We are Experts in the Common Core State Standards and Professional Development in all subjects and grades.
The Piasa Bluffs Writing Project at SIUE facilitates professional development partnerships with schools and institutions on topics focused on but not limited to bringing to life the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with teachers and schools. Our research-based and human centered approach ignites creative collaboration from the classroom level to the school and district level. Teachers move from simply “aligning” curriculum to standards, to enthusiastically identifying and sharing successful teaching practices that fully engage students and teachers as life-long learners. Teachers become creatively-confident leaders to transform their schools to high-achieving learning communities.
The CCSS will require teachers to innovate their teaching practices centered on supporting 21st century students to develop complex reasoning through the use of 21st century literacy practices in all subjects. Download our information on Common Core State Standards
Our Expertise Informs Professional Learning Experiences Tailor-Made for you Focusing on:
- K-12 Reading & Writing processes
- Reading & Writing as Inquiry Tools for Learning
- K-6 Balanced Language Arts
- Creative Confidence and “Build to Learn” Critical Thinking
- Unleashing and Focusing Creativity in the Classroom & School
- Middle & High School Language Arts
- Teacher Leadership in Literacy Support
- Content Area Inquiry & Literacy (Social Science, Sciences, Math & the Arts)
- Common Core State Standards
- English Language Learners
- Supporting Students with IEPs
- Response To Intervention
- 21st Century Digital Literacies
- Nurturing Professional Learning Communities – Authentic ones that work!
- Administrator Leadership Workshops
We take human-centered approach guided by our ResponsiveDesign™(Exploring, Envisioning & Enacting) processes to develop learning partnerships with schools and districts. Our Teacher Consultants develop workshops, seminars and learning experiences that are tailor-made. The sessions are theoretically and research-based, in the teaching of writing and assessment tools for transformative learning in all grades and content areas. Through these close and trusting partnerships we develop a shared language and innovative vision of what schools and classrooms ought to be. We build on this to develop a systematic plan to address their professional development needs.
Teachers articulating prototypes developed from the needs statements constructed based on having developed empathy for each other on what makes a “Writing-Rich & Writing-Strong” classroom.
From these “building to learn” experiences, sometimes abstract ideals become tangible. With these articulation, then all first-grade teachers contributed to “Principled Elements of a Writing-Rich & Writing Strong” classroom, which they then harnessed to examine their existing curriculum, noticing its strengths and revising the missing links.
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