February

In this issue:

• February Celebrations
• OSU Writing Project Summer Institute
• PD Workshops in OKC
• ReadWorks

February Celebrations

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's to a day of joy and outside recess. February is Black History Month, Heart Healthy Month, Dental Health Month, and Valentine's Day. Lots of opportunities to integrate Health, Social Studies, Science, and Holidays into lessons. National Children's Dental Health Month American Heart Association

OSU Writing Project Summer Institute

2019 Invitational Summer Institute
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma

Pre-Institute Days: June 5 & 19
Institute: July 8-19
9:00 A.M.-4:00 P.M.
Willard Hall, OSU Campus

Apply online by March 10!

Overview

The Invitational Summer Institute is a professional development program where teachers of all subjects and all grade levels, Pre-K to university, come together to explore best practices, write and respond to others' writing, and read and discuss current research. Educators leave the Summer Institute with a wealth of ideas generated by sharing with other dedicated educators, strategies and activities for instruction and assessment, a renewed energy for teaching, a sense of confidence in their own writing abilities, and a connection to a larger collegial group.

Teachers invited to the Summer Institute will:

• Develop teaching strategies that fit their styles & meet the needs of their students
• Read & discuss research on the teaching of writing & how it may be applied to subjects across the curriculum
• Work in groups and share writing
• Present a demonstration
• Develop professional leadership roles as researchers, practitioners, writers, and inservice providers

Benefits

The benefits of attending the Summer Institute are:

• Graduate credit
• PD points
• Published OSUWP summer anthology
• Training in writing in the content areas: strategies for ELL instruction, technology integration, and achievement gap reduction
• Free PD for schools sending teams of two teachers
• Joining a professional community of writers and teacher leaders
• Training as a professional development workshop facilitator for "teachers teaching teachers"

PD Workshops in OKC

No doubt – teaching is both a challenging and rewarding career! Educators have to learn to juggle the many facets of teaching and managing a classroom!

Join Inspiration for Instruction on Saturday, March 2, for this focus session where they will discuss solutions to common problems and chronic stresses. Sessions will be specialized for elementary and secondary (middle and high) school teachers.

THRIVE is designed to focus on the needs of:

• university students preparing to teach
• first-year and second-year teachers
• alternative and emergency certified teachers

All educators are welcome to attend! Register for free today.

EdcampOKC 2019 will be Saturday, February 23, 2019, at Midwest City Elementary in MidDel Public SChools in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Register FREE on EventBrite! An EdCamp is a free “un-conference” for educators to share ideas, collaborate and network together. EdCamps are based on the BarCamp and TeachMeet conference models. The EdCamp Foundation received a $2 million grant from the Gates Foundation in the summer of 2015, and continues to grow nationally. This 2 minute video from EdCampOKSDE in Oklahoma City in July 2015 gives a good overview of what makes EdCamps such great learning events for educators. EdCampOKSDE (facilitated by EdCampOKC organizers working with OKSDE staff) was the largest EdCamp ever in the United States (as far as we know) with over 900 participants!.

ReadWorks

The website ReadWorks is a great resource for finding thousands of fiction and nonfiction passages with supports designed to improve comprehension. 

• Teachers and parents can search by: Topics, Reading Passages, Featured Reading Passages, Article-A-Day, Paired Texts, and Featured Article-A-Day.
• Curriculum & Supports available include: Question Sets, Vocabulary Activities (GR K-5), eBooks, StepReads, Human-Voice Audio, and Collections for ELLs. 

• Topics include: science

  • social studies
  • literary
  • skills & strategies
  • social & emotional learning
  • holidays & events