Resources & Online Enrichment

OSPI Guidance and Resources

Washington OER Commons Hub: In addition to the content area groups that contain openly licensed courses, lessons, and units,OSPI has added a new section called "Remote Learning Suggestions." This resource includes:

  • For Educators:
    • Curricular Resources
    • Professional Learning Opportunities
  • For Families:
    • Students Working Independently
    • Supporting Youngest Learners
    • Supporting Students with Disabilities
    • Online Learning Guidance

Refer to the OSPI Accounting Manual for the current year for guidance. (Under Instructions>Accounting Manual>choose year)

Tools

Capital Region ESD 113 Teaching and Learning Resources

Contact: Russell Rice

  • Support for Principals: A weekly Zoom “Principal PLC” 
  • The Beginning Educator Support Team foundation series will continue via Zoom

Contact: Lorie Thompson and Patricia Lange

Career Tech Administrators are meeting weekly to share resources.

In development:

  • STEM Teacher Cafe hands-on workshops (K-12) from local employers
    • includes free STEM clock hours, transportation reimbursement & stipend
    • Developing specific workshops in robotics, woodworking, etc.
    • Dates/times/locations TBD
    • Funding from WA STEM Catalyst grant

Contact: Andrew Hickman

Educational Technology and Computer Science Offer Opportunities for Staff and Students to Engage in Computational Thinking, Problem Solving, Continued Collaboration, and learn application use and integration strategies.

Resources to engage students at home:

Online PD in development:

  • Google for Education Courses
    • G-Suite 101: Introduction to Google for Education
    • G-Suite 102: Additional Applications to Use with Students
    • G-Suite 103: Advanced Integration of Google Applications
    • Google Classroom: Initial Set-Up, Classroom Procedures,  and Advanced Practice
    • Computational Thinking: Computer Science Integration K-10
    • Educational Technology in The Classroom
    • STEM Integrations: K-8

Contact: Jen Flo

  • WAETAG Monthly Webinar A monthly hour-long webinar for educators on a variety of topics surrounding highly-capable students.
    • Free clock hour available each month.

Lesson Sources:

  • Byrdseed.com and Byrdseed.tv Whether you visit his website to learn more about highly-capable students or visit his online lesson site, Ian’s lessons are designed to get kids thinking.  He provides a great model for asynchronous instruction.  
  • Ms. Math – Rachel McAnallen is devoted to math.  She completed her PhD at age 75, and has been a classroom teacher, department chair, school board member, high school administrator, and now author!  Her lessons are located on her website, under the Workshop tab – Tangram Tango (geometry), Action Fractions, Teaching Math Without Worksheets, and more.  Some of her workshops are shared freely and others are professional development opportunities.

Design Thinking:

Questioning Strategies:

Using theses strategies, teachers and parents can challenge the thinking skills of students by getting them to ask their own questions or look at challenges through particular lenses.

  • Depth and Complexity Icons – these icons are tools that students of any age can use to look deeper into content or areas of interest.  Developed in the 1980’s, the 11 icons provide opportunities to understand their topic as experts would: ethics, changes over time, professional vocabulary, patterns, and more.  Good news – because the work was completed through a federal grant, they are in the public domain. You can find downloadable icons here  (but it’s even more powerful if you teach students to draw them).
  • Six Thinking Hats (DeBono) -  This lateral thinking strategy allows students to separate thinking into six different roles.  Each color of hat represents particular focus or lens to explore and brainstorm thinking. White hat is focused on facts.  Yellow hat looks for positives and benefit. Black hat is judgement or danger. Red is feelings and hunches. Green focuses on creativity and possibilities.  Blue hat ensures that all hats and the thinking process are followed. The book, Six Thinking Hats, by Edward DeBono provides a more in depth look at this creative thinking strategy.
  • Question Formulation Technique (QFT) – helps students and adults of all ages with creating and using their own questions.  Working through this strategy, we generate many questions and then look at the qualities of strong questions.  Great if you are looking for extension activities for new topics or spring boarding from existing lessons.

Critical and Creative Thinking Strategies:

  • SCAMPER – a creative thinking strategy focused on brainstorming creative solutions.  Highly adaptable, the mnemonic offers a variety of lenses to help develop new products or improve current ones (doesn’t have to be physical items). Here is a great video that highlights how it is used in the candy industry.
  • Visible Thinking – This collection of 24 thinking routines help students to develop thinking skills, practice using those skills, and deepen their content knowledge (become practitioners of the work).   This collection of routines falls across five categories: Core, Understanding, Fairness, Truth, and Creativity Routines.

