On-Demand Webinars

In this free webinar, you will:

• learn to shift your teaching of social skills and emotional literacy from incidental to intentional instruction
• use easy-to-make visual supports to plan robust instruction of key skills for understanding oneself and others
• practice the steps of planning and note modifications for the children you serve

Price: FREE

In this free webinar, you’ll learn how to create learning environments rich in opportunities for all students to boost their confidence and to develop talents in multiple areas. During the session, presenter Lee Hancock will:

• Redefine talent
• Review how we can be more equitable in discovering and developing talent in kids
• Discuss the importance of the learning environment and its impact on talent development
• Provide practical, research-based ways to create an impactful learning environment for all kids

Talent is a lifelong pursuit, and with this webinar, you can help kids move purposefully through that journey to make the most of their talents.

Price: FREE

This free webinar addresses the big questions children often ask. Presenter Lauren Starnes, Ed.D., will help you prepare to answer difficult questions respectfully and in ways that are developmentally appropriate with even the youngest children. During the webinar, you will:

• Investigate the tendency to silence children’s questions about difficult topics
• Discuss appropriate ways for classroom teachers to address unexpected questions honestly and simply and to provide emotional support
• Consider how to communicate with parents about a sensitive conversation with a child
• Practice how to structure this type of conversation with a young child
• Model this approach with authentic questions and responses young children may pose on a range of challenging topics

Price: FREE

Sometimes, twice-exceptional (2e) learners’ giftedness hides their struggles. Other times, their disability overshadows their giftedness, leaving them without the opportunity for advanced learning. Teachers who understand how these factors interplay and develop strategies to use strengths-based accommodations give 2e learners the chance to succeed that they deserve.

During this free webinar, Emily Kircher-Morris, M.A., M.Ed., LPC, author of Teaching Twice-Exceptional Learners in Today’s Classroom, discusses:

• The attributes of 2e learners
• Considerations for assessments and identification
• How to identify and provide appropriate accommodations in gifted, general, and special education classrooms

Price: FREE

This free webinar, based on the research and lived experiences of gifted education experts Joy Lawson Davis, Ed.D., and Deb Douglas, M.S., is designed to help allies better support underrepresented gifted learners as they break through the barriers to self-advocacy and follow their dreams.

Attendees will:

• Discover ways to encourage and support the self-advocacy of gifted learners from underrepresented populations
• Recognize ways that the self-advocacy needs of students from special populations may differ from those of the gifted stereotype
• Identify the barriers to self-advocacy of gifted learners from underrepresented populations
• Examine the four steps to successful self-advocacy

Joy Lawson Davis, Ed.D., and Deb Douglas, M.S., are coeditors of Empowering Underrepresented Gifted Students: Perspectives from the Field.

Price: FREE

Since the pandemic, rates of addiction among all age groups have increased. The stress of online school, not seeing friends, and increased isolation make it harder for many kids (and parents) to cope. In addition to causing anxiety and depression, the pandemic has also led to an increase in addictions. These can take many forms, from substance addictions such as to marijuana and alcohol, to behavioral addictions such as to video games, social media, texting, and more. As a result, many kids and teens are struggling to keep up with online schooling.

In this edWebinar, Dr. James J. Crist, author of What’s the Big Deal About Addictions?, addresses the prevalence of addictive disorders among teens, how to spot the signs of addiction, how addiction impacts online learning, and how educators can work with teens and help them improve their learning experience.

Price: FREE

When we create a culture of consent, we provide a safe space for children and empower them to set and respect boundaries.

In this free webinar, you’ll learn:

• how to support children’s understanding of empathy and consent
• considerations for modeling and teaching consent in a classroom setting
• consent vocabulary and activities to use with young children
• how consent fits into an SEL framework

Lydia Bowers is the author of the We Say What’s Okay Series.

Price: FREE

Integrating creative projects into your classroom curriculum is a great way to help students gain awareness of their emotions, discover safe ways to express difficult feelings, and make proactive choices toward setting and meeting goals.

In this free webinar, you’ll learn:

• Learn how to remove the roadblocks to establishing a flourishing creative environment in your classroom
• Explore creative activities that acknowledge and honor all emotions
• Discover the importance of implementing an arts-based peer group for students
• Learn about tools that are accessible to classroom teachers to develop creative activities

Rayne Lacko and Lesley Holmes are coauthors of Dream Up Now™: The Teen Journal for Creative Self-Discovery.

