Goals & Mission
CTA’s professional development program is committed to supporting the professional needs of our members. Through ongoing, research-based, professional development opportunities, our members can become even more successful on the job as they serve their students, families, and communities.
Classes and PD Offered
ESE Professional Development
UDL-Universal Design for Learning Framework and Guidelines
March 8-9, 2024 8am-3pm, in person at the CTA office
Are you looking for ways to: design lessons that meet students where they are in the learning process?
Anticipate and reduce barriers for students to achieve rigorous goals?
Use students’ strengths and interests to drive instruction?
This interactive module is based on the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) Universal Design for Learning Framework and Guidelines. Participants will build an understanding of neuroscience as a foundation for educating the whole child and designing instruction to best meet the needs of diverse learners.
Participants will:
Use learner variability as a way to understand and address individual students’ learning needs.
Apply principles of Universal Design to reduce barriers for students in the school environment, assessments, methods, and materials.
Create student-centered lesson plans and learning experiences using the Universal Design Framework and Guidelines.
Audience: All PreK-12 educators
The TDY is for members and non-members alike. The Saturday class will be free for members but will cost $60 for non members. We hope to see you there! The limit is 35 people and you all get first dibs. We will not offer this to other members until tomorrow.
Cultivating Student-Centered Classrooms:
Join Orange County Classroom Teachers Association in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers for a professional learning day filled with opportunities to explore and reflect upon who you are as an educator and engage in evidence-based approaches to deepening connections with students and families. This interactive session will draw upon your existing practices to facilitate reflection and professional growth in designing equitable learning communities. Participants will leave with readily applicable strategies for co-creating student-centered classroom communities, fostering a sense of belonging and structuring responsive management systems to support student agency and self-regulation.
Engaging Every Learner:
For students to thrive and achieve at high levels, they must believe they can succeed, be interested and emotionally invested in their learning, and see the value and relevancy of the learning task in their lived experiences. To shape these beliefs and attitudes, efficacious educators intentionally plan for and utilize a variety of proactive teacher moves, grouping strategies and discussion protocols to elevate student voice, spark interest and promote agency. The learning environment is co-created to support student focus, pacing and momentum throughout the day and transition students smoothly between activities. This session unpacks the managerial and instructional considerations needed to engage every learner in student-centered classrooms.
Principles of Instruction:
Learning is social, emotional, and academic, some would even say spiritual. As we continuously interact with the world around us, new neurological pathways develop, our identities evolve and emerge, and we begin to take ownership over our own learning. Principles of Instruction is designed to walk educators through the learning process from each learner’s unique perspective. It offers multiple approaches to instructional design and models ways in which cognitive and metacognitive strategies scaffold learning and develop executive functions. This module honors seminal educational research and neuroscience as the drivers for equity and prepares educators to support the next generation of learners.
These classes are offered free of charge to CTA members. They are also worth points toward recertification.
Share my lesson page for teachers (elementary, middle, high and also topics and special months)
Sharemylesson.com- AFT’s Share My Lesson is an innovative, free website that provides anyone who works with students a place to collaborate on new ideas and best practices to enhance the profession and the larger education community. With more than 1 million members and 400,000 free preK-12 resources covering all subjects, members of Share My Lesson can share their own resources and download resources from colleagues in their own school, state or from across the country. These resources also include live and recorded webinars. There is also a growing collection of resources aligned to state standards. The site is a great tool for engaging educators, connecting teachers and parents, and providing support for new teachers.
The resources on ShareMyLesson are vast. Here are some general links to get you started.
Elementary: https://sharemylesson.com/search?grade=elementary-grades-k-2
https://sharemylesson.com/search?grade=elementary-grades-3-5
Middle: https://sharemylesson.com/search?grade=middle-school
High: https://sharemylesson.com/search?grade=high-school
CTA also has its own page dedicated to the needs of our local’s members https://sharemylesson.com/orangecounty
Online
AFT offers live and recorded webinars on various topics. https://sharemylesson.com/search?search_api_views_fulltext=webinars
