Professional Development Workshop Topics

Consulting Topics | Professional Development Workshops | Student Programs

Overview of Modern Character Education
Participants will be introduced to the comprehensive approach to character education. Key components will be described and small group activities will include—establishing and understanding a core vocabulary for character education, understanding instruction for three domains of character education (head/cognitive, heart/affective, and hand/behavioral), and recognizing eight strategies for character education. » Learn more about the comprehensive model.

Creating Caring Classroom Communities
Participants will review and practice the principles that create a caring classroom community. Activities and classroom meeting strategies will be modeled and discussed with a focus on building a sense of shared community and developing social skills to solve group challenges. Methods to implement two specific classroom meeting strategies will be highlighted and include—(1) transition meetings and (2) problem-solving meetings.

Strategies Promoting Civil Communities
To address proactive class/team management the concepts of civil community and moral discipline will be presented. Participants will recognize how positive character norms can support the development of clear and elevating class expectations. During the workshop, participants will draft class expectation statements, procedures, and rules that support successful class management. Workshop exercises are designed to be repeated with students to assist them in gaining ownership of positive class expectations and procedures. This activity can be focused on school wide or classroom settings.

Supporting a Culture of Academic Integrity (AI)
Participants will be introduced to strategic steps and draft their own goals to create an AI committee. AI committee tasks will be suggested and prioritized in small groups to include: Pre and post survey assessment of student and faculty beliefs and observations regarding AI, AI committee research and agreement to define importance and meaning of AI for the school, Review, affirm/revise, educate school community on policies to support AI, (3) Creation of subcommittee to track and adjudicate violations of AI policies, (4) Develop strategic plan for ongoing education of school community regarding AI topics, Develop and promote a school honor code.

Teaching Character through the Curriculum
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide, participants will practice integrating character development objectives (head, heart, & hand) into selected content lessons. Workshop exercises will include selected reading prompts with character-rich lessons to help recognize activities that elevate student cognitive reasoning while also engaging affective (heart) and behavioral (hand) domains of student learning. Implementation steps for the Laws of Life Essay Program will be presented.

Service-Learning
Participants will practice specific cooperative work skills that their students can use to implement successful service-learning and support positive character development. Service-learning is defined to distinguish it from community service and project planning and reflection strategies are introduced and practiced. A Service-Learning Planning and Reflection Guide authored by SEE is available for purchase.

Character-Based Decision Making
A character-based decision-making strategy labeled The Golden Compass is described and used to help resolve relevant dilemmas. Age-appropriate scenarios are provided to support the practice of the Golden Compass for students in grades 2 to 12. Participants will recognize how the Golden Compass can be used as a tool to evaluate current dilemmas, actions of historical figures and characters in literature. We also are offering The Golden Compass, a character-based decision making activity book.

Conflict Resolution
Participants will be introduced to a vocabulary and set of goals and skills to help students make choices to solve conflicts positively. Depending on the length of the session, participants will practice a variety of social skills that support positive conflict resolution. All social skills included in a workshop are relevant to students and adults with an explicit goal to demonstrate positive character. Social skills that can be included in workshop role-modeling include—(1) recognition and self-control of emotions, (2) listening and speaking skills, (3) “I” messages, (4) reframing, (5) identifying communication roadblocks, (6) negotiating, (7) cooperative teaming, and (8) decision-making.