Are these phrases recognizable? Many, if not most, international schools include similar language in mission and/or vision statements. What does this mean in the daily life of a student and of a school? How do we move towards creating a sustainable culture of service that has value and purpose for all stakeholders and leads to the outcomes we describe?
- Dr. Virginia Pauline Rojas
14th, 16th, 21st & 23rd January 2025
The time has come to rethink past policies and practices so that all school leaders and teachers develop responsive mindsets and actions. First and foremost is a call for EAL specialists to shift from ‘fixers of learners’ TO ‘creators, collaborators, consultants, and coaches’ to build and sustain an advocacy ecosystem where multilingual learners benefit from all teachers as language teachers.
- Carol Ann Tomlinson
15th, 22nd, 29th January & 5th February 2025
When we think of “inclusion,” that most often refers to general education classrooms that make provisions to include a few learners with special needs. In those instances, it’s easy for think of the classroom as composed largely of “regular” or “normal” students who are joined by learners who aren’t “regular” or “normal.”
- Sam Passeport
3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th February 2025
The Silent Way (SW) is a pedagogical approach to teaching foreign languages invented by Caleb Gattegno in the late 1950s. The language teacher using this approach strives to “subordinate teaching to learning” by reducing the teacher's talking time and increasing students’ voice because the teacher is silent (but not mute!) most of the time and therefore gives more space for the students to express themselves.
- Kath Murdoch
4th, 18th February 4th, 18th March 2025
Critical to the success of any journey of inquiry is the degree to which the learner is able to both access information and process and communicate ideas. As we inquire, most of the information we encounter is in the form of some kind of text.
- Dr. Virginia Pauline Rojas
4th, 6th, 11th & 13th February 2025
Across the world, international schools proclaim their multilingual identities in terms of how many nationalities and languages are represented in their student populations. Given current research on multilingualism, this head count may not be a convincing indicator of effective policies, programs, pedagogy, and practices.
Jay will present ideas from his recent book, Designing Authentic Performance Tasks and Projects (ASCD, 2020). This session will examine the characteristics of quality performance tasks and explore a set of practical and proven tools for the development of performance tasks to engage students in meaningful learning and for assessing important learning outcomes (e.g., 21st century skills) that often fall “through the cracks” of conventional testing.
- Jessica Vance
8th, 15th, 22nd February & 1st March 2025
How do we curate spaces to cultivate curiosity yet showcase the “messiness of learning? In this four part series, Jessica Vance will guide you through the foundational tenets of data collection, evidencing and authentic documentation of learning leveraging space as a third teacher.
- Dr. Virginia Pauline Rojas
21st & 22nd February 2025, Doha
The aim of this two-day workshop is three-fold: (1) to look at the ways in which translanguaging pedagogy scaffolds learners’ academic achievement and second language acquisition; (2) to provide specific translanguaging tools to be used so multilingual learners can do what previously was thought they could not do in classrooms; and (3) to discuss the use of translanguaging within the context of ten content and language integrated learning (CLIL) principles.
In this practical workshop, participants have the opportunity to clarify their understanding of what it really means to use an inquiry based approach to teaching and learning in the primary / elementary classroom. Over two interactive days, teachers examine the essential elements of inquiry and how these elements can be 'brought to life' through quality planning, use of materials, choice of teaching strategies and interactions with students.
The current uses of AI in schools are perhaps the worst type. The most typical AI use in schools reported in the media and research reports is the formation of an AI circle. Simply speaking, teachers use AI to plan their lessons and develop work for students; students use AI to help complete the work and turn back to teachers, who will then use AI to evaluate the work and give feedback to students.
Develop a clear understanding of critical thinking and the ability to plan to support the development of critical thinking in all learners. Develop ability to frame powerful questions that invite and support critical and creative thinking. Build a repertoire of powerful strategies to support learning through instruction and effective assessment.
- Dan Feigelson
4th, 11th, 18th, 25th March 2025
In recent years, much of the conversation around literacy instruction has focused on the Science of Reading. But after students learn to decode and read with fluency, how do we help them continue to grow as readers? Our most important job as teachers of comprehension is to help children understand and think deeply about increasingly longer and more complex texts.
- Clare Landrigan
6th, 13th, 20th & 27th March 2025
Poetry is a structure that promotes inquiry, agency, interpretation, and liberation. Layering poetry into content areas and nonfiction literacy units of study is a great way to invite your students to explore, question, and bring their whole selves into appreciating the natural and human world around them.
- Anne Van Dam
8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th March 2025
This online workshop explores the variety of ways early childhood educators document young children’s learning. A growing body of research points at the importance of documenting, monitoring and interpreting learning as it supports our intention to plan in response to children evolving understanding and questions.
