Student Engagement Now
Ernest Mendes, Consultant/President, Mendes Training & Consulting, Inc., CA

This fast-paced, interactive session will exemplify how to create anticipation, curiosity, enthusiasm, confidence, and cooperation in the classroom. Experience an increase in your own short-term memory in this presentation, and learn how to open the gates to long-term memory recall. This brain-based training will teach participants how to deliver and differentiate instruction through four memory paths and four of the brain’s natural learning systems. Have fun and learn how to engage all learners.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

The Rock ’n’ Roll Classroom: The Magic of Music in the Classroom
Cristal McGill, Ph.D., Education Consultant, Impact Learning, Inc., CO

Over the past decade, music as an instructional tool has moved rapidly into even the most traditional classrooms. This creative (and frequently hilarious) session provides a hands-on overview of the many ways in which music can power up the classroom in order to boost attention, learning, and recall, as well as improve discipline and create a non- threatening learning climate. Attend this workshop only if you like lots of music and are ready to “rock and roll”!

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Improve Motor Skills; Accelerate Progress for AD/HD and Other Learners
Cynthia Roth Pahr, M.Ed., Founder, EduClime, CA

Today’s students are struggling with motor skills. Find out what you can do about it! Many AD/HD students’ motor difficulties are misunderstood, resulting in negative school experiences and failure. Learn fun, effective strategies to help students with fine motor, gross motor, visual tracking, and sensory skills. You can employ these strategies on Thursday morning and have a repertoire of ideas to share with teachers who need assistance with students in these areas. Handwriting emphasized.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, Special Education
Grade Level: K–6

Standards Plus®—A Process for Continuous Improvement
Joe Deem, Executive Director, and Dave Ackley, Learning Plus Associates, CA

Standards Plus® is a direct instruction intervention process designed to supplement a school’s regular curriculum and instructional program. The lessons are aligned to discrete elements of essential standards in language arts and mathematics. The instructional schedule is based on student needs identified by thoughtful analysis of local and state testing results. Data indicate that schoolwide use of this comprehensive reform model has been an important element in helping schools consistently reach their AYP targets.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, NEW!, Marketing Session
Grade Level: K–8

You Can’t Make Me! Managing the Oppositional Defiant Student
Ernest Mendes, Consultant/President, Mendes Training & Consulting, Inc., CA

Procedures and approaches that usually work with most kids don’t work with the ODD child. This interactive session is for educators interested in better understanding the ODD student. ODD will be addressed in the context of the emotional intelligence competencies required on the part of the adult to effectively manage ODD in the classroom. Teachers will learn to flow with resistance through a specific set of environmental and interpersonal strategies designed to reduce defiance in the ODD child.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Research-Based Strategies to Connect Expository Reading and Writing
Carolyn Hood, Literacy Coach, Learning Headquarters, San Diego County Office of Education, CA

This exciting session features research-based strategies to incorporate expository reading and writing into your existing curriculum. Help students identify key information in expository texts and transform this knowledge into higher-level vocabulary, powerful sentences, paragraphs, summaries, and essays.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–8

It Is Possible! All Students Can Write Successfully at Standard
Linda Fisher, Principal on assignment, Learning Headquarters, San Diego COE, CA

Imagine transforming your school into a data-driven learning community where teachers are motivated and students are actively engaged in standards-based writing. A Milken National Award-winning principal will lead you through the process, strategies, and research- based tools that have proven successful in transforming schools. Learn to raise achievement and create a success-oriented school for ALL students, including those at risk of dropping out.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–8

Empowering Struggling Writers with Framing Your Thoughts: A Student-Friendly Writing Program
Andrew Stetkevich, Staff Development Specialist & Field Colleague, Riverside Staff Development Center, Riverside USD, CA

Participants will learn a metacognitive, multisensory approach to teaching writing. The presenter will demonstrate how to apply these strategies to help students succeed in class and state writing prompts. Work samples will be shared, and video excerpts will help participants understand how to use the strategies across grade levels and content areas. Teachers and support staff will leave with practical strategies to engage students in the writing process and help them to become independent writers.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, NEW!
Grade Level: K–12

Thinking Maps™: Guaranteed to Improve ALL Students’ Critical Thinking, Test Scores, & Writing Skills
Bill Deeb, Principal/Educational Researcher & Field Colleague, Creekside Elementary School, Alisal Union ESD, CA

