Professional Development
Where teachers grow, find new tools and strategies and get support.
Workshops
Effective Lesson Plans for Remote Learning
Virtual learning hit a lot of teachers like a ton of bricks. Having to figure it out on the fly is stressful for everyone. Three years ago, I made the transition from in-person to remote learning and I love it! Let me shorten your learning curve by giving you the tools and strategies I have developed that lead me to 5-star reviews and classes with waiting lists.
Peaceful, Positive Classroom Management
Learn techniques that will bring peace to your classroom. If you love PBIS, you'll love this. If you hate PBIS, you'll love this even more!
Establishing Respectful Boundaries
Finding the Integration Sweet Spot
For integrators of all kinds and would-be integrators too. If you feel like integrations are twice as much work as developing a regular lesson plan, this PD will set you free. Integrations will start to pop up everywhere.
Developing Emotional Capacity
Understanding about what we feel, developing greater comfort with the full range of our emotions, and learning healthy emotional boundaries helps to reduce the experience of overwhelm or stress. In this workshop, we will explore how to expand our emotional range and understand more fully our emotional landscape, which includes both comfortable and uncomfortable emotions within ourselves and others.
Activities include discussion regarding “Emotional Intelligence” (Goleman, 2006), practices for managing our emotional states, cultivating emotional boundaries, and learning to let go of fixing in favor of supporting our students. Techniques such as helping students identify their feelings of stress and distractions while providing a safe space and steady presence benefits both teacher and student. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subjects, including Paraprofessionals and other staff.
**This PD is only available over Zoom or at Art Play Learn's center.
Mitigating vicarious trauma using Contemplative Art and Self-Care
This workshop assists educators in understanding the meaning and impacts of vicarious trauma. It will also assist participants in gaining resources to improve their mental and physical health. Each unit is devoted to developing mindfulness and self-awareness, to de-stress before or after teaching. Contemplative art activities, basic meditation practices, and a discussion on how we can enhance our inner teacher through introspection, and self-awareness resources. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subjects, including Paraprofessionals and other staff.
**This PD is only available over Zoom or at Art Play Learn's center.
This is an important part of our teaching, and indeed, life experience. However, it may be challenging to address both internally and externally within the classroom and beyond.
In this workshop, participants will practice delving deeper into speaking authentically in a compassionate yet firm manner, and learn ways to manage classrooms and/or relationships with clearly defined limits via skillful communication techniques.
Other topics explored will be recognizing how to meet resistance, frustration, and pushback about our boundaries, while at the same time maintaining caring relationships in the midst of conflict or challenges. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subjects, including Paraprofessionals and other staff.
*This workshop is only available via Zoom or at Art Play Learn's center.
Meditation and Empathy
This workshop assists instructors in how to utilize meditation, mindfulness, and presence techniques in the classroom. The strategies offered may be used in a variety of ways, including guiding students towards the natural transitions in the classroom, tools for self-soothing/de-stressing, and deepening empathy towards self and others.
The basics of meditation/mindfulness and their iterations are illustrated for different educational levels, beginning with pre-school, then K-12, with a few examples of methods used in post-secondary sessions. Varying techniques will be demonstrated, and resources provided. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subjects, including Paraprofessionals and other staff.
**This PD is only available over Zoom or at Art Play Learn's center.
Masterminds
Masterminds are curated groups where teachers can help each other find solutions to their obstacles in a safe environment. Masterminds meet regularly, usually every other week or monthly on an on-going basis. It requires a bit of commitment but what you will gain from it eclipse what you are putting into it!