A lesson built around a compelling phenomenon, all three dimensions, and rich sensemaking opportunities still falls short if not every student can fully access it. This session asks a hard but important question: who is your science instruction actually working for, and who is not yet able to fully access it? In this session, K-12 science teachers and leaders will examine what genuine access to grade-level science looks like across the full range of learners, including students with exceptional needs, multilingual learners, and students who need enrichment or extensions, and will explore how intentional design choices around scaffolding, differentiation, and relevance can open the door wider without lowering expectations.

This session will also look at co-teaching in the science classroom. If you have a co-teacher, we strongly encourage teams to attend together.

Target Audience: Teachers, Instructional Coaches, District Leaders, Special Education Teachers, Administration

6 Hours of EILA Credit.

The beauty of learning science is figuring out why and how things happen. Sensemaking is the engine that drives that process, but it doesn’t happen automatically. It requires classrooms where students draw on their own observations and prior knowledge, collaborate to build shared understanding, and have space to revise their thinking over time. In this session, K-12 science educators and leaders will experience what student-centered science instruction centered on sensemaking looks and feels like, then examine their own classroom practices to identify where sensemaking is thriving and where it might be getting cut short. You’ll leave with concrete strategies for designing discussions, questions, and evaluating tasks that move students to be active sense-makers, along with time to apply those strategies to upcoming lessons with grade-band colleagues from across the region.

Target Audience: Teachers, Instructional Coaches, District Leaders, Administration

6 Hours of EILA provided.

Collaborative transition planning is essential for creating meaningful, student-centered pathways to life after high school. This training will explore practical strategies for bringing students, families, educators, agencies, and community partners together to support successful postsecondary outcomes. Participants will learn strategies for building collaborative transition teams, engaging families, partnering with outside agencies, and connecting transition goals to meaningful opportunities in education, employment, independent living, and community participation. Educators will leave with tools to strengthen transition teams and develop plans that reflect each student’s strengths, preferences, interests, and goals for adulthood.

Email sydney.green@ckec.org with any questions.

Move beyond key words, tricks, and memorized shortcuts and help students truly make sense of math word problems. In this interactive virtual session, participants will explore practical routines such as Three Reads, Numberless Word Problems, BET Lines, etc., while drawing from Mathematize It! by Kimberly Morrow-Leong, Sara Delano Moore, and Linda M. Gojak to strengthen students’ reasoning, representation, and problem-solving. Leave with strategies you can use right away with all learners—especially students who struggle with word problems.

Transform your classroom into a thriving culture of mathematical learning for every student. In this three-hour, in-person professional development, we’ll explore how teachers’ and students’ math autobiographies—their past experiences, beliefs, and emotions around math—shape engagement, confidence, and learning in today’s classroom. Participants will learn how to intentionally weave the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs) and Mathematics Teaching Practices (MTPs) into daily instruction while addressing math fears, honoring student voice, and building a community where curiosity, reasoning, and collaboration flourish. You’ll walk away with practical, ready-to-use strategies to foster deep thinking and create a classroom culture where math learning is meaningful, inclusive, and empowering.

As the first half of the school year comes to a close, take time to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with the math teacher you want to be! Grounded in Chase Orton’s The Imperfect and Unfinished Math Teacher and NCTM’s Mathematics Teaching Practices, this virtual session will focus on professional growth, purposeful reflection, and practical ways to strengthen mathematics instruction.
Come as you are—imperfect, unfinished, and still growing—and leave encouraged and ready to begin the new year with fresh purpose and ideas.

Fractions are a journey, not a single standard! Join us for a hands-on deep dive into the Kentucky Academic Standards for fractions in Grades 3–5, with a focus on how fraction understanding develops and connects across grade levels.
Participants will explore vertical alignment, key representations, and engaging tasks that build conceptual understanding. Come ready to model, make connections, and leave with classroom-ready activities you can use right away!

Number lines are a powerful representation for building mathematical understanding across K–12! In this hands-on session, participants will explore the progression from number paths to number lines to open number lines and how these tools support number sense, operations, magnitude, and student reasoning.
Using the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide as an anchor, participants will build, model, and make sense of number lines in ways they can take directly back to the classroom.

The RAD Related Services Cadre brings together related service professionals to connect, collaborate, and share practical strategies that support student success across school settings. Participants will explore effective push-in, pull-out, and collaborative service approaches, along with strategies for addressing sensory, behavioral, communication, and access needs in the classroom. Through discussion, shared resources, and research-based practices, the cadre will highlight what is working and how related service personnel can partner with educators to increase student participation, independence, and success throughout the school day.

The Vibrant Learning Academy brings together district and school leaders and classroom teachers to build vibrant learning in our region — from the classroom to the system level. Participants join one of two pathways, Leaders or Teachers, and work across three sessions throughout the year, culminating in a joint showcase in April where both pathways present what they built, modeled after a student exhibition of learning. Districts are encouraged to bring both a leader and teachers so the work stays connected across pathways.

The Teacher Pathway

The Teachers Pathway is for classroom teachers ready to make vibrant learning a daily reality. Teachers will define what vibrant learning actually looks like day to day, work through small, medium, and large shifts to get there, and think through how to integrate it with their current HQIR. Teachers will also look at types of performance assessment systems and begin planning for how students might begin collecting evidence of their learning, building toward a system such as defenses of learning or student-led conferences. Teachers will leave with concrete moves they can use right away, and design and implement a shift throughout the academy.

Target Audience: Teachers, Instructional Coaches, Special Education Teachers