Price: FREE

Conflicts are inevitable, often hard to navigate, quick to multiply and become unmanageable—and they seem to be everywhere right now! We’re here to help.

In this edWebinar, presenters Chris Amirault and Christine M. Snyder introduce you to the basics of finding your way through conflict. Using engaging, real-life scenarios to support your self-reflection and understanding, we discuss the critical principles and attitudes required for successful conflict engagement.

Price: FREE

Everyone faces obstacles and it’s easy to get stuck in a fixed mindset or give up when we encounter them.

In this webinar, learn how to change the way your students think about their challenges so instead of giving up, they can grow, feel better about themselves, and get better at the things they try.

Price: FREE

Critical thinking is an essential tool in today’s highly complex and confusing world.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• how to construct challenges that develop critical thinking, especially in an online platform
• how to help your students develop effective conscious thinking that is organized, fair-minded, well-reasoned, and clearly communicated
• how virtual learning can enhance deeper learning

Price: FREE

The word “trauma” used to apply to a relatively small sector of students. Not so anymore. All students faced multiple traumas in 2020 and will continue to face them in 2021.

In this edWebinar, school counselor Stephanie Filio, M.Ed., author of Responding to Student Trauma, gives an overview of how students experience trauma at four levels: self/home, school, community, and country/world.

Educators can play a powerful role in providing coping mechanisms for students to help them process and endure our often-chaotic world. Attendees will learn about activities and resources that can assist them in responding to today’s traumas and help them to prepare for the next crisis.

Price: FREE

In this webinar, veteran educator Patti Drapeau shares practical, evidence-based practices that shift focus from engaging students to empowering them, and from differentiation to personalized learning.

You’ll learn how school districts that have focused on student empowerment have seen a rise in test scores, motivation, attention, and self-confidence.

Price: FREE

In this webinar, participants will:

• learn strategies for incorporating mindfulness into a daily self-care routine
• explore mindful inquiry in their efforts to make sure all students have equitable access to education
• engage with simple mindfulness practices that can be woven into synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities for students
• explore how mindfulness fits into education during the coronavirus pandemic
• grow their general understanding of mindfulness in education

Presenter James Butler, M.Ed., is the SEL (social-emotional learning) mindfulness specialist for the Austin Independent School District.

Price: FREE

In this webinar, Char Ryan, Ph.D., describes the current recommended practice for data usage in PBIS and highlights the newer data tools.

She also explains systemwide policies and practices that enhance the ability of a school or district to implement equitable instruction and discipline.

Price: FREE

For students with ADHD or other attention challenges, sitting in class seven hours a day, five days a week . . . it’s like they’re hummingbirds stuck in a cage. It can be incredibly difficult and stressful for teachers to help them remain engaged.

In this webinar, Ezra Werb, M.Ed., formerly a behavior interventionist and resource specialist teacher and currently an educational therapist, shares his strategies for lowering students’ anxiety, raising confidence, and increasing engagement.

Price: FREE

One in five K–12 students has a diagnosable mental health disorder. An additional five percent are classified as learning disabled. Most of these students are taught in regular classrooms, yet most teachers have little training in recognizing, understanding, and teaching these students.

In this edWebinar, clinical psychologist Dr. Myles Cooley provides guidelines on supporting these students and communicating with them and their parents.

Dr. Cooley describes various mental health and learning disorders, clarifies misunderstandings, and explains new or revised diagnoses. The session features important information about ADHD, dyslexia, autism, self-injury, trauma, and adverse childhood events. In addition, Dr. Cooley discusses the importance of social-emotional learning and culturally responsive classrooms.

Price: FREE

Join award-winning student leadership specialist Mariam MacGregor to evaluate the current state of leadership development efforts in your school as you strive to prepare students for lifelong leadership regardless of career path.

In this webinar, attendees will learn how to:

• Initiate a broad inventory of existing leadership efforts
• Find opportunities to implement culture change
• Identify and overcome roadblocks to student leadership development
• Create a leadership communication plan

Mariam is the author of Leadership Is a Building Everyday Leadership in All Kids.

Price: FREE

Emojis . . . avatars . . . icons . . . Our world is becoming increasingly reliant on visual communication. Yet our classrooms still heavily focus on traditional oral and written instruction.

