Professional Learning

Teachers have the greatest impact on the success of every student’s learning journey. When you support your educators’ development, you inherently support students. Cognia’s customizable professional learning opportunities are designed to meet your teachers’ needs and transform instruction.

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Ignite transformational change

Make an impact at your school through customized professional learning facilitated by Cognia experts.

As experienced educators ourselves, we have the knowledge and skill to engage educators in learning that is easy to implement and impossible to forget. Embedded into each learning session are the four key characteristics of high-quality schools:

  • Culture of learning
  • Leadership for learning
  • Engagement of learning
  • Growth in learning

Invest in your professional learning

Explore instructional strategies, inform your decision making and refine your practice. Learn more about Cognia IMPACT conferences in this one-minute video.
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Key characteristics embedded into professional learning

When you partner with Cognia, you will participate in engaging learning opportunities driven by the characteristics of high-quality schools.

CHOOSE FROM OUR CUSTOMIZABLE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Refining your practice with Cognia’s continuous improvement process by engaging stakeholders, you will enhance the culture of learning.

Sessions:

Where do we start?

Refining your practice with Cognia’s continuous improvement process

Assess where you are with continuous improvement and define what it means to your institution. Explore the four phases of Cognia’s continuous improvement system and determine your next steps for improvement.

I believe in us!

Improving personal growth mindset

Develop an understanding of the characteristics of fixed and growth mindsets, reflect on your mindset as a learner and educator, and learn new tips to promote a growth mindset.

The little student that could

Engaging with a growth mindset

Explore how a growth mindset affects student engagement, practice strategies for classroom implementation, identify ways to embrace a growth mindset in the pursuit of success, and encourage the development of a growth mindset.

The power of data analysis, actionable practices, and intentional instructional and strategic planning can help leaders meet their students’ needs.

Sessions:

The power of data analysis

Identify types of data that support decision-making, collect and organize school-based data, prioritize data based on the purpose for analysis, receive an overview of data analysis and synthesis, and plan for next steps for improvement.

Utilizing eleot® results to inform decision-making

Discover the importance of the seven eleot® learning environments, create a plan for performing eleot® observations, and explore multiple applications for leveraging results to improve instructional practice and inform leaders’ decision-making.

Wanting to be better is not enough

Actionable practice to achieve strategic goals

Learn about Cognia’s Strategic Thinking and Planning process, a dynamic process for school leaders looking to actively engage stakeholders in strategic thinking and improvement planning, and the Cognia Platform (formerly eProve™) strategies that support it.

Students are talking—do we really listen?

Intentional instructional planning that meets student engagement needs

Discover why engaging your students is critical, learn how to interpret student engagement survey results, and participate in professional learning focused on research-based instructional strategies that promote active student engagement.

There’s support for that

Cognia’s companion on your journey to continuous improvement

Explore the Cognia Improvement Platform designed to elevate, accelerate, and improve your existing systems. Navigate modules in the platform and receive an overview of our tools, including Observations, Diagnostics, Surveys, Strategies, Assessments, and Workspace.

Engaging students through differentiation and varied instructional strategies can lead to improvements in teaching and learning.

Sessions:

When students have a choice

Understanding the why and how of differentiation

Gain an understanding of how differentiated classrooms are more engaging than traditional classrooms, explore the value and benefits of differentiating instruction, and learn new insights and ideas to implement in your classroom.

Introduction to effective learning environments

Learn about classroom conditions that promote learning and student engagement. Participate in a guided review of sample eleot® (Effective Learning Environments Observation Tool®) data or bring your classroom environment data for reflection.

Think differently and think for yourself

Using effective questioning to deepen thinking

Explore different questions that help students elaborate, clarify, and reflect on their thinking, questioning techniques that promote critical thinking and problem-solving, and ways to embed rigorous questions in classroom discussions.

Are you a teacher or a facilitator?

Engaging all students in the learning process

Increase your students’ attention and focus by engaging them in the learning process. Reflect on current instructional practices, explore approaches that motivate students in deeper learning, and gain new strategies that promote active learning.

