Iowa Educators Featured in Upcoming Webinar

Kelly Schofield, Principal of Hanawalt Elementary School, Des Moines, IA; and Sarah Dougherty, Visual Arts Curriculum Coordinator and Turnaround Arts Director, Des Moines, IA are featured in an upcoming webinar titled: Coaching Educators Builds Creative Capacity.  The webinar is on Monday, April 3, 2017 from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm.  Here is a description of the webinar.

Coaching educators builds their confidence and creative capacity. Coaching occurs in all sorts of situations from informal hallway chats and social gatherings to more formal PD or PLC group meetings and 1:1 in-depth conversations. Regardless of the venue, effective coaching is intentional listening. Coaches don’t solve other people’s problems; they help educators discover new approaches and take informed risks that lead to promising practices. Adult learners have much in common with young learners—the need for relevance, engagement, application, and interaction. Sitting and listening to lectures is not an effective teaching approach for helping children learn. That presenter-driven approach is equally boring for adults.
In this webinar, participants will hear insights from Cheri Sterman, Crayola Education Director; Kelly Schofield, Principal of Hanawalt Elementary School, Des Moines, IA; and Sarah Dougherty, Visual Arts Curriculum Coordinator and Turnaround Arts Director, Des Moines, IA on how to engage adult learners, and will be asked to “make their thinking visible” throughout the conversation as the presenters model a more interactive learning experience. This webinar will benefit K-8 classroom teachers, art teachers, literacy specialists, librarians, principals, and early childhood educators and family engagement specialists.

Click this link to register for their webinar.  

This webinar is one of the many webinars through edWeb.net and is sponsored by Crayola. 

Congratulations to Teacher Participating in the Blend Flip Cohort

Congratulations to Bryan Braack, a teacher at North Scott schools, whose Social Studies Softchalk lesson was chosen by the company as one of their "Featured Lessons of the Week".  Bryan learned how to work with the lesson builder Softchalk as well as best practices on building lessons in the courses which are part of the Blending Flipping Cohort.  Softchalk is a tool which is has been purchased for Iowa schools by AEA PD Online.

See Bryan's lesson on Scarcity here.


The Blended Flipping cohort consists of 4 courses that teachers and administrators can take through out a 1 1/2 year period.   Credit is available at a significantly reduced rate.

• The first course (Blending/ Flipping Your Classroom 1- Introduction is a three day face-to-face training on "Blending/Flipping your classroom 1" for one license renewal credit.  
• The second course is a fully online course "Blending/Flipping 2- Blended Instruction" as well as an elementary option for two credits (license renewal and graduate) which is available to those who have completed the first course.  
• The third in the series is "Blending/Flipping Your Classroom 3: Designing Online Lessons" which will take place as a blended model with two days face-to-face and the rest online for those who have completed the first two courses. It is this course that Bryan learned about Softchalk and the best practices behind text based lessons. This course is also two credits (license renewal and graduate).  
•  Finally the fourth in this series is "Blending/Flipping 4: Activities and Assessment "which will take place as a blended model with two days face-to-face and the rest online and is also 2 credits (license renewal and graduate) for those who have taken the three other courses.  

The last three courses in the series (six credits) can also be applied to the Drake Online Teacher certification for those that are interested.  Learn more about the cohort here.

If you are interested in being part of the Blended Flipping Cohort contact Denise Krefting or Melissa Wicklund.

Professional Development: Blending Flipping Your Classroom Cohort

Two Blending Flipping Your Classroom cohorts will be available for teachers this summer in Great Prairie AEA and Mississippi Bend AEA.  Course 1 "Blending/ Flipping Your Classroom 1" the start of the four course series will begin in June with another course in August for Mississippi Bend and in Great Prairie AEA (held at Van Buren CSD) in July.

These cohorts consist of 4 courses that teachers and administrators can take through out a 1 1/2 year period.   Credit is available at a significantly reduced rate.

• The first course (Blending/ Flipping Your Classroom 1- Introduction is a three day face-to-face training on "Blending/Flipping your classroom 1" for one license renewal credit.  
• The second course is a fully online course "Blending/Flipping 2- Blended Instruction" as well as an elementary option for two credits (license renewal and graduate) which is available to those who have completed the first course.  
• The third in the series is "Blending/Flipping Your Classroom 3: Designing Online Lessons" which will take place as a blended model with two days face-to-face and the rest online for those who have completed the first two courses. This course is also two credits (license renewal and graduate).  
•  Finally the fourth in this series is "Blending/Flipping 4: Activities and Assessment "which will take place as a blended model with two days face-to-face and the rest online and is also 2 credits (license renewal and graduate) for those who have taken the three other courses.  

The last three courses in the series (six credits) can also be applied to the Drake Online Teacher certification for those that are interested.  Learn more about the cohort here.

If you are interested in signing up or finding out more about the first course in the series offered at
Great Prairie AEA July 2017 click here.
Mississippi Bend AEA for June  and for August click here.

As other AEAs develop their summer schedule, their cohort courses will be added.  Please note that several school districts are also offering the cohort as part of their professional development.  Find out more by contacting Denise Krefting or Melissa Wicklund.