Professional Development Zoominars for Teachers

During the 2022-2023 school year, the Department of Elementary Education at Minnesota State University, Mankato will be providing monthly zoominar sessions for teacher professional development.?These zoominar sessions will have two goals: (a) get new knowledge and skills directly into the hands of classroom teachers and (b) provide meaningful and impactful continuing education units and clock hours for teachers.

These are free webinars.?Clock hours and CEUs will be provided.?

Zoominars.?Most are familiar with the webinar format.?Here a speaker presents information to an online audience.?Participants are able to pose questions via chat or the written question-answer format.?A zoominar is webinar in a zoom classroom.?Here participants can converse with each other and the presenter in real time.?As well, zoominars enable participants to meet in breakout rooms to reflect and to share ideas.?The zoominar is the ideal format for teacher professional development.?Zoominar sessions will generally be about 45 to 50 minutes in duration with time for questions and breakout sessions.?

Topics. Past topics have tended to focus on pedagogical strategies related to literacy.?Here are some of the topics that we could address in the 2022-2023 school year:

1. Teaching Writing, K-8

2. Teaching Narrative Writing, K-8

3. Teaching Expository Writing

4. Using Literacy to Address Social and Emotional Needs of Students

5. Teaching Grammar, K-8

6. Incorporating Thinking Skills into the Curriculum.

7. Developing Comprehension with Narrative Text

8. Comprehension and Study Skill Strategies

9. Improving Word Recognition and Word Identification

10. Developing Reading Fluency

11. Reading Diagnoses, Assessment, and Progress Monitoring

12. RTI For Reading

13. Emotions, Stress, and Struggling Readers

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Zoominar topics can also be identified by the needs of participating schools.??

?Effective Professional Development for Teachers

These zoominars will incorporate five elements of effective professional development for teachers.?They will:

1. be sustained over time.

2. occur on multiple occasions.

3. include conversation and social interaction.

4. provide opportunities for teachers to plan, get feedback, and reflect.

5. enable teachers to try new strategies in authentic teaching contexts, reflect, and converse.

If you think your school might be interested in participating in this next year, or if you have specific topics you would like addressed, please contact Dr. Andrew Johnson at: [email protected]