Course overview
Course description:
During this course, teachers and leaders will be introduced to Insight Middle Courses™, Lavinia Group's comprehensive, knowledge-building reading and writing curriculum. Participants will learn the purpose of each component of the curriculum, and how to intellectually prepare in order to teach the content to students. Insight Middle Courses™ is designed to support elements of culturally responsive teaching by emphasizing class structures that facilitate learning partnerships, student choice, and engaging discourse among students. Throughout this year-long institute course, participants will build their skills in the following key areas: facilitating student discourse, effectively coaching students in groups and individually, and responding to trends in student writing. Participants will also deepen their content knowledge about the topics of study in their grade curriculum and related standards. By the end of the course, educators will feel equipped to use Insight Middle Courses™ as a key tool to develop students as independent readers, writers, thinkers, and doers, all with a deep love of literacy.
Recommended for:
Teachers and leaders in grades 6-8 who are new to or currently using Lavinia Group’s Insight Middle Courses™, a grades 6-8 core curriculum.
Topics include:
- Developing a clear framework for studying each of the 4 courses within Insight Middle Courses™
- Reinforcing the key knowledge and skills your students will learn in the first Insight Middle course for their grade
- Developing an understanding of the pedagogical benefits of student discourse
- Planning for discourse to engage students and build independent learners
- Gaining transferable methods for teaching students how to have strong discourse and facilitate discourse effectively
- A deep understanding of how to assess student work to set individual student goals
- Gaining scripted lessons and materials that address all language and grammar standards for their grade
- Planning for how to use individual coaching and small groups to meet student needs
- Learning a framework for efficiently discerning trends in student writing during class
- Developing transferable methods for effectively responding to trends in student writing
- Planning for how to use Writer's Circle to dramatically improve student writing
- Understanding how project-based learning is incorporated into the curriculum, and how to leverage the projects as a way for students to authentically apply their learning
what our partners say
