Events

Join Mascoutah High School # 19 Instructional Coach Tara Sulcer in this extremely informative and hands-on professional development session where you will gain the confidence and expertise to navigate Illinois social studies standards in grades 6-12! Designed for educators who want to deepen their understanding of standards-based instruction, this course will provide practical strategies for unpacking standards, designing aligned assessments, and creating engaging lessons that challenge students at various Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels.  Participants will explore best practices for crafting meaningful learning experiences, ensuring rigorous yet accessible instruction that meets state expectations. Additionally, this session will introduce innovative ways to integrate AI tools to streamline lesson planning, assessment design, and data-driven instruction.  Walk away with a clear roadmap for implementing standards effectively, fostering critical thinking in your students, and leveraging technology to enhance your teaching practice! Participants will need to bring a fully charged device, registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event unless tickets are sold out.

Join Mascoutah High School # 19 Instructional Coach Tara Sulcer as you transform your 6-12 social studies classroom into a hub of inquiry, discussion, and critical thinking! This dynamic professional development session is designed for educators who want to seamlessly integrate effective literacy strategies and student engagement techniques into their daily instruction.  Through hands-on activities and collaborative discussions, participants will explore innovative ways to strengthen students’ reading, writing, and analytical skills while deepening their understanding of social studies content. Learn how to use primary and secondary sources more effectively, foster meaningful classroom discourse, and implement high-impact strategies that boost comprehension and retention.  Walk away with ready-to-use tools, practical lesson ideas, and a renewed approach to making social studies more interactive, engaging, and accessible for all learners! Participants will need to bring a fully charged laptop to this event. Registration closes 4-5 days prior unless tickets are sold out.

This workshop is geared towards an educator that has LITTLE to NO understanding regarding DoK. Furthermore, this workshop is designed to help educators understand the basic concepts of Depth of Knowledge (DoK), its impact on student learning, and how it can be used to enhance teaching strategies. During this session, participants will explore what DoK is, why it is effective, and how the DoK Wheel can be leveraged to improve classroom practice. Key Topics Covered:

1. What is Depth of Knowledge (DoK)?
   • Introduction to the four levels of DoK (Recall & Reproduction, Skills & Concepts, Strategic Thinking, and Extended Thinking).
   • How DoK helps in evaluating the rigor of tasks, questions, and activities in the classroom.
2. The DoK Wheel: A Tool for Planning and Instruction
   • What the DoK Wheel is and how it can be used for instructional planning.
3. Addressing Common Misconceptions and Criticisms
   • Discussing misconceptions about DoK, such as the belief that higher DoK levels are always harder or that it’s only about complex questions.
   • Criticisms of DoK and how to address concerns in the classroom to ensure it is used effectively to promote student learning

Registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event date.

This session will provide a hands-on approach to implementing Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DoK) in the classroom. Those attending should have a basic to moderate understanding of DoK. Key Topics Covered:

• Integrating Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge - comparisons, contracts and applications
• Rolling with the Wheel - tasks as indicators of student knowledge and skill acquisition
• Designing Learning activities - benefits of KoK in curriculum, unit and lesson design
• Questioning and Dok - designing questions across DoK levels
• Assessing students' DoK - addressing class, school, district, and state implications
• Anticipating the future, experience, experts and signs on the road ahead

Registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event date.  

Jim Kestner will present his nationally recognized program in a high-energy session dedicated to helping teachers in their early career years address a wide range of classroom management issues. Teachers who attend will find strategies that lead students to make good choices, replacing controlling behaviors with strategies that lead students to monitor and take responsibility for their own behavior. Specifically the session will address the following:

• Arranging the environment to improve student engagement
• Developing and implementing effective classroom policies
• Addressing common challenging behaviors
• Difference between controlling behaviors and building good decision-making skills
• Translating the concept of consistency to a variety of students and settings
• Establishing a character-building classroom culture
• Teaching self-respect, self-discipline, and responsibility
• Self-esteem v self-respect
• Grading systems that encourage student effort and engagement
• Assessing student behavior
• Parent and administrator involvement
• Keeping and maintaining good records

  Registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event date.

