SERVICES & TRAINING
STEAMing in Early Childhood
We integrate across the curriculum because Integration focuses on making connections for students, allowing them to engage in relevant, meaningful activities that can be connected to real life. Participants will learn how to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math all in one lesson. No more teaching in isolation. Participants will explore learning with hands-on science and math activities while combining songs and nursery rhymes as well as creating art. Participants will also experiment with consumable and non-consumable materials in unexpected ways to create something unique. Participants will leave the session motivated and excited with the knowledge of how to help children develop critical and problem solving skills.
Creative Play
Play is vital to children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. Through play children can develop creativity, convergent & divergent thinking, problem solving, representational skills & concept development, and Language & Literacy development. As children play, their brain develops, their muscles grow strong, and they develop good social and life skills such as learning to share, take turns, make choices, and understand the feelings of others. During this training, participants will learn ways to support children’s spontaneous imaginative play and creative thinking, as well as ways to incorporate creative dramatics into their early childhood program using developmentally appropriate hands-on activities.
Mentoring and Coaching in the Classroom
Research shows that when coaching accompanies training, teachers transfer 80-90% of what they learn into the classroom, compared to only 5-10% with training alone. This training is geared towards administrators to help prevent burnout by giving your teachers the support they need to be motivated, excited, and successful in the classroom and throughout the year. During this training, participants will obtain proven strategies from Harry Wong to help implement successful induction, mentoring, and renewal programs, which provide the support necessary to retain and revitalize teachers.
Differentiated Instruction / Instructional Strategies that Work
“Differentiation is an organized yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet kids where they are and help them to achieve maximum growth as learners.” Carol Ann Tomlinson (The Differentiated Classroom
No one student is the same, yet in schools we often treat them as though they were. Experience has taught us that all students are different, they learn differently, and have different likes, preferences, and needs. Differentiated instruction/ learning is a way of thinking about teaching and learning. It involves teachers using a variety of instructional strategies that address diverse student learning needs. Students are placed at the center of teaching and learning and student needs drive instructional planning, as opposed to more traditional education methods of teachers, text materials, or curriculum determining what students should be learning. Differentiated instruction is a way to enhance learning for all students by engaging them in activities that respond to their particular learning needs, strengths, and preferences and is effective in addressing the needs of gifted or high-achieving students, students with special needs, as well a second language learners who are in the same classroom.
Differentiated instruction has been referred to as a philosophy, an idea that has as many faces as practitioners, a proactive approach to instruction, as well as many other ideas. The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to tailor their instruction and adjust the curriculum t students’ needs rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum. The teacher who is committed to this approach will understand that who they teach shapes how they teach because who the students are shapes how they learn.
During this training teachers will engage in challenging and engaging tasks for each learner (from the low-end learners to high-end learners). Teachers will enjoy several activities as well as receive strategies for using numerous activities in the classrooms that will change students’ lives.
Teachers will learn how to differentiate:
-
The content that students learn
-
The assessment tools being used
-
The performance tasks selected
-
The instructional strategies used
Head Start on Science
This training consists of 6 hours of all hands-on activities from the Head Start on Science Guide. The teachers engage in about 15 different developmentally appropriate hands-on activities selected from the guide. The activities require consumable items, as well as non-consumable items such as goggles, hand lenses, magnets, test tubes, micro tubes, beakers, balances, and many more. All materials and supplies will be provided by Gateway to Knowledge.
During the activities, the teachers utilize six science processes that are developmentally appropriate for young children. Those processes are: Observing, Classifying, Measuring, Inferring, Predicting, and Communicating. All of the activities are directly related to the TEKS. The framework in the Head Start on Science Guide is composed of 8 general domains, 27 domain elements, and 100 more specific indicators of children’s skills, abilities, knowledge, and behaviors.
Each activity includes: Investigation, Process Skills, Materials, and Procedure. There are follow-up activities to accompany each activity. There are center connections, literature connections, and family science connections (in English and Spanish). The family science connections are intended to be photocopied and sent home with students to extend the learning that has taken place at school.
Each participant will receive a Head Start on Science book w/ 89 developmentally appropriate hands-on activities. They will receive a kit with lots of consumable and non-consumable material. Finally, they will receive valuable information that will enable them to be successful science teachers.
Classroom Management
Educating our children has become more and more challenging over the years. Students enter the classrooms with diverse backgrounds, interests, skills, learning abilities and disabilities. It is imperative to make sure that teachers are meeting their needs and finding appropriate learning activities. It is mandatory for teachers to establish an effective classroom management system in order to develop a smoothly running classroom community where students are highly involved in worthwhile activities to foster their learning. A well-managed classroom lays the foundation for learning to take place.
This training can be customized to fit any grade level from pre-kinder thru 12th grade. We focus on many areas during the training.
Some of the areas we focus on during the training are:
-
Building a classroom management system
-
Effective strategies for communicating positive expectations
-
Organizing their classroom and instructional materials
-
Planning and conducting instruction
-
Creating independent learners
-
Maintaining appropriate student behavior
-
Communicating skills for teaching
-
Succeeding from day one
Culturally Responsive Training
Culturally responsive practices validate the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of students. These practices, rooted in acknowledging the strengths of traditionally marginalized communities, intentionally incorporate students' existing knowledge and foster their rich cultural identities within classroom instruction.
Years of comprehensive research indicate that proficient implementation of culturally responsive practices can advance students' understanding of academic concepts, thus aiding in closing the achievement gap. Additionally, it can amplify their engagement in learning, boost motivation, foster the acquisition of essential skills for academic, social, and emotional development, and facilitate overall holistic achievement and lifelong learning, among other beneficial outcomes.
