Inspired Teaching Institute
Joyful, Interactive, and Engaging Professional Development
Inspired Teaching Institutes are FREE, improvisation-based professional development for teachers and school leaders. They move participants beyond passive professional learning: Inspired Teaching teaches the way people learn best – with our whole selves.
All Institute sessions, both in-person and online, are fully interactive. Online sessions are “cameras on” and “mics unmuted” so participants can get to know and interact with one another. Participants are not going to do a lot of sitting and listening! We encourage you to sign up with colleagues to deepen learning and create space for growing ideas as a community. You are guaranteed to leave these sessions feeling energized and ready to try something new.
Certificates of completion will be provided for all participants. DC Public School teachers get PLUs through the Washington Teachers’ Union for participation.
Upcoming Institutes
Inspired Teaching’s ABCDE of Learner Needs framework provides a simple and effective way to identify these needs and grow your toolkit for meeting them.
In this 3-hour Teacher-Leader training, participants will learn about the framework; practice using the tools created to support daily application of its principles in the classroom; and build facilitation skills to provide training in the framework for their own schools and beyond. All participants will receive a set of 10 ABCDE Practice Card Decks, 10 ABCDE of Learner Needs Early Childhood
Participants are expected to complete periodic action research surveys for the remainder of the school year to provide feedback on how the ABCDE framework impacts their work. Inspired Teaching staff will provide technical assistance to support all participants when they lead workshops in their own communities.
Open to early childhood educators. Space is limited; apply today!
Do your students know how to put their feelings into words? Can they share their strengths, interests, values, and challenges? Do they see themselves in a positive light? Are they confident enough to speak up for themselves, and know when to ask for help?
These are the questions we will explore in this webinar through the lens of the ABCDE of Learner Needs framework. The discussion will also feature insights and recommendations from Rebecca Winthrop, author of the forthcoming book The Disengaged Teen. Winthrop will share strategies for igniting students’ curiosity and building self-awareness and emotional regulation.
As the calendar year winds to a close and the middle of the academic year approaches, teachers are dealing with a lot of stress. This workshop will begin with an exploration of the ABCDE of Learner Needs as a tool for assessing where we should be focusing our efforts in taking care of ourselves.
Then, participants will learn from veteran educator and Teaching with Improvisation Fellow Kalpana Kumar Sharma as she shares the core principles of her “Self-Care Matters” project.
She will introduce participants to healthy intake habits, simple yoga exercises that benefit physical health, ways to bring positive energy into our days, and a 5-minute routine to ensure we prioritize even a little bit of time for ourselves every day. Join us for a much-needed afternoon of rejuvenation and connection!
Save the Dates: 2024-2025 Inspired Teaching Institutes
Join Inspired Teaching for interactive and joyful professional development each month of the 2024-2025 school year. Whether in person or online, teachers and school leaders can build skills and learn strategies that empower their students, their colleagues, and themselves to thrive!
All of our Institutes are FREE and are designed to be applicable across the PreK-12 school experience. Participants who attend these sessions will receive certificates of completion. Recordings of webinars and resources will be emailed to all registrants but we highly recommend joining us live so you can experience the activities firsthand, ask questions, and engage with other educators.
Want to stay up to date on upcoming Inspired Teaching professional development opportunities? Sign up at the button below to receive more details on future Institutes!
Inspired Teaching Institute Resource Guides
- 20 Ways to Start School Days
- 21 Ways to End School Days
- Fostering Mutual Respect
- Games That Build Student Expertise
- InsPIre Curiosity
- Crafting Assignments with Purpose
- 10 Ways to End the School Year
20 Ways to Start School Days
In this Institute, we explored the necessity of setting the tone and taking the temperature at the beginning of each day. This booklet includes 20 strategies for starting class with enthusiasm, from how to welcome students in the door to exercises for connecting greetings to the day’s lessons.
21 Ways to End School Days
In this Institute, we explored the necessity of closing out the day in a way that reinforces what was learned while creating community and receiving feedback. This booklet includes 21 strategies for synthesizing the day’s lessons, and creating excitement for tomorrow’s.
Fostering Mutual Respect
In these complementary Institutes, participants learned the importance of Mutual Respect in the classroom — for nurturing student-led conversations and social-emotional learning. The Fostering Mutual Respect resource guide includes physical, mental, and emotional activities and strategies teachers can use to build trust, accountability, and engagement with their students.
Games That Build Student Expertise
We often learn best through play but play can feel at odds with all we have to “get through” in our curriculum. In this hands-on, full-body Institute, participants learned how play and instruction can go hand-in-hand, while building student expertise. When, for example, students are tasked with working collaboratively and using their bodies to demonstrate a math concept, they must rely on what they know and understand to accomplish that task. Centering their knowledge in this way builds confidence and it’s also fun!
InsPIre Curiosity
What happens when we let curiosity drive our instruction? In this Institute, participants considered this question not just through the curiosity of our students, but through their own curiosity as well. Explore five different activities that can be adapted to multiple grade levels in this resource guide. From sensory explorations in science to working with manipulatives to uncover the “why” behind a given math concept, to writing prompts that inspire wonder, each of these activities offers an opportunity for questioning, experimenting, and learning. Could curiosity be the secret to engagement in this distracting and complicated world? Join us to wonder together!
Crafting Assignments with Purpose
As humans, we long to do work that is meaningful and that is just as true in school as it is in life beyond the classroom walls. In March’s Institute, we challenged ourselves to take whatever content we have to teach and turn it into learning with purpose. Connecting science and social studies concepts to social action. Connecting writing and math to crafting compelling arguments for change. Using a simple lesson planning framework and a handful of adaptable Inspired Teaching strategies and activities, this Resource Guide equips you with 3 new purposeful assignments you can implement right away.
10 Ways to End the School Year with Joy
As the school year winds to a close, there is joy in the completion and there is also cause for celebration in the journey. In this resource guide, explore 10 different year-end activities that range in duration from 10 minutes to several days. Each activity keeps the learning going and makes use of the community you’ve built over the course of the school year. These activities are applicable to multiple grade levels and subject areas.
Standards Addressed
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Competencies
Self-Awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose.
Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively, navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
Knowledge of Language:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing
Text Types and Purposes:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.
Production and Distribution of Writing:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
Research to Build and Present Knowledge:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Range of Writing:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening
Comprehension and Collaboration:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.6 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading
Key Ideas and Details:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6 Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9 Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards
| Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries |
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| Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries |
Inspired Teaching was a great recharge for me, and it breathed new life into my curriculum and teaching practice. My most important goal as a teacher has always been getting my students to be the ones doing the thinking, so Inspired Teaching’s Instigator of Thought framework really resonated with me. After Institute, I’ve tried to move away from any type of lecture where students are only sitting and listening, and you can see the results in my class.
