Welcome to PD Center

Developmental science has long identified the years from birth through age 8 as a critical period during which children’s educational pathways are set. Development during the preschool through third-grade years sets the tone for children’s later educational and lifelong success. Comprehensive and effective P-3 approaches ensure that children’s early education experiences are of high quality and adequate dosage, and have been meaningfully aligned. This requires that children’s early childhood and early elementary settings provide intentional and developmentally appropriate instruction that balances cognitive, social, and emotional development. It also requires that children’s learning opportunities provide an adequate amount of time, year after year, for children to have child-friendly and instructionally rich experiences. Further, P-3 requires ensuring that there is increased alignment across the continuum of learning settings so that, teachers collaborate and share data across grade levels; standards and assessments are aligned across age levels; assessments are aligned with instruction; families partner with schools; schools partner with early learning/preschool programs; and children have smooth transitions as they move throughout the system.

It is essential for teachers to assess student learning effectively before, during, and after instruction in order to collect feedback and adjust ongoing teaching and learning. Effective assessments can improve student achievement and appropriately challenge students at their instructional levels. Assessments should be connected to explicit learning goals and used throughout the learning process. In this course, participants will learn about the different types and methods for assessing student learning. Participants will develop a variety of fair and effective assessments to measure students’ mastery of learning and encourage effective use of knowledge and skills.

Participants will explore how to create a sense of community in an eLearning environment, as well as ways to empower, motivate, and engage all students online. This module includes strategies to foster self-efficacy in the eLearning environment and explores ways to address and/or accommodate the social-emotional learning needs of students in the online learning community. This module is best suited for teachers of all grades and subjects who are teaching or planning on teaching in an eLearning environment.

During this five-hour module, participants will explore what constitutes an equitable and culturally responsive curriculum, as well as key aspects of an effective curriculum. The differences between the written, taught, and assessed curriculum and tools for evaluating a curriculum’s equitability and cultural responsiveness will be shared. A user-friendly process for teachers to evaluate their own curriculum in order to make improvements and increase student achievement will also be examined. This module focuses on the foundations and preparations necessary for a successful curriculum audit. In the next module, participants will conduct a curriculum audit. This module is best suited for teachers of all grades and subjects who are interested in providing valuable input into curricular changes.

This module focuses on deconstructing learning standards so teachers can use the standards and learning targets (derived from the standards) in their daily practice. First, participants will have an overview of standards, why they are important for teachers and students, and how standards influence student achievement. Participants will explore what unpacking the standards means and how to do it. After unpacking the standards, participants will learn how to write learning targets from the unpacked standards. Finally, techniques addressing how to assess the standards will be shared.

Participants will evaluate the resources available to them and their students, including those used in the classroom, those available outside the classroom, those for teachers to advance their professional knowledge and skill, and those that provide noninstructional assistance to students.

In this module, participants will explore student cognitive, social, and emotional developmental stages.The module also explores how to address gaps and avoid misconceptions about student development and capability. With a solid foundation in developmental patterns, participants will apply and evaluate strategies designed to engage their students with content.

This Depth of Knowledge refresher course is designed to emphasize the relationship between DOK of the content standards and the DOK of the test items. This module provides 1 Act 48 hour upon successful completion of the quiz at the end of the content.

Participants will examine how to design unit and lesson structures that are clear, progress evenly, allow for different pathways according to diverse student needs, accommodate content that is connected to other disciplines, and allow for transfer of learning. They will also explore how to create and differentiate learning activities that are tightly aligned to instructional outcomes and are suitable for all students.

Using the backward design model, this course will explain the curriculum design process and provide strategies for developing curriculum and instruction. Participants will develop and analyze key concepts, skills, essential questions, and enduring understandings using the PA Academic and PA Core Standards and the SAS Curriculum Frameworks. Participants will utilize the components of SAS as a foundation to construct aligned curriculum.

