Alexis offers trainings, workshops, and Zoom consultations on the following topics:
Click on the workshop title below to learn more:
Spider Web Discussion®
Brief description: The best classes have a life of their own, powered by student-led conversations that explore texts, ideas, and essential questions. In these classes, the teacher’s role shifts from star player to observer and coach as the students
- Think critically,
- Work collaboratively,
- Participate fully,
- Behave ethically,
- Ask and answer high-level questions,
- Support their ideas with evidence, and
- Evaluate and assess their own work.
Spider Web Discussion is a simple technique that puts this kind of class within every teacher’s reach. Also called, “Harkness 2.0” this session will give you all the research behind why Spider Web Discussion is so powerful and all the specifics you need to begin it Monday morning in class. This is Alexis’s most popular workshop, based on her education best-seller The Best Class You Never Taught (ASCD).
Audience: teachers of all subject levels and ages, instructional coaches and administrators
Available adaptations: general audience focus or department/division-specific focus
Brief description: What is the definition of formative assessment? Which teachers should do it, and when? How do we make formative assessment work in our classrooms? Will students even try if an assessment doesn’t “count”? Should homework “count”? If we give more formative assessments and less summative ones, will students’ grades be fair and accurate? Should we offer retakes or revisions? How should those be graded?
These are the questions educators wrestle with every day. Whether you feel you’re very experienced or are wanting to dip your toes into the world of formative assessment for the first time, there is something for you in this workshop. The term “formative assessment” gets used often but many educators have different definitions and understandings of what we mean by “formative.” We’ll cover not only what formative assessment is and why it’s such a powerful learning and reporting tool, but Alexis will also share specific, innovative formative assessment methods that are appropriate for any subject area or age group.
Attendees to this sessions will walk away with:
– an understanding of what formative assessment is and what it isn’t
– ideas for how how to create a bank of student work that serves as a valuable tool for communicating to parents, teachers, and students about assessment
– tips for setting up your grade book to make formative assessment a boon, not a burden
– an introduction to Spider Web Discussion, a student-led collaborative inquiry that can be used as a powerful type of formative assessment
– an introduction to Revision-Based Assessment, a new way of thinking about assessment that takes the focus off grades and puts it squarely on learning and growth
Leave this workshop with the knowledge, ideas, and inspiration to rethink assessment in your classroom starting the very next day.
Audience: ES, MS, and HS teachers of all subjects, instructional coaches, and administrators
Available adaptations: grade-level- or department/division-specific
Brief description: Feedback is the keystone to deep learning, bridging the gaps between content, skills, and assessment. This workshop offers specific ways teachers can employ feedback to lessen grading time and empower students. You will see student portfolios, course evaluations, and student-teacher conferences like you have never seen them before in this innovative session on how feedback transforms learning.
Audience: teachers of all subject levels and ages, instructional coaches and administrators
Available adaptations: general audience or department/division-specific
Brief description: Do students often say your class has made them think more than any they had before? Do students regularly leave your room still passionately discussing the lesson as they walk down the hall? Do students write you hand-written notes at the end of the year saying how grateful they were to have been challenged by the depth of inquiry your course required?
If not, you likely haven’t discovered the simple joy of teaching with great essential questions.
Essential questions are one of the most efficient ways to design curriculum and assessments with a deep, lasting impact on student learning. Yet most teachers aren’t sure how to tap their power.
This practical, creative session first clarifies what is and isn’t an essential question, a key misunderstanding in education. Then, participants of all grade levels and disciplines will learn how to re-frame their existing curriculum around core essential questions designed for deep inquiry and long-term learning.
Leave this session absolutely inspired and invigorated, with a toolbox full of great essential questions to transform any course, whether it is U.S. History, A.P. Biology, statistics or American Literature.
Audience: teachers of all subject levels and ages, instructional coaches and administrators
Available adaptations: general audience or department/division-specific
Brief description: In-depth analysis, critical thinking, and cogent writing are the English teacher’s ultimate goal, but it often feels like a Sisyphean task to get all students there. Not anymore.
In this practical, hands-on workshop, teachers will learn fresh approaches to teaching sophisticated written rhetoric and analysis. This workshop will energize teachers with three core practices for teaching adolescent writers: opportunities for authentic audiences, student choice, and self-assessment, all within the aim of creating effective writing. Every student can be a powerful writer; come experience how Alexis uses these methods to achieve results in her own classes.
Audience: MS/HS English teachers; also appropriate for science, humanities, and world language teachers interested in improving rhetorical and analytical writing.
Brief description: We’re all feeling the crunch of online learning and trying to figure out how to make our distance learning as effective as classroom time. Learn how the “five non-negotiables” of Spider Web Discussion can take your online classes from low-energy to lit.
This is a distance-learning-specific version of Alexis’s most popular workshop on Spider Web Discussion (see above), based on her education best-seller The Best Class You Never Taught (ASCD). We cover the steps for successful online, student-led discussions, as well as ways to think outside the box when it comes to online learning and teaching.
Here is a free 20-minute intro to this workshop on the reasons we need structures like Spider Web Discussion to help us create powerful classroom conversations. The “Online Discussions That Work” workshop picks up where this teaser leaves off, delving more into the practical, nitty-gritty that teachers need to make online discussions go from fizzle to sizzle.
Audience: teachers of all subject levels and ages, instructional coaches and administrators
Available adaptations: general audience focus or department/division-specific focus
The most dynamic, vibrant classrooms are ones in which students find inspiration, drive, and clearly-communicated goals. Based on the IB’s Approaches to Teaching and Learning, this workshop highlights the importance of five key skills for students and six key skills for teachers in creating the best classroom environments. You will walk away from this workshop with dozens of practical tips, activities, and new methods to inspire you. This sessions offers a treasure-trove of some of the most current, practical, and effective strategies out there — all in one place.
Audience: teachers of all subject levels and ages, instructional coaches and administrators
Available adaptations: IBDP schools version and non-IBDP schools version