Professional Development
We offer multiple professional development workshops, both online and on-campus, which will equip elementary school teachers with numerous strategies designed to complement their lessons and facilitate meaningful and lasting learning. We specialize in providing educators in bilingual classrooms with the educational tools they need to help their students achieve academic success!
We are a Texas Education Agency Approved CPE Provider.
If you do not see what you are looking for, make sure to contact us. We are here to help you!
Workshops
Three Steps to Mastery Academic Vocabulary
The use of effective strategies to teach academic vocabulary in content areas becomes a must. Learn how to help your students increase their academic language using culturally relevant, engaging, and technology-based activities.
Participants will learn:
- How to generate an inquisitive and explorative classroom culture through activities that promote higher-order thinking across the curriculum
- Use culturally-relevant activities and build meaningful and engaging lessons around students’ experiences
- Help students create and maintain interactive notebooks that develop visual literacy, make connections, build vocabulary, and improve retention
- Implement gamification principles to energize learning, improve study skills, and increase vocabulary while assessing comprehension
- Hands-on experiences with free multiplatform technologies that encourage problem-solving and the acquisition of academic language
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Apps for Vocabulary Development
Augmented Reality technology (AR) adds a layer of additional digital information (text, pictures, video, or sounds) onto the real world, allowing users to interact with this new layer as if it existed in the real world. Virtual reality technology (VR) uses headsets to generate realistic images, sounds, and other sensations that replicate a real environment. This workshop will demonstrate the multiple apps available for Android or iOS devices that take advantage of AR and VR technologies to provide teachers with the opportunity of deepening learning. Examples will be provided on using these technologies for homework, lab safety, science fairs, study guides, and more. During this workshop, participants will create Augmented Reality experiences of their own.
They will also learn how to:
- Efficiently use free multiplatform AR and VR technologies to activate prior knowledge in the students
- Create vocabulary development activities using Augmented reality technology to facilitate meaningful connections and lasting learning
- Use AR and VR tools as forms of informal assessment
- Familiarize with apps available today which are using AR and VR technology to facilitate learning in Science, Math, Social Studies, and Reading
TEKS-Based Games for Vocabulary Development with ELLs
This workshop provides educators with the necessary skills to implement TEKS-based games designed to energize new vocabulary learning in Math and Science.
Participants will learn how to:
- Distinguish between playful learning, game-based learning, and gamification in the classroom
- Use games to differentiate instruction
- Design games to develop new vocabulary and improve retention
- Implement games to enhance logical-mathematical thinking and scientific knowledge
- Take advantage of free multi-platform technologies that promote playful learning of STEM subjects