Professional Development and School System Support

[While this presentation is designed as a full-day Professional Development presentation, it may be modified for a half-day presentation.]

This training provides the latest research and best practices regarding how to remediate and support students with ADHD and Executive Function weaknesses. Participants will gain skills, strategies, and techniques to help students in need at the Point of Performance while balancing the needs of all students in the classroom. Learn to teach students a targeted ten-minute lesson on how their brain works to help them focus, reduces stress, and learn more effectively. Take advantage of the latest brain research and evidence-based best practices to help all students be more motivated, focused, organized, and performing closer to their real potential.

Learner Outcomes

• Identify how executive functioning deficits impact students’ ability to utilize classroom learning and perform well on curriculum objectives successfully.
• List enhanced strategies for engaging and maintaining students’ attention and active participation.
• Apply subtle changes in classroom structure and environment to improve time management, organizational skills and study skills that will benefit all children, not only those with ADHD.
• Show how to reduce students’ stress levels so they can perform better and meet greater expectations.
• Identify pre­arranged strategies to aid slower processors and distracted students.

Research has shown us that how we perceive our ability to learn dramatically impacts our confidence, motivation, and perseverance.

This presentation will explore how to best help students see themselves as learners and how to best support them in developing perseverance in the face of challenge. We will start off by briefly explaining how Executive Function skills are developed and include strategies educators can use to help students develop grit, perseverance, and optimism in their learning.

Students often struggle to stay engaged, motivated, and active when approaching their work. Sometimes it’s due to the academic demands, but it is due to their ability to manage the demands placed upon them. Parents are often ill-equipped to know how to intervene best, and some end up unintentionally exacerbating the problem as a result.

This presentation will explore what makes make doing homework challenging for many students by examining three factors; setting the stage for learning, the expectations on the student, and the potential role of the parent.

Students often have a difficult time managing their frustration and anger. Before very long, they may become upset, disruptive, and struggle to communicate why they are troubled. Additionally, they often have a difficult time understanding how their behavior and position may be impacting others around them.

Explicitly teaching communication skills can vastly improve students’ self-regulation, and how to help parents teach the art of a productive conversation.

This workshop explores and demonstrates how to actively teach games and techniques will be introduced to illustrate methods of teaching students the steps involved in being heard, communicating that they truly understood what is said, and expressing empathy for another person’s perspective.

Setting meaningful goals is an impactful way for students to develop and improve Self-Regulation skills. Research shows that when people set goals and work toward them, not only do they perform better, but they experience less stress and anxiety and they are happier and more satisfied with their lives.

This workshop will help educators teach both the value and the process of setting, monitoring and achieving personal and academic goals.

Paraprofessionals play an integral role in facilitating student achievement as well as supporting the work of the classroom teacher. Children with ADHD and learning challenges, while often bright, enthusiastic, and creative individuals, can create a tremendous challenge in the classroom due to their behaviors and their unique needs for support.

This workshop will address the specific challenges that paraprofessionals face as they work to support the needs of the individual student, the learning environment, and the classroom teacher.