Professional Development

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For over 30 years the Oklahoma Technical Assistance Center (OTAC) has provided low-cost, high quality professional development to Oklahoma schools, teachers, administrators, and students. While our mission to provide professional development has not changed, the direction and service model has changed. Research, current trends, and new regulations put forth in No Child Left Behind point to and require that schools take a different approach to High Quality Professional Development. To that end, and in cooperation with the Oklahoma State Department of Education, OTAC no longer offers “stand alone workshops” as a means of providing professional development . Instead, OTAC promotes an initiative to assist schools in updating their basic approach to accessing and choosing High Quality Professional Development.

Under the heading of “School Improvement”, OTAC offers a series of customized professional development services centered around topics such as Data Driven Decision Making, Data Driven Instruction, Goal Setting, Curriculum Alignment, Technology-based Adaptations, Effective Classroom Assessment, and Professional Development Planning. In addition, OTAC will continue to offer state-mandated programs in the area of Bullying.

For those districts that take advantage of our “School Improvement” series and implement data-driven decision making procedures, OTAC may provide additional professional development programs, as appropriate to the data-driven plans developed by the schools.

OTAC makes a concerted effort to keep costs to a minimum. No honorarium or speaker's fee is charged for training presentations. The school district or agency pays only travel costs (state rate) and a small per-participant fee ($5.00 or actual copying costs for DDI related trainings) to defray the cost of training materials. Motel accommodations and associated costs (per diem, parking, etc.) are sometimes necessary depending on presentation scheduling. Since the presentations are interactive, it may be necessary to limit the number of participants. If you would like additional information regarding a training topic or availability, please contact us at (800) 687-5730 or (918) 225-1882.

High Quality Professional Development Live presentations at your site or arranged Video Conferencing
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
Data Driven Instruction New & Customized	Professional Development for Professional Development Chairs & Teams	Curriculum Alignment New & Customized
Current Issues / NCLB	Classroom Adaptations: No, Low, & New Tech Solutions	Cool Tech Technology-Based Adaptations
Thinkfinity Trainings Internet Content for the Classroom

STATE MANDATED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Child Abuse & Neglect: a four-part series	Bullying

STATE "ALLOWED" PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Point here to learn about "allowed"
Bafa Bafa	Ethnic & Racial Issues	Parental Involvement

Professional Development & Technology

OTAC uses the following technology-based methods for providing professional development:
     live WebCasts (broadcasts over the internet that you can view at your computer);
     streaming/downloadable files (archived versions of WebCasts that you can view at your computer);
     large group video-conferencing;
     small group video-conferencing;
     and videos on CD/DVD.
Use of these technologies can reduce your costs for accessing professional development as well as provide more focused and individualized professional development for your staff. We are developing more programs with these delivery models each month.

WebCast Directory

Professional Development Videos on CD/DVD

To arrange for use of video conferencing to access selected professional
development offerings, please call 1-800-687-5730 and ask for David McPhail

Bafa Bafa - Back to Top

Bafa Bafa is an active, experiential, cross-cultural simulation exercise. The purpose of Bafa Bafa is to provide participants with an experience that causes each to reflect and evaluate how they view and respond to similarities and differences between cultures. It is expected that inferences between the simulation and real cultures can be drawn upon to increase appreciation and respect for diversity, thereby reducing misunderstandings and cultural conflicts. The training is appropriate for adults and children who are at least 10 years old. If you schedule this multicultural in-service, be prepared to have some fun!

Bullying: When Push Comes to Shove - Back to Top

Workshop participants will learn about the prevalence of bullying in the school setting and its impact on bullies, victims and the school environment. Attendees will learn to identify bullies and their victims and how to develop a program of intervention which utilizes proven strategies for reducing bullying and improving the school environment. There will also be a brief discussion of recent legislation regarding bullying as well as a review of commercially available bully-prevention programs. Activities will focus on evaluating the need for and the development of a local program to prevent bullying.

Equipment: TV, VCR, Overhead projector & screen
Grades: 3-12

Current Issues / NCLB - Back to Top

This presentation summarizes current issues in education. At this point, the federal "No Child Left Behind" act is the most important issue and the implementation and impact of this law in Oklahoma is the focus of the session. The presentation also addresses current state issues that are the focus of legislative efforts as well as other federal mandates such as proposed changes to the IDEA. Talk with us about the specific focus of the presentation for your school.

Equipment: Overhead projector & screen
Grades: K-12

Curriculum Alignment - Back to Top

“How can editors in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or even Dallas know our students as well as we do?” Textbooks have often been mis-used as THE curriculum for content. While offering a valuable resource, Curriculum Alignment guides teachers through an appropriate correlation of the skills and activities within the text to the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) objectives. Teachers will identify those skills which will be assessed and plan their instructional strategies to better ensure the students’ competency levels. Having these components of instruction clearly highlighted, an “itinerary” for the year’s instruction can be mapped. This vertical alignment will then be reviewed with the objectives from those pre-requisite classes, as well as those courses which will follow. Such horizontal review gives colleagues the opportunity to clarify terminologies, correlate instructional strategies and gain appreciation for the overall task of the educational process.

