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Professional Development Resources
- By topic—see our Instructional Leadership & Excellence webpages
- By season—Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer—see the Tools & Professional Development webpage
Reach associates (RAs) play a crucial role in supporting excellent teachers who extend their reach, with and without the help of technology, to many more students. In most cases, RAs fill two primary roles:
- working independently with groups of students so that the team reach teacher(s) with whom they work can help more students.
- helping these extended-reach teachers complete noninstructional duties so that they have more time for planning and collaboration.
RAs have few paraprofessional role models to follow. Thus, Public Impact created these free training and development sessions for RAs about their roles and subject-specific instructional methods.
New and experienced RAs can go through these sessions in formal training, study them on their own, or study them in meetings with other RAs and MCLs in their schools. Contact Public Impact if you would like help organizing formal training or train-the-trainer sessions and establishing a clear process for educators to support one another’s growth throughout the school year.
Each reach associate training session includes:
- PowerPoint presentation with embedded facilitator’s notes
- Handouts that can be completed electronically or printed
- Information about additional materials for activities (where applicable)
School and district leaders: The School Excellence Portal helps districts and schools track training and monitor and improve Opportunity Culture to achieve strong student learning. Contact us to learn more.
Public Impact leads RAs through the sessions in three or four summer days of training followed by five monthly sessions throughout the school year. Public Impact can also train trainers in your district; contact us if you would like help organizing formal training or train-the-trainer sessions and establishing a clear process for educators to support one another’s growth throughout the school year. Public Impact also offers training in subject-specific instruction based on the best research about what methods achieve higher-growth student learning.
These are the training sessions, in the sequence we recommend:
Summer Day One:
1.1 Introduction to Opportunity Culture: Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Learn about Opportunity Culture and how design teams created Opportunity Culture school plans.
- Review MCL, TRT, and RA job descriptions and discuss expectations for new roles.
- Learn about Public Impact’s Instructional Leadership and Excellence framework and how professional learning this summer and throughout the school year align to the framework.
1.2 Successful Classroom Management
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Learn powerful approaches to classroom management.
- Practice applying the behavior management cycle—how to set and reinforce expectations for behavior, use effective praise to narrate the positive, and use consequences to manage behavior.
Session Handouts:
1.3 Using Data to Drive Instruction
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Identify the general types of data that can inform instructional improvements.
- Learn ways reach associates can assist their multi-classroom leader or team reach teacher in collecting and reporting data to drive instruction.
Session Handouts:
Summer Day Two:
2.1 Working Styles
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Identify your working style.
- Brainstorm strengths and limitations of different working styles.
- Discuss the working styles of your school team and how they can lead to positive impact on your school.
Session Handouts:
2.2 Culturally Responsive Classroom
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Define the components of culture.
- Understand what is and is not cultural responsiveness.
- Learn strategies for creating and/or supporting a culturally responsive classroom.
- Create a plan for next steps .
Session Handouts:
2.3 Supporting Differentiated Instruction
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Learn what to consider when supporting all students with differentiated instruction in the classroom and how your reach associate role can support differentiation.
- Practice a strategy and identify a resource for differentiation that you and your team of teachers can apply in the classroom.
2.4 Providing Real-Time Feedback
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Understand what real-time feedback is to promote learning and retention.
- Practice providing effective real-time feedback to students.
- Explore strategies to structure the classroom to help you provide effective real-time feedback to students.
Summer Day Three:
3.1 Scheduling for an Opportunity Culture
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Revisit master schedule and reflect on the extent to which it incorporates the best practices and key principles of an Opportunity Culture.
- Finalize master schedule and draft weekly schedules for MCLs, TRTs, and RAs.
3.2 Strategies for Managing Up
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Understand why it is important to manage up.
- Learn to determine the appropriate strategies for managing up.
- Role play managing-up scenarios .
Session Handouts:
3.3 TRT-RA Collaboration
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Get to know your teaching team partner.
- Discuss how you will collaborate with your Reach Associate or Team Reach Teacher.
- Plan common expectations, procedures, and norms for your classrooms.
Session Handouts:
School Year:
1 Personal Development: Beginning of Year
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Self-assess the extent to which you use the critical competencies for your role.
- Create a personal development plan that leverages strengths and improves areas of growth.
2 Continuing to Strengthen Working Relationships
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Reflect on current working relationship between partner teacher and reach associate.
- Review personal working styles and brainstorm strategies for collaborating with other working styles.
- Plan for a step-back conversation with partner RA, TRT, or MCL.
3 Classroom Management 2.0
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Discuss a behavior management challenge and brainstorm solutions with peers.
- Practice reacting to a behavior meltdown by encouraging growth mindset development, and managing hot cognition.
4 Increasing Student Participation and Thinking
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Learn about three techniques to increase student participation and thinking.
- Practice strategies and apply to your own work with students.
Session Handouts:
5 Year in Review: End-of-Year Reflection and Planning for Next Year
Session Slide Deck:
Click image to open session slide deck
Session Objectives:
- Reflect on this year’s successes and challenges.
- Monitor progress on personal development, student support, and working relationships.
- Prepare for end-of-year meetings with your supervisor and begin planning for next year.
Note: Throughout the free training sessions posted here are references to the School Excellence Portal. However, the majority of the training activities can be completed without access to the portal.
We encourage the free use, reproduction, and distribution of our materials, but we require attribution. If you adapt the materials, you must include on every page “Adapted from OpportunityCulture.org; © Public Impact.” Materials may not be sold, leased, licensed, or otherwise distributed for compensation. See our Terms of Use page for more information.
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