Wednesday’s Wisdom-Weekly Professional Development Teachers Want to Attend: When you are sitting at a Professional Development meeting, have you ever thought, “If I taught my students the way you are presenting the workshop, I would be fired?” This presentation will provide you with some strategies and resources to engage your teachers and enable them to take ownership of their learning.

Presented by: Diana Perney, PA Virtual Charter School

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Classroom Connections to Student Workforce Development Opportunities: The Charter School of Excellence (CSE) started Culinary Arts and Workforce Development Programs in 2010 focused on the local hospitality industry. The combination of these programs creates training and work experience opportunities for soft skill development in areas such as customer service, hospitality, culinary arts, and event management. The CSE programs focus on job readiness and positive student outcomes while contributing to the school and local community through the new “School to Work” food truck expansion.

Presented by: Dr. Renee Gordon, Charter School of Excellence

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Let Reach Show You How Students Can Do Hands-On Stem in a Virtual Setting: How can cyber students possibly do hands-on STEM? Reach Cyber Charter School has figured it out. Learn about our STEM coaching program and how we engage students in project based learning.

Presented by: Amanda Casteel, Reach Cyber Charter School

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Aquaponic Education – It’s Not Just Agriculture!: STEM? STEAM? What does that really mean? For CCA, it truly is a K-12, interdisciplinary approach to science, technology, engineering and math by leveraging aquaponics, a living ecosystem, to build and expand upon individual student interests.

Presented by: Samantha Johnson, Commonwealth Charter Academy

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Certified! An AHCCS Innovation Academy Student Initiative: AHCCS has an ongoing, enlarging initiative to help our students develop the interest in, learn the necessary skills and to sit for a variety of certification exams in areas such as the IC3, Microsoft Office Specialist, JavaScript and Web Development. We are excited to share our story – perhaps it will spark interest for you at your school!

Presented by: Carmela N. Curatola, Achievement House Cyber Charter School

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Distance Learning in an Arts Inspired Classroom: Does your curriculum need a little creative inspiration? Do you want to increase engagement in your classroom? Get ready to fill your bucket with distance learning tools that integrate the arts into your lessons!

Presented by: Eileen Keller, Renaissance Academy Charter School

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CTE Coding & Game Design Pathway: Online, Accessible, & Fun: Imagine taking CTE education to students all over the commonwealth (and country!)… That is what we are doing with our online CTE Coding & Game Design pathway. Throughout our online pathway, students develop the skills and knowledge they need to pursue a great career and we believe other pathways can do the same.

Presented by: Benjamin Leskovansky, Insight PA Cyber Charter School

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Aggression Replacement Therapy/Character Development: Through using Aggression Replacement Therapy and Character Development at Tidioute Charter School we have seen drastic improvements in our students discipline and social skills. The students overall discipline numbers have decreased and they are more willing to participate in school wide activities.

Presented by: Maggie McMahon, Tidioute Community Charter School

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Co-Teaching in the Virtual Elementary Model: This presentation will share the personal experiences of a classroom teacher who has successfully implemented co-teaching as a mode for providing intervention to her students on a daily basis. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the best lessons learned!

Presented by: Katie Barnett, PA Virtual Charter School

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Project-based Learning in the Online Classroom: Solving Real-World Problems through Virtual Collaboration: With online learning becoming more common than ever, some may wonder how to implement meaningful Project Based Learning in a virtual environment. Jessica Vernouski will share how she implemented collaborative, authentic, project-based learning online, by taking on an Innovations Challenge from PennDOT.

Presented by: Jessica Cordaro, Reach Cyber Charter School

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Teaching World Languages in a Virtual Classroom: Teaching world languages in the virtual classroom can be challenging because of the asynchronous setting and the fact that your students aren’t physically in front of you. Using the available technology-based resources, we’ve created a curriculum where it’s possible for students to have asynchronous conversations with each other and with their teacher in the target language. We capitalize on wherever students are by designing an engaging and collaborative curriculum that is easily applied to their real world setting.

Presented by: Debbie Parvin, 21st Century Cyber Charter School

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Charter School Leader Rule of Five: Time is our most precious resource and is the only way we are all equal. Because the principal’s job is one of the most difficult and interrupted jobs on the planet, they need to be crystal clear on what daily tasks they are required and bring the organization the greatest return. This session will build awareness for any leader to start living your school day by design, not by default.

