Welcome to the Professional Learning Library
Educators are lifelong learners. As such, Mizzou Academy is committed to continued professional learning. We also know that some of the most meaningful professional learning comes from our peers. Teacher stories matter. Learning together is a powerful way to grow as a learning community. As a global and blended school system, learning together often requires the support of technology such as video conferencing and videography.
We are proud that our live professional learning sessions are well attended by teachers and school leaders across the globe. However, we know not everyone can attend every session. Often you’re busy with the noble work of supporting young people as they learn and grow. Therefore, we are pleased to release this professional learning library. Within this living library, you will find videos of some of our most impactful professional learning sessions.
We invite you to register for the courses that speak to you, learn along with our facilitators, complete the quiz at the end of the class, and receive a continuing education record of your learning accomplishment. Please check back periodically as we plan to add new courses throughout the year.
Happy teaching and learning! The Mizzou Academy Team
Catalog
To register for each session, please click the link below the session description. Once you are added to the course in Canvas, you will receive an email to begin.
Human-Centered Leadership for Educational Leaders
Facilitator: Dr. Peter Stiepleman
Join Dr. Peter Stiepleman, former Columbia Public Schools superintendent and career educator for a teaching lecture on human-centered leadership. In this important workshop, participants will:
- Define human-centered leadership and explore a model for human-centered school transformation
- Commit to knowing the people in their schools and communities.
- Explore a system thinking tool they can take with them as they tackle challenges in their systems (Stock and Flow tool)
Dr. Stiepleman brings a passion for human-centered leadership and experiences working with multilingual and international students to his work. During his tenure as superintendent, he was committed to expanding equity and opportunity to the large public school district he oversaw. This special workshop includes human-interest stories, practical application, questions that invite inquiry, and specific learning on human-centered leadership for and about people.
The Student-Centered Classroom: Using Inquiry to Engage Students
Facilitators: Megan Lilien and Jacqueline Kay
Students succeed when learning matters to them. Mizzou Academy values inquiry-based learning because students play an active role in their learning. Attendees will put theory into practice by working collaboratively, discussing, and brainstorming how to create a learning environment focused on students. What is student-centered learning and why is it important? How can we support teachers and students in this model? Join Jackie and Megan for answers to these questions and more!
Inclusion and Representation in the CoTeach Classroom
Facilitators: Dr. Kathryn Fishman-Weaver, Lisa DeCastro, Dr. Adrian Clifton, and Kimberly Kester
Mizzou Academy is committed to continued, intentional development of inclusive, culturally sustaining, and antiracist practices, curriculum, and instruction. Our design process and professional learning draws on wisdom and examples from many different cultural and identity backgrounds, including, but not limited to, youth voices, people of color, women, Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, and multilingual scholars. We practice intentionality in the language we use (e.g., non-gendered and people-first); the messages sent by images, stories, and examples; and the ways we honor home language. Join us for this special professional learning session on how to operationalize inclusion and representation in the co-teach classroom. We’ll include examples from elementary, middle, and high school.
GAM: Soaring With Gifted: The Best is Yet to Come | Teaching Up: What If Excellence Was Our Goal?
Facilitator: Dr. Carol A. Tomlinson
In the long era when increasing standardized test scores has been the aspirational target for most schools, we have lost sight of excellence. Understood appropriately, excellence should be our aspiration for every learner—striving for complex thinking, application and transfer of learning, and what Ron Berger calls “beautiful work.” What if we adjusted our aspirations and sought both to understand what it means to teach with excellence as the hallmark of student work and therefore of our work as well? We’ll explore briefly what “teaching up” means, how it might look, and why it matters so much in a time when equity of access to truly excellent learning opportunities for each of our learners is our clearest mandate and greatest opportunity as educators. “Teaching up” has profound possibilities for who we recognize and teach as gifted—and for teaching the massive number of students we tend to look at less optimistically. This keynote will invite participants to think about what it means to “Teach Up” and how its philosophy and practices can revolutionize teaching and learning.
Cultivating Learner-Centered Communities
Facilitators: Megan Lillen, Brian Stuhlman, and Lisa DeCastro
The work of education can have/take many directions, many aspects, many perspectives…but remaining at the very center of the teaching and learning experience is our students. Keeping our students at the very center of our work in the classroom can sometimes be a challenge, whether we’re aware of it or not. In this presentation, we will explore what it means to have a learner-centered classroom, how to grow and sustain a classroom that focuses on students, and how to recognize and overcome some of the challenges that different educational environments might present.
The Art of Effective Feedback
Facilitators: Stephanie Walter, Greg Soden, and Jill Clingan
In this session we discuss how the art and science of teaching combine when using rubrics for student success. Mizzou Academy rubrics are designed to celebrate what students do well and where they can stretch and grow. In this session, we’ll discuss why rubrics matter, how Mizzou Academy uses them to teach students through feedback, and how classroom teachers can help students apply the feedback they receive to future assignments, projects, and exams. At the end of this session, you’ll find a group brainstorm about best feedback practices that can help support students in your classroom.
The Power of Reflection
Facilitated by Stephanie Walter
In this session, educators will learn about the value of pausing throughout their day to reflect on these three questions: What happened? Why does it matter? And, what will I do next? We’ll explore Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle to learn how to note a concrete experience, reflect on it, learn from it, and apply what we learn to a new experience. By the end of this session, learners will practice reflective steps and walk away with tips they can use for themselves and their students—to promote a growth mindset, student engagement, and meaningful connections.
Podcasting in the Classroom
Facilitated by Greg Soden
The medium of podcasting has taken the media world by storm! Over the past 15 years, hundreds of thousands of podcasts have made their way online on every conceivable topic. In this talk, educators will receive tips and resources for how to structure a podcast series as an assessment throughout a semester so that students can demonstrate their knowledge using research, writing, speaking, and technology skills. World Religions high school teacher Greg Soden will offer tips, show examples and rubrics, and discuss the various tools available to educators who want to assess their students via podcasting!