In this course, we will examine the Standards Aligned System (SAS), a comprehensive approach designed to support student achievement across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We will explore how SAS aligns six elements of student success to ensure that students master the knowledge, understanding, and skills that they need to become academically successful. We will also investigate using SAS as a basis for developing instruction that encourages students to use the critical thinking skills they will need to become lifelong learners who are successful in a global, knowledge-based economy.

Participants will experience the benefits of collaboration, a key ingredient in professional learning communities, and explore how they can promote a culture of professional inquiry. This module emphasizes the need for a developing professional to assume a leadership role among faculty, participate in school and district projects, facilitate opportunities for professional development, observe and provide feedback to colleagues, and assist peers with their professional growth plans. PLEASE NOTE: Developing Professionalism is best suited for intermediate teachers who are looking to experience the benefits of a PLC and explore how they can promote a culture of professional inquiry. Teachers with a novice knowledge-base or who need the foundations of professionalism should consider enrolling in Exploring Professionalism. Those who wish to explore more advanced roles in supporting novice teachers, facilitating professional learning communities, taking the lead on school and district projects, facilitating a peer feedback program, and overseeing professional growth plans should enroll in Enhancing Professionalism.

This module explores how effective discussion techniques promote student engagement with content, create opportunities for students to reflect upon what they have learned, and encourage student consideration of new possibilities. Participants will evaluate how to support a classroom where students assume high levels of participation in classroom discussions and take responsibility for their own learning.

Participants will explore the Act 13 of 2020 Teacher Effectiveness Model. This module emphasizes the purpose and rationale behind each component of the Classroom Teacher evaluation system, suggestions for appropriate collaboration, timelines, and communication between the classroom teacher and evaluator (i.e., principal or supervisor); and criteria to guide quality implementation of Act 13 of 2020’s Teacher Effectiveness Model as it relates to the Classroom Teacher.

Participants will explore how Act 13 of 2020 Educator Effectiveness Model impacts the role of the Non-Teaching Professional Employee - Supervisor. This module emphasizes the purposes and rationales for each component of the Non-Teaching Professional Evaluation System as it applies to the professional in the role of Supervisor, suggestions for appropriate collaboration, timelines, and communication between the Non-Teaching Professional Supervisor and evaluator, state initiatives designed to improve educator effectiveness and student achievement, and criteria to guide quality implementation of Act 13 of 2020’s Educator Effectiveness Model as it relates to the NTP Supervisor. This module is best suited for the NTP Supervisor (i.e., Curriculum and Instruction, pupil services, vocational education) employed by an LEA.

Participants will explore how the Act 13 of 2020 Educator Effectiveness Model impacts the role of Non-Teaching Professionals. This module emphasizes the purposes and rationales for each component of the Non-Teaching Professional Evaluation System, addresses the importance of collaboration, timelines, and communication between the Non-Teaching Professional and evaluator (i.e., principal or supervisor), calls attention to state initiatives designed to improve educator effectiveness and student achievement, and outlines criteria to guide quality implementation of Act 13 of 2020’s Educator Effectiveness Model as it relates to the role of the Non-Teaching Professional.

Those who participate in this module will develop an understanding of the Act 13 of 2020 Leadership Effectiveness Model, with an emphasis on understanding the rationale and purposes of each evaluation system component. Participants will apply these understandings to practice through suggestions for appropriate collaboration, timelines, and communications between the Supervisor of Special Education and their evaluator. In addition, the module calls attention to state initiatives designed to improve educator effectiveness and student achievement and presents criteria to guide quality implementation of the Act 13 of 2020 evaluation guidelines as they relate to the evaluation of Supervisors of Special Education.

This module explores initiatives that are designed to improve professional practice and address the needs of today’s students and teachers in the following areas: career readiness, research-based strategies, social-emotional learning (SEL), inclusion, cultural competence, and equity. An overview and strategies that can be used in the classroom to help meet the goals of each area are included in this module. This module is best suited for teachers of all grades and subjects who are teaching or assisting teachers in the classroom.