Professional Resources
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Description: The Joy Zabala Fellowship in Assistive Technology and Accessible Educational Materials celebrates the life and work of Joy Smiley Zabala, EdD, who had a substantial impact in her 40+ year career in promoting inclusion for learners with disabilities in K-12, postsecondary, and workforce settings. The fellowship will support emerging, early career professionals who, in collaboration with a seasoned mentor, will a) strengthen their expertise and skills in the use of assistive technology and...
Description: These free printables are can help students and their families get organized They can help with morning routines and other organization challenges. Backpack Checklist for Younger Kids (Available in Spanish) Homework Contract for Grade-Schoolers (Available in Spanish) Getting Ready for School (Available in Spanish) Afterschool Routine Available in Spanish School Communication Log (Available in Spanish)
Description: The Office of STEM and Innovation at the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) partnered with the Center for Implementation and Evaluation of Education Systems (CIEES) at Old Dominion University to develop a series of asynchronous learning modules, videos, and resources to support the effective delivery of virtual instruction. This professional development website offers research-based guidance to support school leaders, educators, and key staff in navigating both blended and fully online...
Description: This book includes 51 easy-to-use, classroom-tested alternatives to the “stand and deliver” teaching techniques that cause so many students to tune out or drop out. Teachers report that these techniques motivate students to participate in learning, as they build confidence and are supported by compelling and safe ways to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of lessons.
Description: Ensuring that all children are supported to reach their full potential and have access to learning opportunities that are equitable and strengths-based is central to high quality teaching and professional development. This documents includes some resources that may help you to create spaces and opportunities that value the identities and experiences of all children and families.
Description: This 9.5 minute video is designed for school personnel and families. It offers an overview of education equity and suggests strategies for facilitating greater educational equity through meaningful family engagement practices. The video features the voices and lived experiences of students, parents and caregivers, and school leaders. Strategies are organized by key components of family engagement in multitiered systems of supports. The video has captions available in English and Spanish. A...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: This site includes a collection of self-paced learning modules designed to support professional learning of pre-service and in-service educators and administrators. These modules are intended to: Build knowledge of how to develop and implement high-quality educational programming for students with disabilities. Build knowledge to support implementation of intensive intervention in literacy, mathematics, and behavior for students with severe and persistent learning and/or behavioral...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: This report offers recommendations for state education agencies on how to meet the assessment needs of students with disabilities, including English learners with disabilities and students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, during times of interrupted education due to extended school closures.
Description: This report offers recommendations for creating and expanding policy guidance specifically addressing the needs of English learners with disabilities during remote learning and school reopening. It also includes recommendations to address the persistent challenges schools face in supporting English learners with disabilities. Finally, the report includes several state leadership actions to facilitate implementation of the recommendations, and to help strengthen collaboration between English...
Description: Presented in association with Education Week: Fifteen months since the pandemic tested and tested again our school systems, we now face the biggest test of all: Where to next? Is it enough to rush back to the “old normal” without benefiting from the many lessons learned? Will the “old normal” accelerate learning, reignite engagement, restore social-emotional well-being? In this Rebound webinar, presenters Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie offer a...
Description: With schools reopening across the country and a historic influx of federal funding coming, we now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new normal of schooling - one that serves even more students and focuses more on what matters most. Join John Almarode, John Hattie, Nancy Frey, and AASA Associate Executive Director of Advocacy and Governance Noelle Ellerson Ng for a discussion of what it will take to bring our schools back stronger than ever and reimagine teaching and...
Description: This YouTube Channel includes videos about Distance & Blended Learning as well as Gradual Release of Responsibility.
Description: In January 2020, Virginia legislators passed House Bill 817 requiring the Department of Education (VDOE), in collaboration with the Department of Health and medical professional societies, to develop health and safety guidelines related to the use of digital devices in the classroom. The VDOE convened a Digital Devices in the Classroom Workgroup to develop guidelines. The Digital Devices in the Classroom: Health and Safety Guidelines document addresses digital device use for different age...
Description: The Virginia Social Emotional (SEL) Guidance Standards (PDF) are now available to all Virginia school divisions. While the 2020 General Assembly required the VDOE to develop the guidance standards for SEL, Virginia school divisions are not required to adopt them. Local school boards may choose to adopt all, or portions of, the Virginia SEL Guidance Standards as part of their own local policies, and/or use them as guidance as they implement SEL programming based on the needs of their...
Description: Unfortunately, students with disabilities are often not fully considered in SEL initiatives. NCLD has been working hard to change the course of SEL to ensure it is developed in a way that is inclusive and equitable. We are excited to announce the release of these resources to help ensure more inclusive and equitable SEL. This work builds on the previous report co-authored with 7 other organizations: Exploring Intersectionality: Understanding Student Identity to Promote Equitable Social Emotional...
Description: CVI stands for Cortical Visual Impairment/Cerebral Visual Impairment. CVI is a brain-based visual impairment caused by damage to the visual pathways or visual processing areas of the brain. Learners struggle with visual attention and visual recognition resulting in a lack of access for understanding the world around them. CVI is known to be the leading cause of visual impairment in children in the United States. With CVI, the eye’s connection to and in the brain doesn’t work...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: Teaming for Well-Being - Well-being is an umbrella term including the psychological, cognitive, social and physical health of ALL students. All students, from those who have experienced trauma to students with disabilities and beyond deserve a safe and inclusive learning environment. Social emotional learning is utilized to teach needed skills and build resilience for the students and the school community. Additionally, the education system must always support staff and families and create a...
Description: The Advancing Effective Interactions and Instruction (AEII) initiative is all about helping education leaders make data-driven decisions that support teachers and provide high-quality learning experiences for children in Virginia’s early childhood classrooms.