Guiding educators to monitor student progress and offer meaningful feedback that will lead to student growth and improvement.

Sessions:

Finding a balance with locally created assessments

Understand the purposeful design and data limitations with formative, interim, and summative assessments and gain greater insight into using different data types to evaluate, report, and promote student learning.

I don’t want to stay here

Continuous improvement in the classroom

Foster student learning and growth through continuous improvement. Explore improvement at the classroom level, discuss ideas around student data and feedback, examine communication strategies with stakeholders, and address student needs.

Progress monitoring for growth

Develop a plan to monitor the progress of student learning. Learn how students can monitor their own progress and how teachers can monitor student progress to inform their teaching in the classroom.

Feedback to drive student improvement

Explore the importance of delivering feedback so students know if they’re making progress toward the learning target and develop strategies to support learning if they are not.

Fundamentals of instructionally embedded formative assessment

Create a culture in which formative assessment becomes a routine practice supporting teaching and learning. Understand the role of instructional embedded formative assessment in a balanced assessment system and explore systemwide implementation.

Accelerate learning through common assessment with professional learning communities

Learn how to create equitable learning opportunities for students through Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). You’ll gain strategies to enhance your PLC practice and help educators “work smarter.”

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Our experience with Cognia’s Improving Growth Mindset Professional Learning was phenomenal. Our facilitator was professional yet personal. The session was customized to our needs and encouraged and allowed everyone to engage not only mentally, but kinesthetically as well. The connections to personal experiences as a classroom teacher with the content, made the entire experience relevant and relatable for our teachers.”
Kathryn Koch
Principal
Lafayette Christian Academy, Lafayette, LA
My leadership team and I wanted to be active participants and work alongside our stakeholders to develop a strategic plan. Using Cognia's strategic thinking and improvement planning process, we were able to determine our current reality and envision our future. Using this data, we are working collaboratively to develop our mission, vision, and belief statements.”
Dr. Matthew Thompson
Superintendent
Montgomery County Schools, Sterling, KY
Cognia's knowledge and experience with strategic thinking and planning is exceptional. With their facilitation, our school and district leaders collaborated to develop a relevant and clear plan that works for all stakeholders to ensure student success.”
Pam Stroklund
Career & Technical Education Director
Minot Public Schools, Minot, ND
Through my years in the education field, I have slowly been learning more and more about school improvement. I have attended many conferences and sat in on school reviews. I am happy to state that the Cognia Impact Conference this year was by far the most educational conference I have been at. Attending this conference has given me the clarity I needed, and I left feeling like a weight was lifted off my shoulders!”
Catherine Anderson
Middle School Principal
St. John Schools, St. John, ND

Align professional learning to school goals

As a school leader, it can be challenging to determine which professional learning topics will have the greatest impact on teachers and, as a by-product, students.

When schools participate in Cognia’s strategic thinking and planning process, the decision comes easy. The envisioning and planning phases help identify which skills teachers need enriched to meet the established goals. In this way, the whole school is moving in the same direction and is well-positioned for improvement.

Develop a priority statement that bridges the gap between current reality and the future and develop a strategic theme that updates Mission, Vision, and Beliefs.
Develop short and long-term objectives and identify the critical initiatives to reach them.
Identify source of data to evaluate plan effectiveness, determine the plan’s success, and address implications of future work.
Specify details of how the critical initiative will be implemented and take action. Assign and communicate responsibilities.

Serving educators at every level

Educators

School leaders and teachers use our professional learning experiences to boost team collaboration, enhance key skills, and achieve professional goals. 

System and district administrators

Administrators from K–12, digital learning, early learning, and STEM institutions choose our programs to equip their teams with strategies that make continuous improvement an ingrained mindset.

Education agency leaders

Education leaders work with us to provide to a wide range of professional learning options that support improvement efforts and help increase teachers’ effectiveness.

Engage in professional learning.

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