- Carol Ann Tomlinson
10th, 17th, 24th & 31st March 2025
While there is a great deal of conversation in schools about formative assessment, it is relatively rare to see it implemented in classrooms as it ought to be if the goal is to improve teaching and learning. This 4-part webinar will explore formative assessment as a powerful tool that, when used correctly, enhances student achievement, professionalizes teachers, improves instruction, and builds student agency.
- Susan Harris Mackay & Matt Karlsen
12th, 19th, 26th March & 2nd April 2025
Story workshop is a playful approach to literacy in early childhood (especially ages 3-8) that prioritizes opportunities for making meaning, sharing stories, play, and the arts. The approach, initially articulated and developed in classrooms in Portland, Oregon, now flourishes in programs around the world.
A good essential question serves as a doorway for engaging student inquiry, helps teachers in “uncover” the big ideas of the curriculum, and lead students to deeper understanding. In this session, we will examine key ideas from the best-selling book, Essential Questions: Opening Doorways to Student Understanding (McTighe and Wiggins, 2013).
- Kath Murdoch
15th & 16th March 2025, The Hague
In the inquiry classroom, we aim to nurture learners who see themselves as capable, curious, resourceful individuals with a strong sense of agency. There is growing evidence of the importance of nurturing the kinds of dispositions and skills associated with agency.
- Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs
20th, 27th March & 3rd April 2025
How can we create a living breathing curriculum responsive to the learners in our care? How can we support a culture of collaboration between teachers to develop a pathway of engaging learning experiences both vertically and across the school year? Mapping is curricular collaboration. Mapping is learning architecture as a faculty lays out and reviews curriculum both vertically and across the school year.
- Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs
29th March 2025
How can we provide purposeful feedback to our colleagues on their plans for teaching and learning? Whether it is feedback on curriculum unit design, vertical curriculum maps, bundling and placement of standards, development of learning targets, authentic assessment design, or lesson construction, educators need feedback that ultimately supports their students.
- Trevor MacKenzie
29th & 30th March 2025, Sofia
Trevor MacKenzie facilitates learning from his recently released fourth publication, Inquiry Mindset Questions Edition. Question Routines are designed to help teachers leverage student-generated questions to help plan next steps in learning.
- Sam Passeport
2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd April 2025
As we increasingly emphasize the use of formative assessment and feedback, teachers experience the tension of feedback’s double duty: giving feedback for learning yet also for administrative accountability (justifying grades, for instance).
- Anne Van Dam and Sean Walker
5th, 12th, 26th April & 3rd May 2025
Throughout this online workshop, participants will have an opportunity to experience a day in the life of a Kindergarten class (children turning six this academic year) at the International School of Paris.
- Dr. Virginia Pauline Rojas
8th, 10th, 15th & 17th April 2025
Cultivating a collective responsibility for multilingual learning environments requires content and language teachers to know more so they can do better. These sessions provide the ‘what, why, and how’ knowledge and skills teachers need to unleash the potential of collaboration in content and language integrated learning classrooms. Learn how to make the mantra, ‘every teacher is a language teacher’ a reality in collaborative classrooms.
- Carol Ann Tomlinson
9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th April 2025
Inquiry-based teaching and learning and differentiation share many beliefs, attitudes, and practices that can be important in engaging learners from a wide range of cultures, interests, strengths, and entry points.
- Kath Murdoch
11th & 12th April 2025, Bahrain
Inquiry as an approach to teaching and learning has long been regarded as a powerful way not only to engage students in their learning, but to challenge them to think more deeply and apply skills and understandings to new contexts.
Internationally-renowned author and consultant, Jay McTighe, will share ideas from his most recent book, Assessing Learning in the Classroom – By Design (Teachers College Press, 2021). He will present five underlying assessment principles and examine a set of fundamental questions about the What?, Why? and How? of effective assessment.
The Intensive Instructional Coaching Institute is a focused and intensive professional development opportunity based on 20+ years of research. It provides a big-picture view of instructional coaching and includes an exhaustive learning opportunity covering five coaching areas presented in Jim Knight’s bestselling books and research.
- Dr. Virginia Pauline Rojas
10th & 11th May 2025, Shanghai, China
The aim of this two-day workshop is three-fold: (1) to consider current trends and issues in bilingualism and language education, (2) to build a translanguaging toolkit for teaching multilingual learners from an asset-based paradigm, and (3) to reimagine equitable linguistic landscapes for international schools with majority multilingual populations.
- Clare Landrigan
16th, 23rd, 30th September & 7th October 2025
Every child deserves the opportunity to become a lifelong reader, and books are the teacher’s tool to make that happen. This course will show you how to redesign your book spaces, reorganize your books, and reimagine how these spaces can work together across the entire school to make each teacher’s book supply seem endless in the eyes of a reader.