Differentiating Instruction and Curriculum for Learner Needs

Online Seminars for CTLE

Advanced Grouping Strategies (5 hours) - This seminar explores advanced use of materials and resources that support outcomes and engage students in meaningful learning.

Culturally Responsive Classrooms (5 hours) - The goal of culturally responsive teaching is to instruct in a way that ensures engage in cognitively demanding tasks that foster independent learning by increasing student engagement and strengths-based mindset.

Designing Lessons, Units, and Learning Units (5 hours) - Participants will explore how to design lesson and unit structures that are clear, progress evenly, allow for different pathways according to diverse student needs, accommodate content that is connected to other disciplines, and allow for transfer of learning.

Effective Instructional Outcomes (8 hours) - In this seminar, participants will create and analyze instructional outcomes that represent high expectations and rigor, build on prior learning, and connect to other disciplines as well as how to differentiate the learning experiences for diverse learners.

Explaining Content: Teacher to Student (5 hours) - Participants will explore how to effectively present, explain, and design activities related to content. This seminar also examines strategies and activities that teachers can apply to make connections to student interests, experiences, backgrounds, and prior knowledge.

Helping English Learners Succeed with a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) Framework (5 hours) – MTSS offers a prevention approach rather that a "wait to fail" method and provides appropriate and responsive instruction for multilingual learners with and without disabilities in schools. In this seminar, you will look at how MTSS offers a tiered system of culturally-sustaining instructional practices, data-informed problem solving and academic and linguistic progress monitoring to address the needs of all learners.

Inclusive Classrooms for Newcomer ELLs (5 hours) - Newcomer ELLs face myriad challenges to adapt and succeed in their new home and schools and they bring with them a world of culturally diverse experiences and knowledge. Guided by Eight Promising Practices, educators will learn ways to create a classroom environment that promotes diversity and inclusion, social-emotional well-being and development, models encouragement, support and resilience and engages newcomer ELLs with high-quality instruction.

Promoting Student Engagement (8 hours) - This seminar explores activities and assignments that promote deep learning, engage all students, and encourage students to initiate or adapt activities to enhance their understanding. Participants will also examine instructional materials and resources that engage students, how to provide student choice among materials, lesson structure and pacing that allows opportunity for reflection and closure.

Responsive Teaching: Basic (15 hours) - This seminar explores the essential foundation a teacher needs to accommodate student interests, explain outcomes, create activities, and design instruction to ensure engagement and success among all students in a flexible and responsive classroom. Participants will examine, implement, and reflect on the basics of lesson adjustment, teachable moments, and seek resources for students who need help.

Strategies for SIFE Success! (5 hours) - Students with Interrupted/Inconsistent Formal Education (SIFE) are English language learners who enter U.S. schools at least two years below grade level in reading and/or math in their native language due to underschooling. In this seminar, participants will examine common characteristics and experiences of the SIFE population and learn how to design classroom environments and apply specific strategies that honor students’ backgrounds to foster SIFE success.

Students Grouping and Supportive Resources (5 hours) - Participants will examine appropriate uses of technology, groups designed to enhance student learning, and materials and resources that are suitable to all students. This seminar emphasizes the need for student choice and input in the design process.

Translating IEP Goals into Classroom Accommodations (5 hours) - As the number of students with IEPs in the classroom has increased, so has the expectation that classroom teachers will help students to meet IEP goals while maintaining a rigorous standards-based curriculum. This online seminar will offer accommodations that remove barriers and provide equal access to learning for all students with special needs in the general classroom setting including English language learners with IEPs.

Types of Learning Activities (5 hours) - This seminar focuses exclusively on types of learning activities that promote deep learning aligned with the goals of the lesson and allow students to exercise some choice.

Online and Site-Based Courses for Graduate Credit

8 Cultural Forces to Transform Our Schools (CURI 6570) - Teachers will learn the latest research behind each cultural force, techniques to utilize the force in an educational setting, and strategies to change their classroom and school environments.

Build School Communities: Brain Smart Classroom Management (EDV 535) - Students will learn how to differentiate for classroom management and discipline similarly to differentiating for students’ diverse academic needs. One size does not fit all, but all sizes can fit together.

Differentiated Instruction in Todays Schools (CURI 6517) - Understand and implement strategies associated with the essential, distinguishing components of differentiated instruction.

Making Thinking Visible in the Classroom (CURI 6562) / (UNY 708) - Participants will learn about thinking involved in understanding and how students think. Specific focus will be on Howard Gardner’s “Multiple Intelligence Theory” and the eight intelligences.

Maximizing the Learning Environment for Increased Student Achievement and Growth (CURI 6522) - This course addresses the fundamental aspects of teaching and learning that are relevant for educators in all grade levels and subject areas. It examines proven practices for many of the indicators on state and district wide teacher evaluation rubrics.

Reclaiming Personalized Learning (CURI 6533) - This class will help educators restore equity and humanity to their classrooms and schools through personalization of education. The lessons will help teachers shape whole-class instruction, leverage small-group interactions, and nurture a student’s inner dialogue.

