Save Your License Workshop

Friday, February 8, 2008

8:30am – 4:00pm

Eisenhower Community Center

1001 Hwy. 7

Hopkins, MN

The East and West Metro Regional ABE Professional Development Coordinators of the Minnesota Department of Education along with the ATLAS program at Hamline University offer this workshop opportunity to meet teacher re-licensure requirements.  CEU’s indicating attendance will be provided.

8:00-8:30         Registration, Coffee

8:30-10:00       Reading Essentials for ESL Teachers: Next Steps

Patsy Vinogradov, Hamline University and MinneTESOL

(This session addresses the relicensure area of further reading instruction.)

Many of you perhaps attended our first session on this topic last fall.  At this session, we'll briefly revisit the basic "essentials" of principled reading instruction, and we'll check in with each other about how it's going with our learners!  Then we'll explore what the latest research and professional wisdom tells us about working with adult second language readers.  While most of today's session will be applicable to any level of learner, our particular focus will be on learners with low first-language literacy.  Come learn more and share your own expertise about planning effective reading lessons, creating balanced literacy classrooms, and reaching learners through a multi-faceted approach.  This workshop will involve a great deal of interaction with our best resource: our colleagues.

10:00-10:15     Break, Registration

10:15-11:45     Teaching the Adult Learner with ADHD

Miriam Kragness, PhD, LDA Minnesota

(This session addresses the relicensure area of positive behavioral interventions.)

This session will address specific strategies for helping students with attention deficits learn. Through a combination of lecture and activity, content will focus on two topics—(1) understanding the learner’s experience and (2) strategies for maximizing achievement.

11:45-12:30     Lunch, Registration

12:30-2:00       Introduction to Torture and Its Consequences

Heather Tracy, Center for Victims of Torture

(This session addresses the relicensure area of key warning signs of early onset mental illness.)

This presentation will cover the following information related to torture survivors:

• What is torture & its purpose
• Traumas experienced by torture survivors
• Effects of torture
• Strategies to help torture survivors
• There will also be time for discussion

2:00-2:15         Break, Registration

2:15-3:45         Becoming Culturally Aware Teachers and Learners

Kimberly Johnson, ATLAS/Hamline University

(This session addresses the relicensure area of adapting the curriculum to meet the needs of varied students.)

How aware are you of the impact culture has on learning? How aware are learners of their classmates’ cultural perspectives and backgrounds? What do learners need to know about cultural behaviors and norms in the US in order to thrive and become active members of their communities without letting go of their own belief systems? In this interactive, hands-on session, participants take part in a series of activities that can be used for multiple purposes; to raise teachers’ awareness of the role of culture in learning; to help learners understand the multiple perspectives of their classmates; finally, to help learners make sense of US cultural practices. Many of the activities can be used at all levels and with teachers and learners in many settings.

Registrations must be received by Thursday, January 31, 2008.

Registration Form: Word / PDF