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making (NRC-SDM) builds on and extends the work of Quality Trust's Jenny Hatch Justice Project by bringing together vast and varied partners to ensure that input is obtained from all relevant stakeholder groups including older adults, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), family members, advocates, professionals and providers. The NRC-SDM partners bring nationally recognized expertise and leadership on SDM,...
Description: Think Work Stories - This site highlights the employment successes of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) who are working in paid jobs in their communities. Through the use of innovative, front-line employment support practices, these individuals are earning money, forming networks, and contributing to their communities. Learn more about these people and the promising practices that led to their success.
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: These questions can be used to establish a relationship with families and encourage two-way communication. Edit this survey to fit the needs of your community and classroom. Remember: brevity is best. Only include the questions that you believe will best inform your relationship with your students and families. Bolded & italicized script should especially be edited. The attached Word version can be updated for the current school year.
Description: The Phonics Scope and Sequence Checklist, created by Doreen L. Mazzye, Ph. D, is designed to assist teachers in a more diagnostic approach to phonics instruction. Directions for use accompany the excel file download that teachers can use to record data about the next phonics instructions steps to take with each student.
Description: This is part of a reading video series for individuals with Down syndrome focusing on building auditory memory and the ability to discriminate between sounds.
Description: Innovation Configurations - Recognizing that evidence-based practices (EBPs) account for at least part of the effects of teachers on achievement and the critical role of teacher preparation, the CEEDAR (Collaboration for Effective Educator Development Accountability and Reform) Center professionals, along with their partner Great Teachers and Leaders, offer innovation configurations (ICs) to promote the implementation of evidence-based instructional practices in teacher preparation...
Description: Familiarity with Greek and Latin roots, as well as prefixes and suffixes, can help students understand the meaning of new words.
Description: This is a collection of resources for teaching morphology using a morpheme tree.
Description: Growing Words is an instructional resource for K -5 teachers. Extensive research shows that understanding common prefixes and suffixes, and how they combine with basewords and roots will make students more effective readers, writers and spellers, while also significantly expanding a student’s vocabulary. In this guide, the K –3 component focuses on common prefixes and suffixes and how adding these word parts to base words changes the...
Description: A spelling program at any grade level has many components. Examples of the main components typically introduced in the primary grades are provided in this article.
Description: Multisyllabic words can stymie struggling readers. Students rely on others for help or feel defeated before even trying to decode a long word. Giving students a strategy for figuring out multisyllabic words promotes fluency and independent reading. This article explains how to chunk words according to six syllable types. Students learn clues to determine whether the vowel is long or short. When they have mastered quick and accurate recognition of the syllable types, long words can be decoded in...
Description: Don't make rules/generalizations the emphasis of phonics instruction. Teach only those rules/generalizations with the most utility. Emphasize applying the rules/generalizations rather than verbalizing them. Teach the rules/generalizations at a point when children can best understand and apply them. Never teach rules as absolutes.
Description: Why teach about syllables? Dividing words into parts, or "chunks" helps speed the process of decoding. Knowing the rules for syllable division can students read words more accurately and fluently. Understanding syllables can also help students learn to spell words correctly.
Description: This document is Virginia's new set of comprehensive early learning and development standards for young children, birth to age five. The new standards focus on five Areas of Development: Approaches to Play and Learning; Social and Emotional Development; Communication, Language, and Literacy Development; Health and Physical Development and Cognitive Development. All birth to five programs are expected to implement the new standards by Fall 2021.
Description: This document includes a non-exhaustive list of non-profit legal services and advocacy organizations in Virginia that provide no-cost legal or advocacy services, technical assistance, and/or referrals to the public. Other attorney or non-attorney services, including pro bono services and special education resources may be available in your community. The Virginia Lawyer Referral Service (VLRS), a program of the Virginia State Bar, provides a low-cost attorney referral and consultation service....
Description: A recent study suggests that mindfulness education — lessons on techniques to calm the mind and body — can reduce the negative effects of stress and increase students’ ability to stay engaged, helping them stay on track academically and avoid behavior problems. While small, the study of sixth-graders at a Boston charter school adds to a still-growing body of research about a role for mindfulness in the classroom. In recent years, the topic has excited researchers and...
Description: The High Leverage Practices (HLP) Highlight Tools were developed to acquaint educators with the key components of each HLP in order to begin implementation into their instruction and strengthen inclusive practices with students. Each Highlight Tool contains a brief description, video clips, suggested activities and a Plan of Action activity teachers can implement with students to help get them started. As teachers become more acquainted with HLPs, additional resources are provided to help extend...
Description: This is a compilation of articles about the importance of self-care as well as helpful strategies for parents, family members and caregivers.
Description: This webpage includes the recorded webinars that are posted within 24 to 48 hours after the session concludes. Presenters ofth provide additional resources that may include handouts, and links. The resources are listed in reverse order, with the most recent session listed first. (Please note: You must register to view the recording.)
Description: The SETT Framework and Evaluating Assistive Technology Remotely by Aleksandra Hollingshead, Ed.D.; Joy Zabala, Ed.D.; Janice Carson, Ed.D. - Educational teams evaluate assistive technology (AT) needs at least annually for each student with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). One of the most common methods of AT needs evaluation is the SETT Framework (Zabala, 2005). This blog provides a description of the AT evaluation strategies with practical strategies and considerations for distance...
Description: Many of us are facing challenges that can be stressful and overwhelming. Learning to cope with stress in a healthy way will help you, the people you care about, and those around you become more resilient. Stress can cause the following: Feelings of fear, anger, sadness, worry, numbness, or frustration. Changes in appetite, energy, desires, and interests. Trouble concentrating and making decisions. Nightmares or problems sleeping. Physical reactions, such as headaches, body pains, stomach...