Comment on a Session

In response to the learning loss due to COVID and the chronic achievement gap, the strategic tutoring manual is being simplified to meet immediate demands. Mike Hock and Tonya Eberhardt shared their work and thoughts on the adjustments being made to strategic tutoring. From my perspective, the additional or updated version of strategic tutoring will assist families and schools with an effective way of providing quality assistance to students who have fallen behind. Making the approach and strategies easily accessible will enhance the likelihood of those using strategic tutoring sticking with it. I am excited to see the final product. I plan to share with parents and school districts that I work with the new version of Strategic Tutoring. 

I enjoyed attending the VOISS break-out session in order to expand my resources of SEL material. I emailed the school psychologist as well as the special education compliance manager at my school to discuss the possibility of us implementing VOISS in our school.

Teaching STEM Content with CORGI - Bryan Dean, Evelina Dean, Claire Geboski, Anne- Marie Knokey, Jamie Basham, Janis Bulgren: I also enjoyed participating in the CORGI training since it provided me with an additional resource to use with students who have a disability.

Three big ideas:
1. Focus on collaboration instead of competition
2. Invest in equity
3. Maintain the status of teaching profession

This session studied several indicators and the group brainstormed several ideas for virtual activities and virtual tools that can be used to support the PD indicators. Participants were able to try out some of the virtual tools in the session.  Critical content/concepts were discussed and ways to engage learners was provided.

This great breakout session provided resources and tools for providing professional development to others about SIM. We looked at three key resources and discussed how they can be used, who would benefit from the information these sources contain, and the technology needed to enhance engagement and understanding.  

This was not only an engaging presentation, but it left me with many ideas on how and where I could implement this into my own ELA classes. The resources presented in the Canvas platform are useful and user-friendly, and the livebinder is an added bonus! Many practical ideas and activities are shared that really help to provide a starting place for using this strategy even if it is new to you! Thank you! 

This session was dynamic, 'right-on-time', organized, and interactive.  There was a clear graphic to depict what accelerated learning is NOT.  Additionally, the SMARTER planning process was presented in clear chunks with specific descriptions of each chunk, what its impact is, how it can accomplished, and what it looks like in practice. Breakout rooms allowed opportunities to then discuss each chunk and other options that could be included in each.  Jamboard was used for everyone in the breakout rooms to share their comments for all to see. This was a great idea because it allowed the opportunity to 'hear' what everyone was saying!

Kudos to Amy and Teri!  It was an amazing presentation!

Word Mapping session was outstanding. The presenters are very knowledgeable and gave participants many examples and tips for implementing the strategy. I have used Word Mapping, but gained so many helpful tips from this session.


I am also very interested in becoming an Xtreme PDer. The session was very informative as far as the process and the lessons of Xtreme.