In-Person and Virtual Synchronous Seminars

Constructivist Teaching and Learning - Participants will explore how students learn when they “build” the learning for themselves (3 hour)

Crafting a Learning Community for Classroom Discussions - Effective and powerful classroom discussions do not just occur; they require a learning community that fosters their development. The use of different types of norms, selected scaffolds, and knowledge of the stages and continuum of classroom discussion are explored. (3 hour)

Creating a Culturally Responsive Classroom - Culturally responsive instructional practices honor and support this diversity, connecting learning to students' cultural and linguistic background while building on prior experiences. As a result, educators create an inclusive environment that is accessible and relatable to all students. (3 hour)

Designing Effective Instruction and Learning for English Learners - The five high-leverage principles presented in this seminar synthesize the work of leading scholars and educators and reflect basic practices that can improve teaching and learning for English learners across the content areas. Participants will examine evidence-based instructional strategies that can be incorporated into daily lesson plans and routines as well as determine effective ways to teach and assess both language and disciplinary content. (3 hour)

Differentiated Instruction: Connecting With All Learners - This session raises awareness of research that supports instructional differentiation and examines the basic elements of two differentiation models. The seminar addresses the planning, teaching and learning aspects of differentiated instruction that all teachers may experience. (3 hour)

Differentiating Instruction - Participants will discuss developing an array of strategies for sharing differences, identifying similarities, and embracing diversity with the learning environment. (1 hour)

Educating English Learners in Elementary Classrooms - This seminar, designed for elementary teachers, focuses on language acquisition and the challenges ELLs at different proficiency levels face in the mainstream classroom. Teachers will experience a variety of research-based strategies and modifications and learn how to apply them in lesson plans that foster the academic achievement of ELLs in their classes. (3 hour)

Effective Questioning - In this seminar, participants will explore the different purposes of questioning, classify questions according to purpose, and better understand Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. (3 hour)

Establishing Inclusive Classrooms Where Newcomer ELLs Thrive - Newcomer students are recently-arrived immigrants representative of a range of languages, cultures, school experiences, literacy skills, and immigration circumstances. Guided by Eight Promising Practices, participants will learn ways to create an inclusive classroom for newcomer ELLs with spaces that embrace the voices of linguistically diverse communities and provide pathways for authentic learning opportunities.

Growth Mindset, Growing Minds to Achieve Success - This seminar explores how to develop an environment that encourages a growth mindset, discusses growth vs. fixed mindset. (3 hour)

Identifying Individual Differences - Teachers will identify gaps in students’ interest, experience and ability that challenge student learning and then identify strategies to bridge those gaps. (1 hour)

Including English Learners: Strategies for Academic Success - In this seminar, participants explore four research-based recommendations for engaging English learners in subject area instruction. Participants will view real life classroom examples and experience practical hands-on activities that can be applied across grade levels and content areas. (3 hour)

Increasing Comprehension of ELLs for SRPs - This seminar will familiarize participants with who our English language learners are and the challenges that they face as they acquire a new language. Participants will have the opportunity to examine how critical culture is and its impact on an English learner’s identity as well as explore strategies for making information more comprehensible and accessible to ELLs. (3 hour)

Instructional Supports for English Language Learners - Geared for general education teachers, this seminar will help participants design effective content-area instruction while they explore research-based strategies, instructional guidelines and resources for helping ELLs succeed. (3 hour)

Language Acquisition and Learning - Through exposure to research literature and information on language acquisition theory, you will gain a deeper understanding of the intersection of language and learning. Educators will be guided to reflect on how language development affects instruction and learning in their own classrooms. (3 hour)

Meet Individual Needs - Participants will discuss how to create a culture of learning, utilizing multiple methods to meet individual student needs. (1 hour)

Planning for the Success of ELLs in Content Classes - This seminar provides the opportunity to examine research-based strategies and approaches that assist ELLs in meeting rigorous grade-level standards through a step-by-step breakdown of the lesson planning process that includes scaffolded language and content objectives. (3 hour)

Planning Goals and Instructional Goal Setting - Participants will discuss setting goals in planning and instruction to address the challenges in differentiating learning goals. This session will help clarify concepts and provide participants an opportunity to practice the process. (1 hour)

SIFE Success: Know Your Students and Strategies! - Help! I have a newcomer in my classroom! What should I do? Teachers can start by taking this foundational seminar on Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE) students and spend time exploring characteristics of SIFE students to better serve their needs in the classroom. (3 hour)

Teaching Students to Ask Questions - Participants will be introduced to, and work closely with, a protocol proven to encourage active classroom involvement and the development of questioning skills in students. (3 hour)

SRP Seminar: Cognitive Strategies and Engagement - This seminar delves into multiple strategies for educators to create that rich learning environment and motivate our 21st century students. (3 hour)

SRP Seminar: Learning Preferences: Four Styles for Success - In this seminar participants will examine four learning preferences or modes: kinesthetic, tactual, auditory and visual. Through a variety of experiential activities participants will assess their own comfort levels in the four modes and rate their learning strengths in each.

SRP Seminar: Poverty and its Effect on Learning - This seminar provides an overview of how to engage students dealing with poverty. (3 hour)