Grade-Specific Support for a Best-Possible Online Launch of 2020-2021: State of the Art Help Teaching Your First Reading/Writing Units Online

Monday, August 17 - Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Hours: 11am-5pm Eastern Standard Time
Institute will be offered virtually through Zoom.

Grade: K-8
Featuring: Colleen Cruz, Kristi Guinness, Jennifer Morales, Brittany Nocito, and Natalie Friday
Payment: Purchase orders for this institute can be made out to: Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, 525 W 120th Street, Box 77, New York, NY 10027

The idea that Back-to-School won’t happen in August/September of 2020 is a heartbreaking notion. Our kids need us to do all we can to make the upcoming school year the best that it can be. We must dig deep to find solutions that are sustainable—and even joyful—for us, our kids, and their families.

The institute is designed to offer you not only the curriculum but also the expertise so that you can teach your first unit in a state-of-the-art distance-learning way. The TCRWP staff has worked with hundreds of schools in Spring 2020 and has had time together to sift through, combine, and deepen all that we have learned from that experience. For those first units in reading and in writing, we’ll have thought through all the thorny questions. How will you handle the read aloud? We’ll share options and ideas. How will you offer feedback? You’ll leave this institute with the digital texts, flipped lessons, slides, handouts, tech tips, personal stories, and insider expertise that will help keep your workshops lively, personal, fun, and, most of all, highly effective for your young digital learners.

The institute will include workshops on different aspects of digital teaching, with opportunities to choose the learning that feels right for your particular situation. Part of the time will focus on what we have learned about giving flipped and live lessons and about conferring and leading small groups virtually. We’ll share tips we’ve learned for keeping engagement high during that teaching. We’ll also offer guidance on ways to offer the feedback critical to student growth in reading, writing, and critical thinking.

This institute will also create cohorts so that you have the support of others who will be teaching kids like yours, in contexts like yours, so that you can be a resource for each other throughout the fall. We’ll set you up to share responsibilities, tips, and resources—pooling time and talents—so that no one needs to reinvent the wheel. Our goal is not only to set you up for this next unit but also to give you tips that work for digital planning and digital teaching from now on. Above all, we want to give you back some time and peace of mind so that you can focus solely and wholeheartedly on your children.

Cost

$650/$600 NYC DOE

Where

This institute will be offered online, in real-time via Zoom, and will not be recorded for later distribution. We will accept attendees until the institute has reached capacity.