Welcome to PD Center

Participants will explore techniques designed to ensure that all students contribute to classroom discussions in an environment where students help to ensure that all voices are heard. This module explores how to ask high-quality questions that deepen student understanding, methods for promoting student learning through discussion, and ways to ensure meaningful student contributions to the discussions.

Pathways to Graduation and Other Diploma Options is designed for educational professionals who assist secondary students and/or recommend student options in meeting Pennsylvania’s high school graduation requirements.

Participants will engage in examining and creating strategies to incorporate the PA Ready Skills into the school environment. Current initiatives and local data will be used to create an integration action plan. PLEASE NOTE: Social-Emotional Learning and Career Ready Skills is the FIRST in a series of three prerequisite modules. Since each subsequent module relies on the previous module's content and assessments, you need to take them in this order:

Participants will explore techniques for teaching their students to ask high-quality questions that also invite all students' views to be heard. A solid foundation of student responsibility and accountability create the conditions that must be in place for meaningful discussions where students feel that their thoughts are valued.

This module focuses on meeting the intended outcomes of lessons through productive grouping methods that include student choice, student reflection, and complex grouping methods.

An extensive and growing body of literature indicates the relationship between a comprehensive student program, student mental and emotional health, improved student attendance and the academic success of the student in school. This course examines how active student engagement promotes and supports the academic, physical, and psychological safety and well- being of students in their learning environments.

This module increases participant knowledge of how teachers can use questioning to advance student learning. Participants will discover how to ask idea and prediction questions that encourage students to set up the actions that can be taken to apply or reinforce learning. With this advanced level of questioning, participants will also analyze how to teach students to ask (and identify) questions and reflect on peer comments to deepen their understanding. PLEASE NOTE: Questions That Facilitate Taking Action is the THIRD in a series of three prerequisite modules. Since each subsequent module relies on the previous module's content and assessments, you need to take them in this order: Questions That Gather Information, Questions That Work With Information, and Questions That Facilitate Taking Action.

This module explores how teachers can use questioning to advance student learning. Participants will discover how to ask perception, induction, analysis, and same/different questions that encourage students to analyze information. They will also analyze how to teach students to ask and identify questions and reflect on peer comments to deepen their understanding. PLEASE NOTE: Questions That Gather Information is the FIRST in a series of three prerequisite modules. Since each subsequent module relies on the previous module's content and assessments, you need to take them in this order: Questions That Gather Information, Questions That Work With Information, and Questions That Facilitate Taking Action.

This module deepens participant knowledge of how to use questioning to advance student learning. Participants will discover how to ask insight, appraisal, summary, and evaluation questions that encourage students to analyze information. With this additional level of questioning, they will also analyze how to teach students to ask questions and reflect on peer comments to deepen their understanding. PLEASE NOTE: Questions That Work With Information is the SECOND in a series of three prerequisite modules. Since each subsequent module relies on the previous module's content and assessments, you need to take them in this order: Questions That Gather Information, Questions That Work With Information, and Questions That Facilitate Taking Action.

This module explores the teacher’s need to accurately reflect on planning, implementation, assessment, and follow-up, in order to learn about opportunities for improvements. Participants will evaluate the effectiveness of one of their own lessons in achieving planned outcomes, designing alternative actions that could be taken, and planning student/teacher time for reflection throughout the lesson.

This module explores methods for responding to student misbehavior, including intervention strategies, family involvement, use of external resources, respecting dignity, and preventative responses.

This module offers an in-depth look into the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Standards Aligned System (SAS) Assessment Center. Through the Assessment Center, you can build assessments by searching the database of standards-aligned items, create your own assessment item utilizing the step-by-step process, share your assessments, and examine the data once assessments are complete.

In this course, participants will explore various components of PDE’s Standards Aligned System (SAS), how to utilize newer resources added to the SAS Portal, and how to effectively integrate these resources into their classroom to promote student achievement. The focus will be on examining targeted resources under the Curriculum Framework, Instruction, and Materials & Resources elements. Participants will identify and share how they can use these resources in their professional practice. (Note: The PD Center module Getting Started: The Standards Aligned System is recommended, but not required, prior to enrolling in this module.)

Participants will explore their implicit biases and the effect these biases have on teachers, students, school leaders, parents, and other stakeholders. Socialization filters, how biases are formed, the impact of making assumptions about individuals, and exploring definitions of equity are among the topics in this module. PLEASE NOTE: Self-Awareness and Reflective Practices for Equitable Classrooms is the first in a set of three modules. Educators as Systems Change Agents and Addressing Implicit and Explicit Bias in the Classroom are the recommended modules you may enroll in after successfully completing this one.

Participants will explore when and how to make the purposes of their lessons or units clear, position those lessons around key concepts for broader learning, and link them to student interests. This module examines ways teachers can communicate to students the importance of what they are undertaking and clarify what they are learning.

In this module, participants will create and analyze instructional outcomes that represent high expectations and rigor, build on prior learning, and connect to other disciplines. Participants will consider how students can demonstrate achievement of outcomes when selecting assessment methods, and explore how to align the outcomes to the PA Core Standards. This module also explores how participants can create a balance among types of learning and different disciplines, as well as how to differentiate the learning experiences for diverse learners.

Participants will examine the need for social emotional learning in the school setting. By understanding the underlying principles of social emotional learning, participants will explore the critical connection to much needed employability skills – career ready skill categories that include Self-Awareness and Self-Management, Establishing and Maintaining Relationships, and Social Problem Solving Skills. Exploring the impact of career ready skills on achievement and employability, participants will reflect on how to create better awareness of this skill set in the broader school community and what next steps may occur to begin the process of integration.

In this module, participants will implement and evaluate various instructional strategies such as project-based learning and active learning to promote engagement and participation in the classroom.

Imagine not taking the time to coach a talented athlete or conducting a brilliant musician. Our gifted students need the same types of support. Participants in this course will explore gifted education regulations, the differences between gifted learners and their typically developing peers, and develop strategies to differentiate learning in ELA, Math, and Science.

This course is tailored for non-certified school based professionals/staff members and consists of four modules designed to enhance understanding of educator conduct. The modules will: (1) review the laws and regulations that govern educator conduct in Pennsylvania and the legal processes for addressing misconduct; (2) discuss the student-teacher relationship, focusing on the establishment and maintenance of appropriate boundaries; (3) examine the concept of sexual misconduct by educators; and (4) address the legal and ethical responsibilities to report educator misconduct, including sexual misconduct. Successful completion of this course will satisfy, in part, the training requirements of Act 126 of 2013, Child Abuse Recognition and Reporting Act.