Professional Development
Heinemann partners with The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower for professional services related to Units of Study.
Connect Online
Office Hour Webinars
Receive help and advice directly from Dr. Lucy Calkins. During these live, online conversations, Dr. Calkins and her colleagues respond to questions about reading and writing workshop and offer practical advice on how teachers can raise the level of their practice. They also help administrators consider ways to support effective implementations of Units of Study and respond to additional questions attendees pose live.
Resources
The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower has compiled a range of resources for workshop teaching. From lists of recommended books to digital performance assessments, you can explore resources according to the grade(s) you teach or the subjects that are of particular interest to you.
Bring Us to Your School or District
Through on-site professional development as well as institutes and workshops, the team that comprises The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower helps teachers support kids in becoming enthusiastic and skilled readers and writers. We also support literacy coaches, school principals, and district leaders in the challenging work of large-scale whole-district reform.
We embrace revision and approach our work with humility, bearing in mind that research is never settled. We regard our theories, methods, and curriculum as provisional, and we are always learning alongside researchers, school leaders, teachers, and children.
Quick Start Conference Days: Introducing Units of Study in Reading, Writing and Phonics
These one-day conferences are tailored to meet the needs of each participating school. Sometimes the day helps teachers and leaders get started working within the Units of Study in Reading (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), Writing (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), or Phonics (K-2) and other times they bring participants up to date with state-of-the-art methods and resources. Either way, these days fuel a school’s energy for best practices in literacy instruction.
Professional Development with Schools
Research is clear that the single factor that most contributes to students’ success is the knowledge and skills of teachers. In order to lift the level of teaching and learning, staff developers work shoulder-to-shoulder with teachers, studying their students’ reading and writing, responding to teachers’ goals and questions, and demonstrating best practices in literacy instruction. We use a combination of demonstration, guided practice, coaching, shared inquiry, and direct instruction to help teachers lift the level of their teaching and accelerate students’ progress.
The site-based PD can be embedded in (and amplified by) other services which might include leadership conferences for school leaders, virtual mini-institutes and conferences, and invitations to pilot new curriculum including units in grammar and upper-grade spelling. Schools that partner with us also have access to the Toolkit, which is full of resources and instructional materials.
'Homegrown' Summer Institutes
Homegrown Institutes are one of the most effective ways to galvanize literacy work and support cohesive teacher learning across a school or district. These successful 4-5 day on-site institutes are tailored to a district or school’s needs, assessments, prior knowledge, and aspirations, and are designed to help educators in a particular community invigorate their own unique professional learning culture in reading, writing, or phonics. These often take place during the summer months.
Large District Support for Systemic Large-Scale Reform in Literacy
Large districts sometimes request multi-tiered packages of support that are designed to bring best literacy practices to scale across many schools. Packages can be customized to fit the needs of your district with offerings that may include large events, support for coaches and teacher leaders, institutes, and data analysis.