Professional Development

Book a Professional Development Workshop

Building Inclusive Classrooms

Bring Foothills Academy Professional Development to Your School or Organization

Our Professional Development Workshops and Training focus on strategies and programs that have been proven successful within our school and one-to-one Read/Write program. Although our focus is assisting individuals with Learning Disabilities, the ultimate goal is to assist and support staff in meeting the diverse needs of all learners.

Current Workshop topics available for booking:
 

Inside Dyslexia (3 sessions:4 hours, 30 minutes)

(3 sessions: 4 hours, 30 minutes)

Described as "word blindness" in the late 1800s, early observations of struggling readers involved individuals who were unable to read despite clearly capable cognitive abilities, strengths in other domains, the absence of any obvious brain injury, and adequate instruction. "Dyslexia" - as we know it today - occurs in an estimated 5-15% of the population and refers to individuals who display fundamental and often profound difficulties with reading and spelling single words in isolation. 

This difficulty has a wide range of implications across academic settings and grades including reading comprehension, the development of vocabulary, and the ability to spell and communicate in writing. Students with Dyslexia often experience repeated failure and frustration as early as grade 1, which often leads to a significant decrease in self-esteem and motivation, an increase in mental health concerns, and higher risks of school dropout and employment difficulties into adulthood. Educators play a critical role in the trajectory and outcomes of students with Dyslexia, and there is so much we can be doing to help these kids. 

Part 1: Introduction 

  • Red flags
  • The language associated with Dyslexia
  • Myths: What Dyslexia is VS what it isn't (visual tracking issues, etc)
  • Statistics and impact of Dyslexia
  • Developmental trajectory of Dyslexia

Part 2: Diagnosis and Academic Impact

  • Dyslexia diagnosis
  • The Wait to Fail model: prevention VS intervention
  • The cognitive processes linked to Dyslexia.
  • The role that automaticity plays in the development of early reading skills
  • Dyslexia breakdown: Encoding and Decoding
  • Impact across academics

Part 3: How We Can Help

  • Early screening, prevention, and intervention
  • Evidence-based interventions
  • Curriculum-based measurement: Instructional response, progress monitoring, etc.
  • Assistive Technology
  • Evidence-based resources, websites, etc. for supporting students

Target Dyslexia

(1 session: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

Dyslexia occurs in an estimated 5-15% of the population and refers to individuals who display fundamental and often profound difficulties with reading and spelling single words in isolation. This difficulty has a wide range of implications across academic settings and grades including reading comprehension, the development of vocabulary, and the ability to spell and communicate in writing. Educators play a critical role in the trajectory and outcomes of students with Dyslexia, and there is so much we can be doing to help these kids.  

  • Red flags
  • Diagnosis, statistics, and developmental trajectory of students with Dyslexia
  • The language associated with Dyslexia
  • Cognitive processes involved in reading
  • Evidence-based Tier 2 and 3 interventions 

Get Proactive about Procrastination 

(1 session: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

Everyone procrastinates, but people with ADHD are masters at task avoidance. Unfinished tasks – particularly those that are difficult, unenjoyable, and/or have many steps - may actually lead people with ADHD to experience physical and mental discomfort.

Many of the executive behaviours required for completing tasks such as planning, prioritizing, motivating, organizing, and decision-making are areas where people with ADHD struggle most. Combined with weak self-regulation of emotions and moods, a problem common in people with ADHD, and they easily become overwhelmed and shut down, avoid, or act out. Experts in this area believe that for people with ADHD, procrastination is a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods brought on by specific tasks.

Finding the motivation to begin a task and sustain the effort to finish it requires intense self-control. By understanding the difficulties that people with ADHD experience in this area and implementing specific strategies and supports, a person with ADHD can learn to improve their ability to complete tasks. Join Tanya to learn more about research in this area and gain some practical strategies to get proactive about procrastination.

Learning Disabilities: What Educators Need to Know

(1.5 hours, 2.5 hours or full day workshop available)

Learning Disabilities (LD) are brain-based difficulties in reading, writing, math, organization, focus, listening comprehension, social skills, motor skills or a combination of these. LD are not the result of low intelligence, poor vision or hearing, or lack of access to quality instruction. Examples include Reading LD, Writing LD, Math LD; Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyspraxia. 

Educators play a key role in setting these students up for success in the classroom. In this session, we will discuss: 

  • Statistics and outcomes for students with LDs 
  • Causes, myths, and facts 
  • Red flags, identification, and assessment of students with LDs 
  • Social, emotional, and behavioural challenges for students with LDs and how to support these learners 
  • Evidence-based interventions to set up teachers and their students with LD for success 

ADHD: What Educators Need to Know

(1.5 hours, 2.5 hours or full-day workshop available)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviours, or over-activity. There are three different types of ADHD, depending on which symptoms are strongest in the individual, and each of these subtypes may impact children differently, especially at school. 

