January Collaborative Voices

Young Voices VIRTUAL Field Trip. Registration link to register for the January Young Voices VIRTUAL Field Trip: HERE

• 9:00 am CST January 13, 2021 For Kdg. to Grade 3 Students Building Your Poetry Suitcase How can we make lifelong learners? The extra time spent at home during the social distancing of the past year highlights the importance of finding inspiration for learning in everyday objects. Building a Poetry Suitcase as a class—and then guiding students to build one at home—is a terrific way to encourage at-home learning. Objects in the Poetry Suitcase can be as personally meaningful or as simple as a favorite stuffed animal, a potato, a marshmallow, or a twig. In this session Janet Wong will share her own Poetry Suitcase—and inspire us to make our own suitcases, with our own poems and stories inside, too. The Young Voices registration is separate from the January Collaborative Voices Academy. 

• 10:45 am CST January 27, 2021 For Grade 3-5 Students HOP TO IT! Harnessing the Power of Poetry to Get Your Students Moving Poems that incorporate movement can help younger children “get the wiggles out” and can ease the stress that older children feel—preparing everyone for a better learning experience. Poet Janet Wong will share a wide variety of poems that make us feel more joyful and alive, while also touching on topics across the curriculum, from science and math to social studies and language arts instruction. Learn more about Janet's work at janetwong.com and pomelobooks.com.

Ralph Fletcher 
Young Voices VIRTUAL Field Trip. Registration link to register for the January Young Voices VIRTUAL Field Trip: HERE

• 12:45 pm CST January 27, 2021 For Grades 3-5 Students  How to Write a Memorable Memoir Memoir continues to be enormously popular. Everybody has a story to tell. Even an ordinary life provides all the fuel you need to write a strong memoir, if you know how  In this session we'll explore this fun but challenging genre of writing. Participants will also spend time writing short memoir of our own. Ralph Fletcher has published several memoirs including Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid and Marshfield Memories: More Stories About Growing Up. He is also the author of How To Write Your Life Story.

Dana Mitra

• 2:45 pm CST January 13 Student Voice: Pathways to Inquiry, Equity, and Civic Engagement Involving young people in decision-making processes related to learning, decision making, and social justice can lead to greater gains in academic and socio-emotional learning outcomes, as well as improve equity within classrooms and school-wide. In this session, researcher Dana Mitra will include the ways in which teachers can deepen student voice in their classroom and schools - from what it looks like to the contexts and conditions that can help it to thrive.

• 2:45 CST January 27 Civic and Inquiry Learning gains Through Student Voice Efforts This work can lead to greater gains in academic and socio-emotional learning outcomes. Session will discuss the types of ways in which the design of student voice activities can lead to improved outcomes for young people. . Session will include the ways in which teachers can deepen student voice in their classroom, contexts and conditions that can help it to thrive.

Kara Pranikoff

• 4:15 pm CST January 13 Breathing New Life into the Talk in Your Classroom What we read influences our thinking, yet conversations about read-aloud books are often led by the teacher’s interpretation. What can we do to better utilize the talk that flows through all our classrooms? How can we develop strategies to strengthen student talking and listening, so both become equally active roles? In this workshop we’ll consider ways to support a range of students in developing and expressing their thoughts, and the use student-reflection of transcripts and video to meet goals. Teachers will leave with concrete ideas about using classroom talk to help students become better thinkers and stronger conversationalists. 

• 4:15 pm CST January 27 Coaching Powerful Classroom Talk In a classroom where students become the meaning makers, the teacher assumes a new role, that of conversational coach. Space is made for regular reflection as the community must consider both how the conversation is orchestrated, and what ideas are developed. In this workshop we’ll explore materials and instructional moves that foster a safe space for students to have essential conversations that build identity, respond to world events and create communities of acceptance and inclusivity. We’ll come together to consider ways that teaching helps raise human beings who can listen with compassion and speak with strength.
  

Gwendolyn McMillon

• 7:00 pm CST January 13 and January 27 My Community is My Classroom: Transformative Teaching in Turbulent Times (repeats on January 27)  How can we keep students engaged in literacy learning in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and other distractions?  Is it fair to expect students to care about literacy learning when the world seems to be falling apart around them?  What can we do to authentically engage our  students in literacy learning that matters?  All of these questions and more will be covered during the workshop.  It is possible to turn your face-to-face and virtual classrooms into spaces where students want to learn.  Collaborative voices from the community can be incorporated into classroom curriculum.  Attend the workshop to find out how and why.

Jen Breezee and Sandra Taylor-Marshall Pre-recorded session Constructive Coaching Conversations As instructional coaches, we strive to facilitate and promote effective, on-going, job-embedded professional learning that results in meaningful growth in instructional practices and, accordingly, positive impacts on student learning. This session will explore the power of constructive questioning through the use of clarifying, reflective, probing, and inquiry questions to encourage teachers to reflect deeply and actively engage in solution-oriented professional learning that not only results in meaningful transformation of teacher practice but also to an increase in student achievement.

Kathy Champeau, Merry Komar, and Laurie McCarthy Pre-recorded session Create Dynamic Literacy Learning Environments by Maximizing Peer Relationships Learn to leverage critical components for creating both intellectually stimulating and emotionally healthy, self-regulated classrooms through productive peer interactions. Participants will critically analyze authentic classroom vignettes highlighting environments which meaningfully engage children with each other resulting in not only accelerated literacy learning but the development of children's humanity. Through dialogue, attendees will identify the conditions necessary for student voices to permeate the curriculum with a clear understanding of how to create these same environments in their classrooms.

Terra Tarango Pre-recorded session Make It Real: Bring Literacy to Life with Project-Based Learning As instructional coaches, we strive to facilitate and promote effective, on-going, job-embedded professional learning that results in meaningful growth in instructional practices and, accordingly, positive impacts on student learning. This session will explore the power of constructive questioning through the use of clarifying, reflective, probing, and inquiry questions to encourage teachers to reflect deeply and actively engage in solution-oriented professional learning that not only results in meaningful transformation of teacher practice but also to an increase in student achievement.