Jim Kestner, nationally recognized for his youth character development programs, will present practical, hands-on strategies for implementing SEL (Social Emotional Learning) Standards that help you prepare students for success in the real world through activities and perspectives that won't require you to devote unrealistic amounts of time.  The session will provide opportunities for you to identify topics most relevant to your circumstances. Here's a sample of issues we will address together:

• Connecting the SEL Standards to your current curriculum
• Empowering students to overcome setbacks that threaten their success
• Equipping students with practical strategies to navigate complex interpersonal interactions
• Improving students' conflict management skills
• Teaching real methods for making individaul students accountable for group success
• Teaching perspective taking as a means of enhancing student empathy
• Identifying perspectives for healthy and unhealthy tolerance
• Coping with differences that impact opportunity and fairness (appearance, means, ability, status, etc.)
• Engaging students in meaningful processes for addressing negative behaviors and attitudes

PDC Member Districts $325.00, Non PD Co-op member districts $375.00 (lunch is included on site). All pre-work must be submitted no later than Sunday, July 20 at 12:00pm or participants will not be able to attend the academy. The learning outcomes for the two-day academy include: - Participants will be able to use assessments and measurement models in determining the student growth attributable to individual teachers and to understand how different types of assessments are used for measuring growth. - Participants will be able to use data from the evaluation rubric, other evidence collected and best practices relative to evaluating student growth, to link teacher and school-level professional development plans to evaluation results. - Participants will create, in collaboration with teachers, supportive, targeted professional development plans that consider past results, contribute to professional growth, and assist teachers in aligning professional development and goal-setting to school improvement goals. - Participants will communicate evaluation outcomes and findings in constructive and supportive ways that enable teachers to set goals and improve practice. - Participants will demonstrate a high rate of inter-rater reliability using the required performance evaluation ratings (i.e., excellent, proficient, needs improvement, and unsatisfactory). - Participants will observe instruction competently in multiple subject areas provided to varied and multiple student populations (i.e., English language learners, students with IEPs, students in career and technical programs, etc.) - Participants will use data from the evaluation rubric, other evidence collected and best practices relative to evaluating professional practice, to link teacher and school-level professional development plans to evaluation results. - Participants will know how to create, in collaboration with teachers, supportive, targeted professional development plans that consider past results, contribute to professional growth and assist teachers in aligning PD and goal-setting to SIP goals. - Participants will communicate evaluation outcomes and findings in constructive and supportive ways that enable teachers to set goals and improve professional practice. - Participants will understand sources of personal bias and be able to recognize and control for bias when conducting an evaluation and determining results. Evaluators will be required to complete pre-session learning components for this course. If you do not complete the pre-session learning components in the required time frame prior to the workshop, you will not be allowed to attend the workshop and will still be responsible for the registration fee. This event has a maximum number of 15 attendees. Participants must bring a fully charged laptop to both days of the academy. Registration closes 7 days prior to the event as pre-work must be completed and submitted. Cancellations must be made 72 hours in advance or the amount will be non-refundable.

This workshop is free for all to attend, lunch will be provided on site.

