Distance Learning

Distance Learning Sessions

These Great Expectations^® sessions are available to your group, at your site, and at your convenience.

Location: Classes are offered through interactive H323 distance learning technology. If your school site does not have a distance learning classroom, then consider using a site within your district or make arrangements to use the distance learning lab at the nearest career tech center.

Dates and Times: Classes can be scheduled to fit your calendar. It is best to make arrangements approximately three weeks in advance in order to be assured of having the session on the day you desire. Classes are offered on a half-day or full-day basis.

Recommended for: all grade levels.

Arrangements: To schedule a class, to request a class custom-designed for your group, or to ask questions; please email Shawn Coffman shawn@geok.org or call 918 444 3744 .

Cost: Half-day sessions are $750.00 plus presenter expenses. Full day sessions are $1500.00 plus presenter expenses.

Topic	Session Description
4 Elements of Self-Esteem	Learn the clues evident in student attitude and actions which indicate weaknesses in each of the four conditions of self-esteem, and then gather a toolbox full of tactics to overcome any of the diagnosed weaknesses. This session will help you place students in a position to succeed in school and in life. Content of this class is drawn from the writings and research of Chick Moorman.
Student Motivation	Students who possess their own personal motivation enter your classroom ready to learn. This session details ways you as a teacher can create an environment in which healthy student motivation will grow. Take home strategies for producing a classroom of motivated students; reap the benefits of raised test scores, lower absenteeism, enhanced student involvement and diminished discipline problems. Session based on research by Richard Sagor and Eric Jensen.
Brain Friendly Language Arts	Here are challenging, novel activities that get students out of their seats to gather brain benefits and enjoy literature. Workshop participants will practice specific activities adaptable to many literary works and leave with handouts to guide them in strengthening the emotional, physical, and cognitive abilities of their students.
Elements of Discovery Learning	This enjoyable, interactive session features specific classroom-ready techniques for “hooking” every student on learning. Recommendations from brain researchers Eric Jensen and Martha Kaufeldt are featured. Participants will also experience several new activities which can be adapted for their own classrooms.
8 Building Blocks for Class Meetings	Research confirms the powerful benefits of utilizing class meetings for handling discipline in a positive manner and for empowering students to take responsibility for their own education. Before you and your students can hold successful class meetings, you must teach your students the 8 Building Blocks for Class Meetings. This session provides a clear guide for how to master each step with your students.
7 Keys to Great Expectations Discipline Philosophy	When your class is inhabited by a misbehaving student (and who has escaped that experience?) then discipline becomes a top priority issue. Here is a careful overview of the Great Expectations approach to handling behavior difficulties. These seven keys will unlock the door to a well-disciplined classroom, free of resistant, rebellious, and misbehaving students.
Networking	Teaching is an incredibly challenging and demanding career. As a teacher, you can draw strength from the backup resources around you. Consider the clear suggestions of how to gain power by networking with other teachers at your school, with other teachers outside of your school, and with parents. Boost your power by tapping into these sources of support.
Building Relationships	Create a climate of mutual respect and diminish behavior problems by building relationships with your students. This highly practical session guides you in eight ways to make deposits in the emotional bank accounts of your students. This is a “must-have” class.
Stepping to Success with Student Choice	Build student engagement, motivation, and self-esteem by offering an array of choices in your classroom and in students’ spheres of responsibility. Discover how providing student choice will help you avoid the pitfalls of pupil misbehavior, resistance, and rebellion.
Teacher Attitude	Who leads the work in your classrooms, sets the climate, models the desired behaviors and attitudes, and exerts the greatest influence on student achievement? You do! Here is a session to bolster your resolve in forming the right teacher attitude toward yourself, your students and your colleagues. This is a class for Heroes!
Cooperative Learning	Enhance the cooperative learning in your classroom. Attend this session for structures which will build positive interdependence among class members, promote individual accountability, foster interpersonal skills, and lead to effective face-to-face interaction and processing. Your students will be placed in the center of class activity; watch their independence and capabilities grow.
Vision	“If you don’t know where you’re going, you may end up somewhere else.” These words of Yogi Berra, though somewhat paradoxical, hold an important truth. It is essential that you begin your work with an end in mind so that you can plan doable steps to achieve your goals. This session also challenges you to give your students vision and help them eliminate EFWIC (Excuses for why I can’t.)
Student Engagement	If you were a locomotive, it wouldn’t matter how far or how fast you could travel, if the rest of the train cars were disengaged and sitting on a side track. In a similar manner, students must be tuned in, turned on, and connected to the lesson before they can move forward in mastering material. You’ll enjoy this session with five useable steps to achieve solid student engagement.
Critical Thinking	Merely acquiring and retaining information has lost its place as a first priority for your students because virtually any fact or figure needed is a mere mouse click away. But higher order thinking skills and problem-solving are needed in every venue of life. Attend this session for some guidelines on how you can systematically cultivate excellence in thought in your classes.
Brain-Compatible Teaching	“When students are provided with a learning environment that is optimal for learning, graduation rates increase, learning difficulties and discipline problems decrease and a love of learning flourishes” – Eric Jensen. Check out this session for ways to create the best possible learning environment for your students academically, emotionally, and socially. Latest brain research information from Learning Brain Expo ’05 will be incorporated.
Climate of Mutual Respect	What if a Climate of Mutual Respect came in aerosol cans so that you could give your classroom a spritz in the morning and have students who appropriately respected you and one another all day? How many cases would you order? This session will give you ways to “buy” a steady supply of Mutual Respect for your students so you can erase student conflict and create instead esprit de corp.
Custom Designed Session	Request an In-Service to fit the exact needs you have identified for teachers at your school site. Many other topics are available: creed writing, integration, vocabulary building, incorporating literature, etc.
Boost Achievement in State Standards with Great Expectations	Featuring From Standards to Success written by Mark O’Shea Helping students achieve academic success, raising test scores, attaining adequate yearly progress – these are significant concerns for all educators. You have already take many measures – aligning curriculum, listings standards in your lesson plans, selecting standards based texts. What else can you do? This session is designed to give you clear-cut, effective strategies for helping your students climb upward toward “knowing and being able to do” each State Standard Objective for your subject area.