Seminars

Here is a list of seminar topics that I am currently conducting across the nation. All professional development training sessions are customized based on the needs of the audience so that every participant experiences content that is immediately relevant, meaningful and useful.

More specific information regarding each seminar is immediately available upon request.

Full Day/Multi-Day Topics

Each of these topics includes their own 140 page comprehensive resource handbook for each participant. This is filled with practical ideas, strategies, structures, and activities.

Motivation, Mindset and Grit

This workshop is designed to help you understand the newest, most compelling research on motivation, mindset and grit and how you can use them to increase student engagement, emotional well-being and achievement in your classroom. It is critical for educators to understand how different mindsets lead to different outcomes. A growth mindset may be the path toward developing grit and motivation. Come and spend the day in a highly practical, interactive and reflective setting with your colleagues and learn how to begin to apply these concepts to your classroom.

Creating an Emotionally Healthy Classroom

Thinking about creating an emotionally healthy classroom is not something else on the plate, it is the plate that everything else sits on. Once you get the plate established, everything else has a chance to flourish. Creating an emotionally healthy environment without relinquishing your role as a teacher is critical to the overall success and well-being of our students. By far the most important variable is how you relate to the students in your room. This day will be focused on how to combine explicit Social Emotional Learning Skills and instruction with high interest, best practice academic approaches. Many strategies will be shared including mindfulness practices, building relationship skills and improving students’ self-control. Come ready to reflect, discuss and share.

Motivating Hard-to-Reach,

Uninterested Students

In this workshop, the most current, relevant and fascinating research will be shared to help you understand what motivation really is and what it is not. It will also focus on specific classroom practices that show you how to create conditions in your classroom that allow motivation to flourish-especially for the seemingly “unmotivated” or oppositional students. You will learn powerful ways to help hard-to-reach students understand and develop a positive growth mindset which can, in turn, motivate them to more deeply engage and buy into the learning process. Some ideas include proven ways of creating a physically and emotionally healthy classroom, strategies and research on mindfulness, specific, innovative curricular approaches to make sure students are active participants, not passive consumers, and practical approaches to building positive, trusting relationships. It is critical for educators to understand how different mindsets lead to different outcomes. Spend the day immersed in ideas and discussion that can help you create classrooms that are full of joy. Come ready for a highly practical, interactive and reflective setting with your colleagues and learn how to begin to apply these concepts to your classroom.

The following are topics that are typically 2-3

hour sessions. These can also be combined to

create a custom day.

Mindfulness in the Classroom Our students are stressed and anxious. Our lives are busy, and we often find our thoughts buzzing over the past or worrying about the future. Press the “pause button.” Educators know that students learn best when they are comfortable, safe and relaxed. Mindfulness is about putting down our juggling balls for a bit. Come to this workshop to discover how to introduce mindfulness and its many benefits into your classroom.

Motivation Matters There is a huge mismatch between what science knows and what school systems do around motivation. There are now decades of research that demonstrates that our mindset is the driving force behind our motivation. Receive current research on motivation in the classroom as well as several approaches to learning that incorporate high interest and relevance for your students.

True Grit This workshop will be based on the book Gritby renowned psychology researcher Angela Duckworth. Grit is the quality in people that makes them ultimately successful despite whatever challenges or obstacles are in their way. This concept is significant for our students as intelligence and ability are not always the only predictors of success. Potential is one thing. What you do with it is quite another. This workshop aims to provide a beginning point on your quest to understanding Grit and what it means for our classrooms.

How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset in the Classroom As educators, we know that success in the classroom isn’t determined by inborn skills and intelligence. Your DNA is not your destiny! Come and learn what growth mindset is andwhat it is not. Learn how to create an atmosphere in which your students are aware of their own mindset, their own self-talk and their own beliefs about their intelligence.

Managing States in the Classroom Managing states has to do with the emotional environment in a classroom and if this is lacking it is difficult, if not impossible, to get students in any kind of a learning mindset or feeling motivated. As teachers, we are always trying to create or change particular states in our classrooms. Understanding states and how to manage them as a teacher is critical. Come and learn how to influence the many changing states in your classroom.

Environments for Learning A good starting point for thinking about mindset and motivation is the set up and feel of a classroom. Second only to the quality of the teacher, classroom environment is the most influential factor to student success. Based on the newest neuroscience research, come and learn how to create classroom spaces that completely engage students in the act of learning.

Mindmapping in the Classroom Mindmapping is a highly emotional, revolutionary approach to both teaching and learning. There are endless benefits to mindmapping including encouraging creativity, making it easy to organize ideas and concepts, creating memory in the first place and teaching students how to learn rather than simply memorize content. Come and learn how to mindmap so that you can take this exciting approach to learning back to your students.

Engaging Ideas to Increase Motivation Motivation begins with interest and it is our job, not the students, to make our curricular approaches interesting, intriguing, and if we are lucky, maybe even irresistible. It is our job to create engaging classrooms, not compliant ones. Come and learn five brain based instructional strategies that can increase motivation, interest and relevance in the classroom and allow for more autonomy and purpose.

It’s All about Relationships One of the most critical skills we need for success in our profession comes from the ability to connect with our students and to create trust and risk taking in our classrooms. Let’s be honest-you work harder for those to whom you feel connected and those that you like. You just do. Relationships are the hallmark of positive, welcoming and memorable classrooms. Learn some new ways to connect to students and to connect students to each other.