Have you ever wanted to have a day of learning and collaboration that is not the typical day of PD? One where you can laugh, collaborate with your colleagues, be creative, reflect, and discuss? If so, this is for you. Join Dr. Marlee Bunch, educator and author of The Magnitude of Us: A Guidebook to Creating Culturally Responsive Classrooms, and Katie Gehrt, educator, for an engaging professional development opportunity focused on culturally responsive classrooms and The Magnitude of Us. This professional development is designed to equip 6-12 educators of all subjects and ages to implement culturally responsive teaching strategies to drive engagement, center stories, and connect with students. We invite you to register and mark your calendar to join us as we connect, unlearn, relearn, discuss, and create. This professional development workshop is a 2-part series, registering will sign you up for both parts of the workshop. The first session will occur on July 29, 2025, in person from 9:00am-3:00pm (with a 40 minute lunch break - lunch is on your own). The second session will occur virtually on September 3 (4:00-5:30pm) and a virtual link will be sent prior to 9.2.25. Participants must attend both sessions to earn the full 9 hours of pd credit (partial pd hours will not be issued). What to Bring July 29, 2025: 1. An existing or recent lesson plan printed out. Choose one that you want to revise and/or use at the start of the 2025/26 school year. 2. Something to write in (journal or notebook). 3. An open mind and the willingness to engage and create possibilities. 4. Snacks (*we will break for a 40-minute lunch, but snacks for the day are encouraged*) Session I: July 29, 2025 Remember the days of a good buffet? This session will offer a buffet of learning and collaborating that will include a variety of activities and topics, with something for everyone. We will discuss culturally responsive teaching and have small group activities to discuss and examine not only what culturally responsive teaching entails but also how we can implement and sustain it in our classrooms. In addition, we will evaluate and create lessons and activities to take back into our classrooms for the 2025/26 school year. Session II: September 3, 2025 4:00pm-5:30pm Session II will occur virtually as a follow-up and extension of session I. This session will be a PJs and learn afternoon. Log on in your favorite PJs with a cup of coffee or tea and bring your Magnitude of Us book to continue the discussion and revisit lingering topics from session I. Goals and Objectives - Gain an understanding of what culturally responsive teaching entails - Discover tools, resources, and practices that support culturally responsive pedagogy and implementation - Assess and evaluate existing lesson plans - Build a new lesson/activity to take back into your classroom - Learn and reflect through discussing and actively learning with colleagues What this PD will NOT be: 1. Sit and get. We can assure you that this will not involve a long day of lecturing. 2. This will not be a PD where your voice is not included or heard. 3. Boring. As educators, we have been to enough PDs that were snooze fests... This won’t be that. This PD will include: o Active learning. o Opportunities for discussion and reflection. o Models of effective practice: incorporating poetry and writing, discussion across subject areas, etc. o Support and tools for application and implementation that are relevant to your classroom. o Opportunities to ask questions about culturally responsive teaching. o A copy of The Magnitude of Us book (Teachers College Press, Bunch, 2024). o A follow-up online workshop for continued discussion. Facilitator Bios: Dr. Marlee Bunch, EdD/MEd/MS/BA is an interdisciplinary educator, author, researcher, and lifelong learner. Her research examines the oral histories of Black female educators in Hattiesburg, Mississippi who taught between 1954-1971, and the implications that desegregation had on their lives and careers. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Illinois in 2022 in Education/Policy/Organizational Leadership. Additionally, she has a Masters in Education (MEd), a Masters in Gifted Education (MS), a Bachelors in English, a certification in Diversity/Equity/Inclusion, and a certification in ESL (English as a Second Language). Bunch has been an educator for 17+ years and is the founder of the un/Hush teaching framework. You can learn more about her work at https://www.marleebunch.com/ Katie Gehrt, MA (she/her) is an educator, coach, researcher, advocate, and writer. Katie has experience as a high school teacher and experience in promoting and facilitating diversity, equity, and inclusion. Katie graduated with a B.S. in Secondary Education from Kansas State University, with a minor in Leadership Studies. She obtained her M.A. in Social Justice and Human Rights from Arizona State University, where she received an award for her capstone research examining theoretical frameworks of white supremacy and its application to the U.S. education system. Katie is a passionate advocate for students and implementing inquiry-based pedagogy to bring students’ stories to light through discussion, remain responsive to student feedback and improve engagement, and enhance her own self-reflection as a white educator.   Spots for this two-part session are limited and will fill fast. Registration will close 4-5 days prior to the event. Participants will each receive a copy of Dr. Burch's book, The Magnitude of Us An Educator's Guide to Creating Culturally Responsive Classrooms.