Hundreds of schools across the nation are using Thinking Maps™ to revolutionize their approach to teaching higher-order thinking skills, writing skills, vocabulary, and reading comprehension across the curriculum. Each Thinking Map™ mirrors an essential thinking process that forms the basis for success in school, at work, and even at home: describing, sequencing, comparing and contrasting, and illustrating cause-and-effect relationships. Handouts provided.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, NEW!
Grade Level: K–12

Strategies That Build Rapport and Connections and Motivate Students to Stay in School
Nancy Blackwell, Md.E, Longevity of Success, CO

Eighty-two percent of teachers’ messages are nonverbal, especially when managing the classroom. Learn to positively influence the student relationship with practical application and practice. Become aware of the difference between the influence of power and the power of influence. Also, receive strategies such as music, modeling, paired shares, and discussions. Learn how to have more time to do what you entered the profession to do—teach.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, NEW!
Grade Level: 9–12

Rebels with Applause: Brain-Compatible Approaches for Motivating Reluctant Learning
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Keynote, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, CA

What does the current understanding of the brain suggest about our rebel students, who seem to have the hardest time paying attention and getting work done? This lively interactive session will provide K–12 teachers with dozens of practical brain-based strategies they can use to help get students of varying abilities and learning styles involved and motivated, and help them retain more.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Inclusive Interactive Teaching Strategies
Andrew Stetkevich, Staff Development Specialist/Field Colleague, Riverside Staff Development Center, Riverside USD; Vicki Butler, Coordinator & Field Colleague, Corona-Norco Special Education, Corona-Norco USD, CA

This presentation will focus on best practices for meeting the needs of all students in order to bring up underperforming subgroups. Strategies for slower learners, second language learners, special education students, children of poverty, and other children who learn differently will be demonstrated and shared along with interactive teaching techniques. Come prepared to participate and activate your power to learn new and exciting ways to engage all students in mastering the state standards.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, Special Education, NEW!
Grade Level: K–12

Succeeding with Difficult Students
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Keynote, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, CA

This seminar for K–12 teachers is designed to assist teachers in learning theoretical foundations and practical application of effective behavior management strategies to use with students with serious behavioral or motivational problems.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Capturing Any Student’s Brain: Essential Tools
Cami Hayes, Lead Facilitator, Quantum Learning Network, CA

This session will immediately capture your attention as you learn interesting and fun information every teenager should know about his/her brain. Discover how this new information can instantly result in higher motivation and greater participation. Learn specific strategies you can share with students to easily enhance their memory encoding and recall. Gain brain-based strategies effective for improving classroom management.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Building Multiple-Paragraph Essays: ALL Students CAN Write at Standard
Carolyn Hood, Literacy Coach, Learning Headquarters, CA

Help students master those difficult-to-conquer grade-level writing genres. Learn interactive techniques to help students add voice, powerful sentences, and variety to their multiple-paragraph compositions. Leave with proven strategies and research-based organizers for narratives, responses to literature, and persuasive essays. Use these powerful modeling strategies immediately to catapult your students into successful, standards-based writing!

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–8

Handwriting: What Every Teacher Should Know!
Kim Desch, President, WriteEase Products, CA

This workshop shows educators how to get kids writing legibly without spending additional time in the classroom. Attendees will gain the ability and tools to improve handwriting while enhancing the child’s self-esteem. This is not a handwriting program; rather it is a set of techniques and tools that can be started immediately with or without a writing curriculum in use. These techniques can be applied to children of all abilities in all classrooms.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, NEW!
Grade Level: K–6

Conscious Classroom Management
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Keynote, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, CA

Why is it that good classroom management is often invisible? How can we understand, internalize, and use these invisible skills with our students? This lively, fun, and interactive session gives K–12 teachers a framework for seeing and practicing the often invisible skills of effective classroom management and organization. Participants will leave with a refreshed outlook, and with ideas they can use the next day in helping with classroom management, lesson planning, and stress reduction.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Improving AYP Special Ed Subgroup
Jim Huckeba, Ph.D., Director, Special Services, Hesperia USD, CA

For the past eight years, Hesperia USD has seen a dramatic decrease in the number of students being identified as special education students, while at the same time seeing improved academic achievement for all students. In this workshop, learn to apply an RTI model in which all students are evaluated and research-based strategies are used to address the needs of all students, regardless of their labels.

Strand: Instructional Strategies, Special Education, NEW!
Grade Level: K–12