Workshop Overview

According to the Aurora Institute in Virginia, no one person operates in just one zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled facilitator.

To assist a person to move through the zone of proximal development there are important components which aid the learning process; instructional strategies used in the classroom, individualized feedback provided, how well assessment criteria is developed, and where the learner is on a socio-emotional level.

The following workshop aims to help teachers provide an opportunity for their students to embrace the “productive struggle.”

Participants will develop a greater understanding of the four personalized learning attributes: voice, co-creation, social construction and self-discovery. They will unpack each of these attributes while practicing targeted strategies, such as conferring, self-reflection tools, questioning strategies and coaching practices.

Participants will also closely examine data and will work with peers through a set of protocols to identify the trends and implications of this data. From there, participants will move on to developing an action plan and specific steps to meet the learning needs in the classroom.

Facilitator:

Heather Onderick

Heather Onderick has over 20 years experience in the classroom and as a learning leader. She has worked to design learning rooted in the American, Singaporean, Ontario standards and also with the Common Ground Collaborative framework. She has worked as an ELL teacher, an elementary classroom teacher and middle school Humanities teacher. Heather’s areas of expertise include universal design for learning, concept driven curricular design, student centered coaching, and reading and writing workshop.

Intrigued by the power of Generative AI, Heather has taken numerous workshops and courses on AI for educators. In the summer of 2023, she spent 6 weeks writing a research paper and doing a deep dive on harnessing the power of AI in the classroom. Since then, Heather has been proactive in working with her teachers to enhance their learning design with AI as an assistant.