Teaching for Impact: Training Workshops

Registration is open for seven selected Teaching for Impact: Training Workshops being held on June 15 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Note: you will need a registration code for the specific workshop you are registering for. See the registration codes in the workshop descriptions below. 

Sponsored by the Iowa Department of Education and the Iowa Area Education Agencies, the training workshops are for all educators supporting learners with disabilities. There is no cost to attend.

Tier 2 Is a Process Not Just an Intervention - Registration Code: behavior
Early intervention is about proactive detection, providing early and timely intervention as close to the time when a student’s social, emotional and behavioral need emerges. Too often services are instead reactive. When support at Tier 2 is weak, it results in ineffective early intervention and many students may mistakenly appear to need Tier 3 services. Participants in this workshop will learn an evidence-based process that leads to greater efficiency and effectiveness to produce a return on the time, energy, and resources invested. This workshop will identify what drives successful intervention and provide a problem-solving process that puts in place evidence-based interventions to precisely match the students’ needs and achieve improved outcomes for students. Specific supports for students with disabilities will be addressed.

The Four R’s of Integrating Supports into Every Classroom - Registration Code: engagement
This is a moving, interactive, and highly engaging workshop that provides an inspiring vision for actionable strategies to integrate support for learners with disabilities into every classroom. Integrated supports are grouped in four categories: relationship, routines, redirection, and regulation skills. This workshop is full of examples and activities you can turn around and use. We will spend time on strategies that are designed to support class climate, classroom management, student engagement, social skill growth, and family engagement. Most of all, this workshop is experiential and models many of the strategies covered so participants will learn by doing.

Attendance Works: Reducing Chronic Absenteeism - Registration Code: attendance
Since the pandemic, chronic absence has doubled. It affects nearly 1 out 3 students nationwide and 1 in 4 in Iowa. Levels are typically 1.5 times higher among students with disabilities. Join Attendance Works to learn about what chronic absence is, why it matters and how it can be addressed, particularly for students with disabilities. Designed to be highly interactive, this session will offer opportunities for participants to review their own data and explore implications for action in their own districts and schools. Improving attendance and academic outcomes for all students requires schools to provide engaging, welcoming and supportive environments and to use proactive problem-solving approaches when absences first occur. Registration as a school team is encouraged.

Everyone Can Work: Employment Options for Student with High Needs - Registration Code: employment
Everyone can work, and there are evidenced based and research based practices available to support districts as they work to improve the outcomes of their students with the highest support needs, oftentimes those who have a BIP or those who are on alternate assessment. In this workshop, a team of partners will provide participants with strategies for implementation within schools, as well as within their collaboration to enhance transition outcomes for high need populations. Registration with a school team is encouraged.

A Deep Dive into Mathematics Tasks - Registration Code: math
Understanding what Students Know. This session will provide opportunities for the participants to investigate how to adapt or construct tasks to support students in their acquisition of conceptual and procedural understandings. Participants will compare and contrast the features of high-quality tasks to those tasks that are not robust. They will experience how to implement the tasks to enhance discourse in their classes and use the discourse to determine what the level of student understanding, and then create questions that will extend the task to further push their understanding.

The Surprising Importance of Early Math–for Everyone - Registration Code: earlymath
Young children have a surprising capacity to learn substantial mathematics, but most children in the U.S. have a discouraging lack of opportunities to do so, most notably, children with disabilities (CWD). Too many children not only start without appropriate opportunities to learn, but they also begin a negative and immutable trajectory in mathematics, with insidious long-term effects for both academic and overall life. The good news is that programs and curricula designed to facilitate mathematical learning from the earlier years, continued through elementary school, have a strong positive effect on these children’s lives for many years thereafter. Starting early—in preschool—with high-quality mathematics education, creates an opportunity for substantial mathematical learning in the primary years that builds on these foundational competencies.

Peer to Peer: Building Social Connections - Registration Code: peer2peer
This training provides participants information about systems for establishing a peer to peer support program to increase opportunities for students with social skills deficits to access general education settings and curriculum. Peers model typical academic and social behavior in educational environments throughout the school day and provide support for students with ASD to promote independence and socialization. The specific steps for developing a peer to peer support program will be presented including: recruitment, training and maintenance, and includes the concept of medium of exchange as a way to connect students.