The classroom environment can pose challenges for a child with ADHD. The very tasks these students find the most difficult—sitting still, listening quietly, concentrating—are the ones they are required to do all day long. Perhaps most frustrating of all is that most of these children want to be able to learn and behave like their neurotypical peers. Neurological deficits, not unwillingness, keep kids with attention deficit disorder from learning in traditional ways. Educators play a key role in setting these students on a path for success! In this session, we will discuss: 

  • Statistics and outcomes for students with ADHD
  • Causes, myths, and facts 
  • Red flags, identification, and assessment of students with ADHD
  • Social, emotional, and behavioural challenges for students with ADHD and how to support these learners 
  • Evidence-based interventions to set up teachers and their students with ADHD for success 

Executive Functioning: Who’s the Boss?

(1.5 hours, 2.5 hours or full day workshop available)

Executive Functions (EF) are mental processes that help to connect past experience with present action to guide future behaviour. Individuals with Learning Disabilities and/or ADHD may experience increased difficulty in the development and use of these functions compared to their same-aged neurotypical peers.  These functions underlie activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space. When students struggle in these areas, it can result in behaviours that are often labelled as  “attention-seeking”, “defiant”, “showing off”, “unmotivated” or “lazy”, “emotional overreactions”, and “inflexible”, just to name a few. 

Teaching students with  EF deficits can be challenging, and understanding the how and why of EF deficits can significantly impact how we work with these students. This session will increase teacher’s knowledge of how EF deficits impact learning and what teachers can do to maximize the success of these students. With a focus on cognitive neuroscience research and brain-based strategies that teachers can use to increase student engagement, motivation, and self-management, we will discuss: 

  • The Executive Functions and how they work
  • Discuss the development of EF
  • How EF deficits impact students and classroom dynamics
  • How to best support students with EF deficits

Put the Pro in Cognitive Proficiency

(1.5 hours, 2.5 hours or full day workshop available)

Students with ADHD and/or Learning Disabilities (LD) consistently experience deficits in processing speed or working memory, or a combination of both. Processing speed abilities are required to work with ease, efficiency, and automaticity. Working memory is the brain's Post-It Note: the ability to identify visual and auditory information, maintain it in temporary storage, and re-sequence it for use in problem-solving. 

Processing speed and working memory combine to indicate our cognitive proficiency abilities: the efficiency with which we process information. It's no wonder that deficits in cognitive proficiency may significantly impact learning and achievement across all academic areas, particularly given the demand to process information automatically and quickly within the classroom setting without intentionally thinking through information. In this session, we will explore:

  • Processing speed and working memory
  • Examine the relationship between processing speed, working memory, and ADHD and LD
  • Investigate how deficits in these areas may impact learning and academic success 
  • Delve into evidence-based practice strategies and accommodations in 3 areas at school: the classroom environment, teacher instruction, and student assessment. 

Let’s put the PRO in cognitive proficiency to set students with ADHD up for success! 

Understanding Psycho-educational Assessments = Understanding Your Student 

(1.5 hours, 2.5 hours or full-day workshop available)

Do you work with students who struggle at school? Psychoeducational assessments combine standardized assessments of a child’s intellectual and academic abilities with the dynamic clinical judgment of a trained psychologist to determine the what, how, and why of struggling students. This process measures overall aptitude and academic achievement around core academic skills and any additional factors that may impact a child at school (e.g., attention and concentration, learning disability, mood, anxiety, etc.) and provides strategies to support them. 

Whether a diagnosis is made or not, the information can be used to identify what the student needs to reach their potential. This session will take a deep dive into what teachers need to know about the psychoeducational process including: 

  • The psychological processes that underlie learning: such as language and phonological processing, fine-motor and graphomotor processing, executive functioning, visual-spatial processing, processing speed, working memory, etc.
  • The specific academic skills being investigated: including reading, writing, math, language, etc.
  • Aspects of social/emotional and behavioural functioning that may be impacting the student: including attention and concentration, depression, anxiety, etc.
  • The diagnostic process
  • Recommendations, strategies, and accommodations
  • Using the psychoeducational assessment report for Individual Education/Program Planning (IPPs, IEPs, etc.)

Assistive Technologies in the Classroom

Half Day

Assistive Technology (AT) refers to the devices and services that are used to increase, maintain, or improve the capabilities of a student with a disability. AT that specifically helps students with Learning Disabilities (LD) includes computer programs and tablet applications that provide text-to-speech (e.g., Kurzweil 3000), speech-to-text (e.g., Dragon Naturally Speaking), word prediction capabilities (e.g., WordQ), and graphic organizers (e.g., Inspiration).

AT helps in two ways: it can help the student learn how to complete the task and it can help to bypass an area of difficulty. For example, when a student decides to listen to a digital version of a book, they are bypassing an area of difficulty. However, if the student focuses on the computer screen as highlighted words are read aloud, they can learn unfamiliar words. AT is most effective when it is embedded within quality instruction. In this session, we will explore: 

The role that AT plays in supporting students with LD

  • What works best in the classroom setting
  • Supporting students with AT use
  • A variety of AT options for reading, writing, and math to meet that range of needs for students with LD