In this webinar, Dr. Susan Daniels, author of Visual Learning and Teaching, explores creative and practical strategies that enable educators to work with the foundational skills of visual learning in the classroom. Attendees build a “visual toolbox” for use in visual learning and teaching. Based on the visual triad model, Dr. Daniels:

• Looks at how we can use the images we see, imagine, and depict while teaching and learning visually
• Examines research based on dual-coding theory, which illustrates how students learn best and have greater retention when working both visually and verbally
• Explores instructional strategies that are part of a “visual toolbox” teachers can use in K–8 classrooms

Price: FREE

In this webinar, Dina Brulles, Ph.D., and Karen Brown, M.Ed., share practical strategies to successfully implement flexible grouping in order to build student collaboration and respond to students’ diverse learning needs and abilities.

You will learn:

• How to plan for flexible grouping
• Strategies to use within the groups
• How to keep structures fluid and manageable
• When and how student work within groupings should be evaluated
• And more!

Price: FREE

At times, teachers feel powerless in the face of challenging behaviors by children. Early childhood professionals can take steps toward lessening these behaviors and increasing joy and engagement in the classroom.

In this webinar, Michelle Salcedo, M.Ed., chief academic officer at Sunshine House Early Learning Academy, speaker, and author, provides five concrete strategies teachers can implement immediately to make their classrooms more peaceful and more fun for all.

Price: FREE

Bullying, alienation, and self-doubt should not—and need not—plague any students in our classrooms. In this edWebinar, a sought-after educational consultant offers proven, practical teaching practices that mobilize student empathy. Dr. Michele Borba shares proactive, no-cost strategies you can use the very next day in your classroom and can weave into existing lesson plans.

You’ll learn:

• How to create an emotionally safe learning culture to reduce peer cruelty and enhance respect and social responsibility
• Simple cooperative strategies that boost student connection, increase learning engagement, and promote inclusion
• Techniques to expand student perspective taking, cultivate empathy, and build social-emotional learning (SEL)
• The essential “6Rs” that reduce bullying along with examples of ways many schools are implementing those practicesNo-cost ideas to reduce the cycle of youth violence in classrooms and schools
• Ways to mobilize student compassion and instill six “Bully-BUSTER” skills so students will step in and be active upstanders

Price: FREE

Research is clear: Bullying is learned and can be unlearned. What’s more, cultivating empathy is the forgotten antidote to bullying.

In this webinar, Dr. Michele Borba shares evidence that the best way to reduce bullying is not with a packaged program but with homegrown, data-driven efforts by a staff that applies only proven practices. Best yet, none of these strategies cost a dime!

Price: FREE

Developing emotional intelligence (EQ) in students is essential to preparing them for success in college, careers, and adult life.

In this edWebinar, Maurice J. Elias, Ph.D., and Steven E. Tobias, Psy.D., coauthors of Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students: 30 Flexible Research-Based Activities to Build EQ Skills (Grades 5–9), talk about what emotional intelligence is and why and how you can build valuable EQ skills in your students.

They review and demonstrate sample lessons and activities related to assessing students’ EQ strengths, improving emotion recognition and management, exercising self-control, using assertive communication skills, and implementing effective problem-solving.

Price: FREE

In this edWebinar, Christa M. Tinari, M.A., educational consultant and coauthor of Create a Culture of Kindness in Middle School, explores the everyday reasons why kindness efforts might fail.

Drawing from the latest research on the impact of social-emotional learning on school climate, Christa provides a compelling rationale for integrating SEL into kindness campaigns. She identifies key social-emotional skills, such as emotional literacy, empathy, perspective taking, and upstander skills, that can help students (and staff) show kindness even when it’s hard to do.

Viewers will leave with lesson ideas they can use immediately and throughout the school year to build a sustainable culture of kindness.

Price: FREE

In this webinar, award-winning teacher, motivational speaker, and author Justin Ashley addresses the whole teacher: You and your bank account. Your health. Your social network. How can you be a better teacher . . . and a better parent, spouse, and friend?

