Reminder: Two Summer Learning Opportunities Offered for Agency Certified Staff Serving K-8 Students

The Iowa Department of Education allocated Title I School Improvement funds to Iowa’s AEA this past November. Due to the timing of the allocation, Heartland AEA was only able to use the funds to hire one position for the 2017-18 school year. 

The Agency is funding 2.5 positions with the funds in 2018-19 and will be using some of the remaining funds for 2017-18 to support Certified staff serving K-12 students the opportunity to participate in one day of learning focused on literacy or math. Participants will be paid one day of addendum pay for this voluntary opportunity. (It is not required.) The deadline to register for one of the sessions is Monday, May 21. A description of the sessions, dates, locations and registration links are below.    

Cognition-Based Math Assessment and Instruction (June 15 or June 20) (Grades K-8) Participants will learn how to administer and score assessments from the series Cognition Based Assessment and Teaching by Michael Battista. These are appropriate for grades K-8 students. Most of the content is K-5; however, these will be appropriate for older students who are struggling, as they will help determine the student's areas of need. The assessments are designed to work with any curriculum, and Cognition-Based Assessment and Teaching will enable you to better understand and respond to your students’ learning needs and help you choose instructional activities that are best for them.



• Cognition-Based Math Assessments and Instruction - June 15 (Adel Regional Office)

• Cognition-Based Math Assessment and Instruction - June 20 (Johnston REC)
 

Effective Literacy Strategy Instruction (Grades K-12) 
The purpose of this session is to provide professional learning around effective literacy strategy instruction that will include the following areas: Elements of Effective Literacy Strategy Instruction, Effective Phonics Instruction - Grapheme-Phoneme Mapping, Effective Instruction in Building Words with Morphemes (prefixes, suffixes and roots), Effective Instruction in Vocabulary - Frayer Model and Effective Instruction in Comprehension - Text Structure. These strategies complement any curriculum and are appropriate for students K-5 in universal instruction and for struggling students at the elementary and secondary level. 
 

• Effective Literacy Strategy Instruction - June 5 (Ames Regional Office) 
• Effective Literacy Strategy Instruction - June 20 (Johnston REC)