION CANCELLED: The Word Mapping Strategy and Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction Across Content Areas

1:00 pm

Room: TBA
Presenter: Monica Harris, Grand Valley State University
Registration fee: $50

This session will focus on vocabulary instruction using research-based practices to improve student literacy in content area classrooms. Participants will discuss the Word Mapping Strategy as well as the use of generative versus non-generative approaches for teaching vocabulary. In addition, participants will learn how to embed a variety of vocabulary strategies, use methods particular to word choice, and decide which words should be explicitly taught to improve the literacy of all students.  The Word Mapping Strategy manual is not included in the cost of this session. Participants may want to bring their copy of the manual to refer to during the discussion, but it is not necessary.