Services

Schooling Innovation Services (SIS) Professional Development Services

PURPOSE, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES

The PREL Schooling Innovation Services program offers professional development opportunities to schools, districts, and state departments of education (DOEs). The institutes offer the opportunity to earn DOE credits specifically in English as a Second Language (ESL) and general education. The following is a list of the professional development courses that PREL currently offers. To get more details about the program or learn how these courses can be implemented for your organization, contact Dr. Lori Phillips at phillipl@prel.org.

COURSES

Culturally Responsive Sheltered Instruction for English Language Learners

Participants learn about sheltered instruction, which emphasizes making classroom content comprehensible for English language learners (ELLs). Participants will review five focus areas of Sheltered Instruction: 1) Preparing a Lesson for the Classroom; 2) Acquisition of Prior Knowledge and Building Background; 3) Scaffolding; 4) Language Use in the Classroom; and 5) Review and Assessment. The course focus is on learning new strategies and activities for helping ELLs understand content across the curriculum. Participants write standards-based lessons that are relevant for working with Micronesian and Pacific Island student populations. They also learn to add to their teaching repertoire multi-modal strategies for helping students improve their vocabulary and comprehension.

Understanding and Supporting Micronesian Students in Our Schools

This 1- or 3-day course is designed for educators in Hawai‘i who work with ELLs and, more specifically, Micronesian students. There will be a focus on ESL strategies, such as differentiated instruction, building background, and teaching vocabulary. Participants will be introduced to resources such as books, films, maps, and information about the region.

Supporting Chinese (Fuxian) Parents in Their Children’s Education

This 1- or 3-day workshop will focus on working with Chinese (Fuxian) parents who wish to be successfully involved in their children’s education. This workshop helps parents understand their role in the educational process. Acculturation, parenting responsibilities, roles, rights, school procedures, and requirements will all be covered in the sessions.

Supporting Micronesian Parents in Their Children’s Education

This 1- or 3-day workshop focuses on working with Micronesian parents who wish to become successfully involved in their children’s education. This workshop helps parents understand their role in the educational process. Acculturation, parenting responsibilities, roles, rights, school procedures, and requirements will all be covered in the sessions.

Image to Word / Word to Image

By integrating art, language arts, and technology with content areas, participants learn how to create personally and culturally relevant images for students that will stimulate their reading, build their vocabulary, and encourage descriptive writing. Observational drawing is used to develop academic and foundational vocabulary, a technique that is particularly useful for ELLs. This process results in rich, descriptive images and words that help the student detect patterns, sharpen their powers of observation, use new descriptive vocabulary, and synthesize new ideas.

Picturing Science

Picturing Science is a project developed and created by PREL. This institute helps K–12 teachers combine image and word by utilizing digital camera photography, science research, creative writing, and interpretive art to create web-based student showcases of written and artistic works. The focus is on the scientific inquiry process and ways in which to use methods of art criticism to help describe, observe, and form hypotheses. Observational drawing is used to develop academic and foundational vocabulary. This process offers students opportunities to express what they know and have learned in a content area using alternative methods. Go to: http://picturing-science.prel.org/

Science, Language, and Community

Participants in this course will learn how to meet K–12 learning standards through simple science activities that are relevant to Pacific Island students’ lives. They will discover how to integrate language learning—for ELLs as well as native speakers—with these engaging explorations of science concepts. Participants will also explore the ways in which science and language learning can highlight and honor the knowledge that students already possess. Building content and language objectives with a focus on science vocabulary will be emphasized.

Reading in the Early Grades

Participants will explore the early reading processes that build skills and develop a desire to read in young learners. This 3-day course is designed to help educators in Hawai‘i support ELLs and, more specifically, Micronesian students. Participants will learn practical and effective strategies for use in the classroom in five areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.

Reading in the Middle Years

Participants will explore concepts and strategies that support striving readers, including ELLs, across the curriculum. Special attention is given to vocabulary and key comprehension strategies for informational texts found in science and social studies classrooms. The workshop will include demos and activities that teach strategies for classroom use.

Writing in the Early Grades

Participants explore the developmental stages of young writers and different techniques to improve their writing skills. Participants also learn how to create new and exciting lessons aligned with the Hawai‘i Content and Performance Standards. Assessments are correlated to each lesson, enabling participants to analyze student samples to improve their instruction.

Language-Focused Mathematics Pacific Region Integrated Mathematics and English (PRIME)

This course consists of three professional development sessions that take teachers through a number of language-focused classroom activities designed to deepen and strengthen the mathematical understanding of their students in key areas of elementary mathematics. PRIME I focuses on developing some principles and practices in language-focused mathematics classrooms. PRIME II will introduce quantity of volume; relationships between the quantities of area, volume, and length are explored, with a focus on conjecturing and experimentation. PRIME III brings in the quantity of mass and concludes the study of quantities with activities, focusing on the measurement of all four quantities in non-standard and standard units.

Integrating English, Science, and Mathematics

This course consists of three professional development sessions that take teachers through an interdisciplinary approach to teaching English, science, and mathematics. Content learning is presented through thematic activities found in Hawai‘i’s Content and Performance Standards.

Standards-Based Arts Education

Participants learn about standards-based arts education and design lessons that offer students a comprehensive arts education curriculum. All lessons focus on art production, art history, aesthetics, and art criticism. Participants are introduced to new and exciting arts education resources. At least eight different classroom art materials are demonstrated.

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