This professional development opportunity is customized for each school district. Call our office at 1-800-687-5730. Ask for Denise Riley or Missy Storm for details.

Data Driven Instruction (DDI) - Back to Top

Data Driven Instruction offers district personnel an opportunity to review and interpret the specific assessment results from their own teaching efforts. Participants are guided through the results of the state-required tests from previous years to help reveal patterns of both strong and weak performances. Appropriate goals to improve student performance can then be determined and in turn, have a positive impact on the district’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Discussions and examples directly from local district data will provide a much more meaningful learning experience for the participants.

This professional development opportunity is customized for each school district. Click here to see the checklist of data that we will ask you to send to us so we can customize your training. Call our office at 1-800-687-5730. Ask for Dr. Kathy McKean or Rick Rogers for details.

Thinkfinity: Internet Content for the Classroom - Back to Top

A nonprofit consortium of premier national and international education organizations and the Verizon Foundation dedicated to providing the highest quality Internet content and professional development to teachers and students throughout the United States. First launched in 1997 as a collection of standards-based, discipline-specific educational Web sites for K-12 teachers, Thinkfinity features three levels of training:

Awarness sessions are 1 hour sessions that provide an overview of the resources available through the Thinkfinity partnership.
End User/Teacher sessions are 2 hour (minimum) sessions in which attendees will be trained integrate Internet content into their classroom/curriculum. End Users/Teachers do not plan to conduct Thinkfinity training sessions for other educators, but may share the resources with their colleagues.
Field Trainer sessions are 1 or 2 day sessions that prepare educators to conduct Thinkfinity roll-out training in their respective service areas by training other trainers and/or training end users/teachers.

All sessions require Internet access and a projection area. Awareness sessions are not necessarily hands-on, but End User and Field Trainer sessions are hands-on trainings.

Professional Development for Professional Development Chairs & Teams - Back to Top

In the rush to provide students with the best learning climate possible, we must also provide quality professional development for their teachers, administrators, and all support personnel. This training demonstrates to schools how to plan, coordinate and accomplish their professional development needs in a fashion aligned with, and appropriate to, the demonstrated needs of the students, the personnel and the school district as a whole.

This training is now provided through scheduled regional conferences and WebCasts. Click here to sign up to receive email notifications of upcoming conferences and WebCasts.

Ethnic & Racial Issues - Back to Top

This workshop is designed to equip the instructor with the tools to promote constructive relations among people of many different cultures. Specific curricular strategies will be presented to address productive academic communication between ethnic and cultural groups. The concepts are presented with implications for educational equity and the improvement of student success both academically and behaviorally.

Equipment: Overhead projector & screen
Grades: K-12

Parental Involvement: Parents Are the Master Key - Back to Top

This workshop addresses House Bill 1017, Section 51, which requires each school district to implement a parent outreach program. Four components of this parent outreach workshop include: 1) understanding the value of parent participation, 2) developing awareness of needs for each parent population, 3) developing methods for communicating with parents, and 4) providing resources to support and supplement the outreach program.

This training is no longer "required" by Oklahoma law, but is still allowed.

Equipment: Overhead projector & screen
Grades: K-12

Classroom Adaptations: No, Low, & New Tech Solutions - Back to Top

The strategies and techniques discussed in this training will assist regular and special educators in adapting the content of their classes to meet the needs of at-risk and special education students. The training addresses No & Low Tech solutions for adapting materials and teaching techniques, while also exploring computer and other technology-based adaptations. The technologies demonstrated in the training are easily accessible and often represent no/low cost solutions. A free Text-to-Speech program is demonstrated and explained during the training.

Time: Full School Day, approximately 4-5 hours of actual instruction in addition to question periods and a "hands-on" session with the free Text-to-Speech program.
Grades: K-12
Equipment: Computer Lab with speakers or headphones (maximum two participants per computer).

CoolTech

     Sometimes schools elect to only access the technology-based adaptations from the Classroom Adaptations training. We call this training "CoolTech". Due to the growth and evolution of technology this training is constantly updated. Presently, areas of discussion, demonstration and training include but are not limited to:
     Text-to-Speech (free software that reads aloud the text on a computer screen)
     Speech Recognition (speech-to-text, you speak-it types)
     Digital voice recording
     Audio editing
     Movie-making
     Use of other digital devices in the classroom and as adaptive devices

Time: 2-3 hours including question periods and a "hands-on" session with the free Text-to-Speech program.
Grades: K-12
Equipment: Computer Lab with speakers or headphones (maximum two participants per computer).