Learn how to:

• Catch happiness in every domain—social, career, physical/emotional, and financial
• Counteract burnout, reduce anxiety, and skillfully navigate through seasons of depression
• Set up fun family field trips without breaking the bank
• Build and live by a family creed
• Create and follow a monthly cash flow plan
• Bounce back from failure at work

Price: FREE

Nearly every educator can think of a student who has the intellectual ability to succeed in school but who fails or falls behind because of a lack of social-emotional skills. These students may not be able to focus, listen, control impulses, self-motivate, or self-regulate, which naturally prevents them from learning and performing to their full potential. However, students become totally engaged when they are learning about their favorite subject—themselves. And one of the greatest benefits of integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) with ELA and social studies is that it is student-centered.

In this webinar, Jonathan Erwin, M.A., provides a research-based rationale for teaching SEL, shares lessons that teach specific SEL skills, and shows how you can use SEL content to satisfy state standards. Leverage Erwin’s 30-plus years in education to learn how SEL can be an excellent vehicle for satisfying the requirements of your state’s ELA standards in addition to improving students’ attitudes and behaviors. This webinar will benefit ELA and social studies teachers of third through twelfth grades, counselors, social workers, and youth empowerment leaders.

Price: FREE

In this webinar, Susan Winebrenner, M.S., and Lisa M. Kiss, M.Ed., describe how to identify twice-exceptional (2e) students—students who are gifted and have another learning difference—and how to meet their academic and social-emotional needs in any classroom.

Price: FREE

As an educator, you know what you want for your students. You want them to seek out challenges, ask for help, resist distractions, and see mistakes as chances to try again. In other words, you want kids to be self-regulated learners. Self-regulation for learning (SRL) is the ability to effectively balance affect (how you feel), behaviors (what you do), and cognition (how you think) to pursue worthy academic goals. Teaching students to balance these three elements builds motivation, resilience, and college and career readiness.

In this webinar, Dr. Richard Cash discusses doable, evidence-based practices to help students engage in learning, build confidence, set and manage goals, develop habits of thinking, do effective home study, and reflect on their learning. Dr. Cash will share real stories of students who achieved success through SRL skills; he’ll also provide a framework for both classroom practices and school-wide implementation. Discover how schools have used this whole-child approach to assist students in gaining greater social-emotional well-being, developing scholarly behaviors, and acquiring valuable thinking tools to be successful in school and beyond.

This recorded webinar will benefit K–12 teachers, counselors, administrators, social workers, and special and gifted education professionals.

Price: FREE

For students to achieve academically, they must have a sense of confidence in themselves and their abilities to perform. Building students’ self-beliefs and self-efficacy can greatly improve attention, motivation, and mindset. When students feel confident, they are more likely to be emotionally strong, behaviorally appropriate, and cognitively aware—and thus, more successful learners.

In this webinar, Richard M. Cash, Ed.D., discusses specific strategies to build and shape students’ confidence and make your classroom an enjoyable learning environment for all.

This recorded webinar will benefit K–12 teachers, administrators, and counselors.

Price: FREE

As your school or district considers or implements Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), planning for long-term results is key, and a strong, functioning PBIS leadership team can help you do this.

In this edWebinar, the authors of The PBIS Team Handbook: Setting Expectations and Building Positive Behavior—Char Ryan, Ph.D., a former statewide trainer, and Beth Baker, M.S.Ed., a school- and district-wide coach—lead you through the decision to implement PBIS in your school or district.

Through stories, insights, and missteps from their own PBIS journeys, Beth and Char explain the role of the PBIS leadership team and show how to select team members, conduct initial team training, develop a strong and functional team, and successfully manage team transitions. By the end of this recorded presentation, you will have a PBIS action plan in hand and will have identified at least one next step.

Price: FREE

Not all gifted learners are productive students. Not all are “A” students. Some perform exceedingly well in a single curriculum area but appear to be average in others. Some gifted students establish a perplexing pattern of doing well or doing nothing. Some are reluctant, even resistant, learners refusing to play the school game.

In this webinar, Dr. Diane Heacox explores well-documented research on underlying causes of low performance and creates distinctions between non-producers, selective producers, and underachievers among the gifted populations. Teachers often struggle to reach students who actively or passively resist engagement in learning. This session identifies behaviors that distinguish students who are having motivational issues.

This recorded webinar will benefit elementary and secondary classroom teachers, gifted education resource teachers, facilitators, coordinators, curriculum instruction assessment leaders, counselors, gifted education cluster teachers, principals, school leaders, and AP, IB, accelerated, or honors course teachers.

Price: FREE