Berkshire Countywide PD

Click on the picture and you will have access to the following module:

Title: Getting Started with online or remote teaching

Description: After completing this module, participants will be able to distinguish between remote and online teaching modalities, identify the central purpose of remote and online teaching modalities, identify affordances and constraints of remote and online teaching modalities and identify specific areas for individual growth and questions related to remote and online teaching.

Length: 145 minutes

Appropriate Grade Level: All

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Title: Canvas 101

Description: So, you’re using Canvas for the first time. Forget the bells and whistles: what you really need right now is the most straightforward way to accomplish key tasks with your students, remotely, so that their core learning outcomes are met. If you are, or have been, a student at MCLA then you are familiar with Canvas from the student perspective. You can use this perspective to inform your new learning about how to use Canvas from the teacher's perspective.

Length: 45 minutes

Appropriate Grade Level: All

Click on the picture and you will have access to the following module:

Title: How do I engage my students?

Description:

With schools closed to in-person instruction and operating on hybrid models during the 2020-21 school year, many of us are going to be doing a lot of our teaching remotely. This module is not here to give you specific teaching strategies; instead, it is here to help you think about student engagement in remote instruction.

Length: 2 hours

Appropriate Grade Level: All

Click on the picture and you will have access to the following module:

Title: Stepping out: Teaching and Learning in the outdoors

Description: As we navigate and survive our current global pandemic, educators around the world are re-imagining what safe schools and learning environments look like for our students. Together, parents and teachers alike are asking: Why Can't We Just Have Class Outside?

This professional development module explores the theory, history and current pedagogical practices involved in education that lives outside of the classroom walls. When you invite your students to explore the outside natural world...What will they learn? What will you learn?

Length: 2-4 hours

Appropriate Grade Level: All

Click on the picture and you will have access to the following module:

Title: Writing my way to you: Engaging all students in writing instruction

Description: Teaching writing as a holistic process helps students to understand how to get from first idea to final product.

Teaching writing as an authentic process provides students with many and varied opportunities to write for real purposes that have personal meaning.

The purpose of this professional development module in writing instruction is to provide you with foundational and practical resources to help your students to write more effectively and joyfully.

Length: 3-5 hours

Appropriate Grade Level: All

Title: The Visually Impaired Student In Your Classroom

Submitted by: Lynn Shortis

Description:

This PowerPoint presentation will provide information about types of visual impairments, their impact on learning and specialized instructional needs as well as potential accommodations. Two brief case studies are shared to allow you to see more specifically how learning is impacted when there is a significant visual impairment or one is not identified for a period of time. It will discuss the role of the Teacher for the Visually Impaired, a specific special education certification for this population of students.

Included are several links to checklists should you suspect a student needs further screening as well as tips for when you do have a student with visual impairment in your classroom.

Length: 90-100 minutes. Can take longer if you wish to spend more time on websites.

Appropriate Grade Levels: All (pre-K-12)

Title: How Best to Support a Child in "Your" Remote Learning Environment.

Submitted by: Christine Singer

Description:

None of us ever imagined being in the position of adding a new task to our ever-growing list of what we are called upon to do for our children as parents and caregivers. Serving as the “primary coach” to ensure your child both understands and completes remote school assignments is probably among the most difficult task ever asked of most of us.

Adding that one or both parents/caregivers may be working either in or out of the home, of course, greatly compounds things. Whatever your situation, participants in this workshop will get in touch with what you need to successfully get through these challenging times in YOUR own remote learning environment (the place you actually call “home”).

Length: 2 hours

Appropriate Grade Levels: K-12

This is the Spanish version of the "How Best to Support a Child in "Your" Remote Learning Environment.

Title: A Creative Approach to the Trauma-informed Classroom in Response to Covid-19.

Submitted by: Marney Schorr

Description:

As we embark on transitioning students from quarantine to the classroom, it is crucial that school staff are equipped with best trauma-informed practices so they can help students safely navigate the traumatic effects of COVID-19. In this workshop, participants

will learn (1) how to recognize the signs of trauma in student behavior (2) how the brain processes trauma and how that affects learning (3) how to implement creative and simple evidenced-based interventions to help students self regulate and co-regulate back

to safety (4) how to recognize and treat your own secondary traumatic stress by nature of your work.

Length: 2 hours

Appropriate Grade Levels: All levels

Title: Teacher Engagement of Family Members in their Child's Education

Submitted by: Christine Singer

Description:

In this workshop, we will examine resources that can best support and engage families, determine expectations for effective communication protocols and explore tips and checklists that may guide both families and teachers towards enhanced engagement. As always, optimal educational opportunities for each child to thrive based on their unique needs, skills and talents is the focus.

