Setting New Teachers Up for Success (3-Day Opportunity)

Length: 3 Days

Audience: Beginning teachers (0-3 years of experience), Transition to Teaching Candidates, and Educators with Alternative Licensures

Description: Are you new to teaching? Are you searching for ways to make your classroom run smoothly? Do you want to ensure things are in place so you don’t lose valuable instruction time?  

This 3-day workshop is designed to support new teachers so that they start off well-prepared to have a successful year in the classroom. Teachers who have been teaching for 3 years or less will find great value in coming together to learn, prepare, and plan so that they have a roadmap to start the school year off. They will learn how to build relationships with students, set boundaries, and develop routines that include modeling and practice to save valuable instructional time.

• Day 1 – Led by Tiffany Creager: 

  The goal of this professional learning series is to support new teachers in developing positive relationships with students. Positive teacher-student relationships have been shown to improve academic achievement, improve student well-being, increase student motivation, and decrease undesirable student behaviors. The day will be broken into two parts: 

  • Creating Connections and Building Trust: Tier 1 New teachers will learn the importance of creating connections and building trust with their students. They will learn why designating time and effort to relationship building is highly beneficial and they learn strategies to begin this work during the first week of school. This initial segment will focus on connecting with all students by uncovering and understanding their core values and motivations, strengthening communication skills, and building classroom communities.
  • Relational-Based Discipline: During this learning segment, we will then explore discipline through a relational lens. New teachers will learn how to build on the work they do in their classrooms to create both preventative and responsive systems that are relationship-based, brain-aligned, and structured to address rupture and repair in a way that supports long-term behavioral shifts.

• Day 2- Procedures, Routines, and Transitions- Led by April Connelley: 

  This day is all about creating a classroom from the first day of school that leads to maximizing learning time. New teachers will join us for an active day of learning and collaboration. We will spend our time focused on deciding your desired state and determining action steps to make it happen. During learning, we will explore examples, identify needed routines for your classroom, and think about how to make it all happen. We will bring all of this together in a 20-day plan for the beginning of the school year.

   Participants will…

  •   Decide the desired state for your classroom.
  •   Determine action steps to start the school year.
  •   Understand how classroom set-up influences instruction.
  •   Explore some example routines and procedures.
  • · Begin planning for the first 20 days of the next school year.

• Day 3 – Support Meeting- Led by Tiffany Creager and April Connelley:   

  On this day, we will all come together to share successes and challenges the new teachers have experienced when implementing the strategies introduced in the first two days of learning. We will celebrate successes, share actual examples, and work through a problem-solving model to help teachers find further success. New teachers will develop a plan for revisiting routines and procedures at key times throughout the year to maximize success. They will also discuss ways to simplify some of their routines and procedures for efficiency. We will then dig into more intensive strategies classroom teachers can implement with harder-to-reach students. Participants will be introduced to a variety of evidence-based strategies and will create a plan for a small group of students that best fits the unique needs of the teacher and identified students.

Navigating Challenging Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Supporting Students and Fostering Resilience

Length: 1 Day

Audience: Administrators, Counselors, K-12 teachers

Description: Are you struggling with increased negative behaviors from students? Does it feel like your students lack the skills necessary to get along with one another? 

Join us to consider behavior and discipline through a trauma-informed lens and learn preventative, brain-aligned interventions with a goal of creating sustainable behavioral change. Strategies will include neuroanatomy instruction, relational practices, regulatory skill building, and restorative practices. Come and discuss, practice, and plan how to best use these strategies in your classroom and school.  

From Theory to Practice: Implementing Applied Neuroscience in Your School or Classroom 

Length: 1 Day

Audience: Administrators, Counselors, K-12 teachers

Description: Do you have a good understanding of applied educational neuroscience but struggle to implement these strategies in your school or classroom? Are you unsure of how to apply your learning in a way that produces positive results with students?

Building on a solid foundation of understanding “the why” behind AEN, we will explore ways to turn this work from theory to systematic practice. Join us to learn how to implement these strategies in your classroom or school. Utilizing the robust set of implementation tools you already have and use, we will discuss how to streamline this work from assessment to evaluation to maximize the benefits of these practices and increase student well-being, regulation skills, and academic achievement.

Strengthening MTSS Behavioral Supports

Length: 1 Day

Audience: Administrators, Members of MTSS or Behavioral Support Team (Counselors, Social Workers, Teachers, etc.)

Description: Have you noticed an increased amount of time and resources being spent on negative student behaviors? Are you looking for a way to build systems and structures that promote positive behavior, support staff and students, and increase positive school culture and climate?

Join us to develop a plan that is right for your school community! You will learn how to assess your current state, what steps to take to strengthen your school-wide MTSS behavioral supports, and leave with resources/tools for assessment, year long ready-to-go staff communication complete with quick tips for staff and student wellness, and a folder of strategies introduced in the session.

From Burnout to Balance: Nurturing Educators’ Mental and Physical Well-Being

Length: 1 Day

Audience: Administrators, Counselors, Social Workers, School Wellness Committee Members

Description: Are your highly effective teachers experiencing burnout and overwhelm? Are you struggling to hire or retain quality staff? 

Join us as we explore the significance of the educators’ brain and body state and their impact on overall school climate and culture. Together we will explore concrete and simple strategies to boost morale, increase job satisfaction, and improve educator wellness. You will be given resources/tools for assessment, year long ready-to-go staff communication complete with quick tips for staff and student wellness, and a folder of resources necessary to successfully implement strategies introduced in the session.

Meet the instructor: Tiffany Creager, LSW, MSW

Tiffany is a licensed social worker, advanced mind body medicine practitioner, and is certified in Applied Educational Neuroscience through Butler University. She has worked as an early childhood education director, a school social worker, a director of school-based services for a community mental health center, and has provided clinical therapeutic services to youth, adults, and families. Tiffany has partnered with over twenty schools and youth and family serving agencies to provide professional development, mind body medicine skills groups, and supportive services. Her focus on healing centered engagement supports staff, students, and families alike in understanding the impact of stress, trauma, and adversity while working to heal individually and collectively. This work is foundational to student and staff success and well-being. 

Tiffany specializes in social and emotional learning, improving school culture and climate, applied educational neuroscience, developing MTSS for behavior, trauma-informed schools, mind-body medicine, teacher retention, and supporting students’ and teachers’ mental health.

When you’re ready to set up one of our valuable professional development opportunities for your school, simply click the button below to contact Tiffany Creager. With school year dates filling up quickly Tiffany will work with you and your school to schedule a date and PD model option that works best with her availability and your school’s needs.