Presented by: Dr. Tom Miller, Leaders Building Leaders

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Panel Discussion: Don’t miss our virtual panel discussion composed of industry experts who can share their thoughts on education, innovation, collaboration, and how we can best prepare our students for the future we can only imagine.

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Meeting Specific Needs in a Flipped Virtual Classroom: The presentation will be on using a flipped classroom in a virtual school, where the teacher acts as the facilitator. Our presentation will also deal with developing a schedule that allows students to learn important skills of time management but also developing a schedule to fit the needs of the students. The presentation will deal with supporting the needs of students, specifically in instances with high proportions of students with specific needs.

Presented by: Dr. Ryan Wolcott, ASPIRA Cyber Charter School 

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Building Toward Student-Centered Accountability Frameworks: Our district, Propel Charter Schools, has created a Computer Science Integration program with the intention of providing our scholars valuable CS skills. Through co-taught skill-based lessons, students work on collaborative projects in all content areas. Students are taught how to create and solve real-world problems. Students are also taught coding skills, and other related computer programming skills. Learn how valuable this program can be for the the scholars in your district!

Presented by: Jeff Kwitowski, K12 Inc.

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Making IEP Meetings a Partnership: Special Education terms are like another language. We created videos for all special education paperwork to ensure our families understand the paperwork they are signing.

Presented by: Nancy Giagnacova, 21st Century Cyber Charter School

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Learning is Nonlinear: The learning process is beautifully non-linear. Yet many students enter schools believing the learning process should follow a straight, uninterrupted path when really it can feel more like navigating through a maze. How do we create spaces for students and teachers to partake in the learning process in a way that debunks the myths, works through the challenges, and equips both with strategies for growing through the learning process?

Presented by: Nathan Dilworth, Institute for Student Achievement

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Daily Nurturing the Young Person’s Innate Soft Skills, Self Direction and Curiosity, the Skills and Mindsets that Employers Long For: Employers are pleased that today’s young adults come to the workplace with the necessary credentials, knowledge and hard skills. They are displeased, however, that they do not come with the equally necessary soft skills and mindsets. Employers lament that they cannot teach the soft skills, so it is on educators to develop school-based strategies that nurture the young person’s innate soft skills, self-direction and curiosity so that they become habits and mindsets as the young grow to adulthood.

Narration is such a strategy. This practical, daily approach incorporates research-supported “retelling,” “Student Talk” and the “Grand Conversation.” This strategy is natural and true to the way human beings learn, thus it is successfully practiced at all grade levels, K-12, and in all subject matter.

Presented by: Nicolle Hutchinson, Gillingham Charter School

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Mentoring With a Focus on Relationships: Join me as I walk you through a mentoring session with tips and best practices to create and maintain meaningful relationships with learners.

Presented by: Barbara Dikum, Central PA Digital Learning

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That’s Not My Job….Or Is It? – Teaching Classroom Expectations to Students: Reduce misbehavior without using gimmicks or bribing students. Win back more time to do what you love – teach – while empowering your students to make better choices and achieve success.

Presented by: Bill Bechtel, Carlisle High School

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The Importance of Sports…Then, Now, and Forever: In a Charlotte Mason school, educators see the student as a whole person. Sports play a major role in our students’ lives at Gillingham because sports and physical fitness affect them in so many different ways for the rest of their lives.. Just as all students are required to learn to read and to calculate algebraic algorithms, all students at Gillingham are required to compete in a sport. In this session, our coach explains two innovative approaches to PE instruction and sports: 1.) PE is core curriculum, not an elective or a “special,”and 2.) every student at Gillingham is required to play one season of a competitive sport to graduate. These innovative ideas expand and mold our students just like the other Charlotte Mason approaches we use at school everyday.

Presented by: Leonard Martin, Gillingham Charter School

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If You Build It…They Will Come! Building Your Online Learning Community: Building your online learning community might sound challenging, but with a few tips and wise advice, you can master this art! Starting with a strong foundation of connecting with your students first, will lead to engaging them in your online, remote, hybrid, or in-person classroom! This session will give you ideas and choices to increase engagement and interaction no matter what your school setting might be this year!

Presented by: Cindy Willits, PA Virtual Cyber Charter School

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