In development:

  • Canvas course being developed for HiCap from Javits Modules (PD in PJs).
    • The first course will be on pedagogies and strategies to support students.
    • The second course will be on access & equity.
  • Supporting Twice-Exceptional Learners
  • Professional development on creativity, critical and creative thinking.

Contact: Cheryl Vance

In development:

  • Teaching Engligh Language Arts Virtually: Collaborating for Effective Practice
  • Close Reading: Digging Deeper Using Linked Text Sets (available 4/13/20)
  • Literacy in Phenomena-Based Science
  • Introduction to Pathways in Early Literacy

Contact: Daniel Kent

  • Developing Conceptual Understanding through Mathematically Productive Routines: HS Quadratics Focus
    • This workshop has a content focus on quadratic functions and a pedagogical focus on the implementation of instructional routines that promote mathematical reasoning and student discourse. Teachers will explore quadratic functions through rich tasks, and they will have the opportunity to experience, analyze, and learn to implement productive instructional routines and strategies that they can incorporate into their mathematics lessons and units. Additionally, teachers will use the technology Desmos to explore modeling physical situations with quadratic functions and explore career options that utilize quadratics in modeling.
  • Mathematics for Human Flourishing Book Study
    • 4/1/2020–4/22/20, Wednesdays from 1:00–3:00 pm
    • Presented via Zoom by George Christoph and Carrie Black
    • Every single person who has contact with students is, whether we realize it or not, a math teacher. What pedagogical changes in classroom routines are necessary to allow students and teachers to adopt a more purposeful vision of mathematics that taps into the desires that entice us to do mathematics as well as the virtues that mathematics can build? Let's engage in finding out together!
  • Developing Conceptual Understanding thru Productive Routines (ONLINE) for Middle School Teachers: Using Routines to Teach Middle School Mathematics with a Focus on Linear Functions, Desmos, and Modeling
    • April 6-May 25
    • This workshop has a content focus on linear functions and a pedagogical focus on the implementation of instructional routines that promote mathematical reasoning and student discourse. Teachers will explore linear functions through rich tasks, and they will have the opportunity to experience, analyze, and learn to implement productive instructional routines and strategies that they can incorporate into their mathematics lessons and units. Additionally, teachers will use the technology Desmos to explore modeling physical situations with linear functions and explore career options that utilize linear functions in modeling.
  • Limitless Mind Book Study
    • This book study will offer up to 10 clock hours -- 7 hours for completing the online self-paced course and up to 3 additional clock hours for participating in online video group discussions.
    • Clock Hours are FREE to WSMC members or available for purchase at $2 per hour.
    • Registration opens April 6
  • Catalyzing Change Book Study
    • April 15-June 3
    • This professional learning focuses around how to initiate critical conversations as described in NCTM’s 2018 book Catalyzing Change in High School Mathematics. As a book study, we will regularly meet to identify and address critical challenges for us in high school mathematics.
  • Games for Learning Concepts: The professional learning focuses on the role of games to build mathematical fluency either as an intervention or enrichment for students.
  • (STEM) Spring Break Math Roadtrip
    • April 6-9
    • Take a spring road trip with us as we travel across America "virtually" to see some of the best math resources out there!
    • Spend time with us as we engage in math activities that incorporate and integrate technology

Contact: Scott Killough

Resources to engage students:

Resources to engage teachers:

From the State Board of Education:

Professional development:

Climate Science Canvas Course 2.0: Analyzing and Interpreting Data

In this FREE Canvas Course, attendees will learn a protocol for organizing and interpreting data through tabulating, graphing, and statistical analysis. In this context of the course, the protocol will be applied to a climate science topic. With regard to NGSS alignment, the course focuses on the practice “Analyzing and Interpreting Data” within the dimension “Science and Engineering Practices.”

Course Details:

  • 6 STEM clock hours are available upon completion of all modules and lessons
  • We estimate six to ten of hours of engagement to complete course
  • Course will remain open from March 23rd 7:00 AM to June 30th 5:00 PM

Contact: Alicia Roberts Frank and Karen Tranum

Resources for special education, dyslexia, and early literacy:

In development:

  • Virtual dyslexia professional development
  • Autism behavior basics course for general education teachers