Personalized Professional Development

NS faculty and staff will have an opportunity this year to do self-paced professional development. The PD is done independently and will give educators an opportunity to learn about a variety of topics that they are interested in exploring. Educators will use the task card library to learn independently through a self-paced format that helps to improve classroom practices while earning PLUs! Our Self-paced PDs are a selection of task cards/activities that require educators to create a final product and receive and act upon feedback from our coaches before completion.   The average time to complete the task cards is 2 hours. The North Smithfield Virtual Task Card Library will open starting today, September 2nd - September 11th and on every statewide PD day. To access the PD, please refer to the email sent out to the district on September 2nd.

Here are the topics and descriptions of the offerings:

Virtual PD Catalog
Building Relationships With Students
Educators will explore the importance of building relationships with students and ways to help them build these relationships.

Effective Co-Teaching
Educators will explore the history behind co-teaching, the six models of co-teaching and reflect upon their own professional practices to share with their co-teacher.

Cognitive Development
Educators will learn Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, explore cognitive flexibility and create a lesson that implements various cognitive skills to meet the needs of all students.

Classroom Management
Educators will identify classroom management techniques specific to Elementary/Middle/High School to increase student engagement.

CRT: The Impact of Identity- Coming Soon
With this task card, participants will engage in differentiated exploration of identity and intersectionality. They will then explore strategies for building relationships with students across lines of difference.

CRT: Community Building-Coming Soon
Participants will investigate the impact of the classroom environment on learning. They will create an action plan that integrates strategies for building a classroom community that fosters the psychological and social safety necessary for reinforcing students’ academic identities.

CRT: Establishing Partnerships- Coming Soon
With this task card, participants will explore ways to build authentic connections with students in order to leverage those connections to access deep learning. They will learn strategies for giving feedback in emotionally intelligent ways, and establishing high standards for students through learning partnerships and alliances.

Differentiation in Instruction
Educators will identify and implement differentiated instruction strategies into an upcoming lesson.

Effective Behavioral Feedback
Educators will explain the role of positive:corrective ratios in behavioral feedback; use behavior-specific strategies for acknowledgement & correction; and write an action plan to integrate behavior-specific acknowledgement into instruction.

Engagement Strategies & Tools for a Live Virtual Class
Explore strategies and tools that will support engaging students during a live virtual class. Useful for teachers and anyone else leading a virtual class.

Exploring Effective Educational Applications
Successful technology integration is more than just getting the tools into the classroom; Educators should explore new educational technology tools and assess whether or not the tools will enhance or distract from instruction.  
*Padlet, Flipgrid and Quizlet

Using Google Meet
Learn how to use Google Meet to connect, collaborate and interact with your students and families.

Grading and Feedback in Google  Classroom
This task card is designed to provide educators with effective strategies to provide feedback and grade assignments in google classroom. It is designed for grades K-12.

Introduction to Pear Deck
This task card is designed to introduce educators to Pear Deck and its many features. Teachers will learn how to turn Google slides into interactive learning opportunities for every student, every day, in every classroom, including a virtual one.

Mastering Screencastify 
Educators will register for a screencastify account, install it as a plug-in on their device, and record, edit and share an introductory video for students. 

Screencastify for Math Instruction
Educators will explore the math tool, Whiteboard Fox, and integrate screencastify. Educators will use this tool to introduce new math concepts through demonstration by recording a narrated video. *Educators should complete "Mastering Screencastify" before engaging with this task card. 

Multilingual Learner Strategies
This task card is intended for teachers who have not yet completed or who are currently enrolled in an ESL certification program. It covers language acquisition theories, strategies, lesson planning, and assessment as it relates to multilingual learners.

Planning Learning Scaffolds for Differently Abled Students
Educators will explore the Zone of Proximal Development and incorporate scaffolding in order to create or enhance their lesson plan to include differentiation for all students.

Utilizing Google Classroom 
Educators will be able to create a new google classroom, change the theme, invite their students and create, upload and assign a variety of tasks for students.  Teachers will submit a screenshot of their course page and assignment.

Strategies for Student Interaction
Educators will articulate the importance of student interaction for learning, define the characteristics of meaningful student interaction, implement scaffolds for student interaction, and integrate an activity for meaningful student interaction into an upcoming lesson plan.

Scaffolds to Accelerate Learning
Participants will create an analysis of needs based on their incoming students and explore instructional strategies to accelerate student learning as a means to mitigate contributing factors to student loss.



Utilizing Google Forms for Formative Assessment
Use this task card to create a GoogleForm for the purpose of formative assessment. This task card is designed to support educators with creating  forms with questions that will allow a quiz to auto-grade. This form is intended for beginners.  

Virtual Learning Supports: Evaluating Virtual Tools- Coming Soon
Using this task card, participants will gain knowledge about the 4 C’s of 21st Century Skills, and how to evaluate virtual tools that best align with those skills. They will examine a variety of online tools to ensure they are selecting those that best support the needs of our students.

Social Emotional Learning: Trauma Informed Supports & Distance Learning - Coming Soon

Educators will learn how trauma affects learning and commit to supports they will use to mitigate the effects of trauma, specifically in the context of distance learning.

Social Emotional Learning: Standards & Strategies- Coming Soon

Educators will learn about Rhode Island's social emotional learning (SEL) standards and commit to strategies they can use to promote student development of these standards.

Virtual Learning Supports: Lesson Planning in a Virtual Space- Coming Soon

Using this task card, participants will explore how to effectively plan in a virtual space. They will explore how to digitally organize, adapt traditional lesson plans, and communicate unique systems and structures for their individual classroom to support students.

Virtual Learning Supports: Effective Virtual Feedback and Assessment- Coming Soon
Using this task card participants will ask themselves an important question: how can your feedback support student mastery in a digital space? They will explore virtual assessment strategies, review what makes feedback effective, and practice providing feedback virtually.