Length: two hour workshop with the last 20-30 minutes for teachers to share their ideas and suggestions

Appropriate Grade Level: K-12

Title: Your students' Plan For the Future - Resources to support Career Development

Submitted by: Heather Williams & Kathleen Toomey

Description:

It is now becoming widely accepted and understood that academic preparation alone is no longer enough to adequately prepare our youth for career success within our current competitive and dynamic 21^st century workplace. It is essential for our youth to have career readiness and personal-social development as well to ensure they are equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills and experiences for college & career success and productive civic engagement. This presentation by the MassHire Berkshire Workforce Board will highlight why career readiness and social-emotional development is crucial for all youth and how this is dually serving as a viable solution in addressing the region’s critical workforce issues. Examples of existing career readiness models, activities and programs within the K-12 system and resources to establish these activities will be highlighted.

Presentation Length: 13 minutes, 19 seconds

Appropriate Grade Levels: K-12

Title: Objects and Their Stories: Creating Curriculum Connections to Museum Collections

Submitted by: Jasmine DeJackome and Berkshire Museum

Description:

Through 2 sequential presentations, educators will first see how Berkshire Museum education staff bring to life individual collection pieces for school programming. This will be followed by a short presentation and flipped learning model that asks teachers to take a different piece from the collection and create innovative in-classroom learning opportunities for their students.

In our first presentation, teachers will learn how Berkshire Museum staff take an object from our collection and bring it to life through interdisciplinary curricula and facilitated exploration. Museum staff will present a prepared curriculum geared at grades 3-5, with corresponding Massachusetts History and Social Science and Science and Technology Engineering Frameworks addressed, and walk teachers through how we use Thomas Cole’s painting, Yosemite Valley to get to our final product.

Educators will then review a short presentation on another Berkshire Museum holding, Matthew Henson’s fur suit and sledge. Participants will be asked to build a robust lesson plan and unique learning opportunity for their students using these objects.

Length: 1-2 hours

Appropriate Grade Levels: 3rd-5th

Title: Natural Dyeing with a Shaker Twist

Submitted by: Brece Honeycutt, Cindy Dickinson, and other staff at Hancock Shaker Village

Description: Organized by Hancock Shaker Village, this workshop uses the Shakers--a religious communal group that resided in Berkshire County for more than 150 years--as a case study to learn more about the fascinating history and process of creating colorful dyes from plants. This module uses several method—videos, written materials, and self-directed time—to cover the history and process of dyeing with natural materials and to assist educators in creating a unit of their own involving dyeing (be sure to remember the “e”!) Drawing on the talents and expertise of 2020 artist-in-residence Brece Honeycutt, this workshop reviews the purposes for natural dyes, the history of their use (especially within the Shaker community), the best local plants to use for such purposes, and the process of creating and using dye. This workshop module is appropriate for classroom teachers as well as art specialists and can fulfill frameworks in various subject areas, including visual arts, science, and social studies. The workshop includes about 2.5-3 hours of content and activities; it can be completed in segments.

The workshop was developed in fall 2020 at Hancock Shaker Village, with contributions from the Curatorial and Education Departments and invaluable assistance from Brece Honeycutt, Artist-in-Residence. Brece Honeycutt’s artist residency is supported by Artists at Work, a new program designed to give artists resources to continue to produce work during the immediate health and economic crisis brought by COVID, and to build new structures and partnerships that will help to sustain the creative sector in a post-pandemic America.

Hancock Shaker Village is a National Historic Landmark dedicated to sharing the history, legacy, and

continuing relevance of the Shakers, a religious group who lived at the site from 1790 until 1960.

For more information about the Village, or with questions or comments about this workshop, contact the Education Department at Hancock Shaker Village: cdickinson@hancockshakervillage.org or 413-443-0188 x213.

Length: 2.5-3 hours

Appropriate Grade Levels: All

Natural Dyeing with a Shaker Twist Video

Common Dye Stuffs Video

How to Make Dye Video

How to Make Ink Video

Title: Manipulating Data in Excel

Submitted by: AlbanyCanCode

Description: This recording steps viewers through several methods of manipulating data using tools built into Microsoft Excel. John Sturman demonstrates how to sort, filter, and perform other common operations to make a large table of data more useful and manageable. The video is geared towards delivery use for teachers rather than students, however it could be useful for high schoolers as well.

Grade Level: High School Students/Educators

Time: 27 minutes 40 seconds