Nancy Sindelar Speaker Biography
Nancy W. Sindelar, Ph.D. has spent over 30 years in education as a teacher, administrator, university professor, and consultant and has published numerous articles and three books on educational topics. She works with schools across the country in the areas of standards-based curriculum and assessment alignment, collection, use, and interpretation of student test data, teacher mentorship and the development of high performing teacher teams. By focusing on data-driven instruction, Nancy has helped schools move from state academic “watchlists’ to “most improved status,” based on state test scores.
Nancy’s Hemingway biography, Influencing Hemingway, was inspired by her background in teaching. She states, “As a former English teacher at Hemingway’s alma mater, Oak Park and River Forest High School, I first explored Ernest’s high school years as a means of engaging my students in his novels. I studied Ernest’s yearbooks, his high school writing and even met some of his former teachers. Together my students and I learned that the man who became an international literary figure and sports legend also was an avid reader, a high school athlete, the editor of the school’s newspaper, a contributor to the literary magazine and that he played the cello in the school’s orchestra and participated in the school play.” After additional research, including trips to France, Switzerland, and Cuba, Influencing Hemingway was written to document how Ernest Hemingway’s early years and the people and places Ernest was drawn to in his adult life contributed to his thoughts, actions, and writing.
Mentor Teacher and New Teacher Training
Session Description: Mentorship and induction are important to the stability and growth of any profession. Identifying successful teachers as mentors and role models for new teachers helps new teachers to be more effective in the classroom and remain in the teaching profession longer. After school leaders identify mentors to be paired with new teachers, mentors will be trained in a morning session, share lunch with their mentees and then mentors and new teachers will review year-long roles and responsibilities in the afternoon.
Legal Issues in Education
Educators work in an increasingly litigious environment and put their assets at risk daily. This half-day workshop examines landmark cases that shed light on the legal responsibilities teachers and administrators face daily. Topics include:
TEACHERS’ RIGHTS
STUDENTS’ RIGHTS
NEGLIGENCE AND LIABILITY
CHILD ABUSE AND MANDATED REPORTING
TEACHER COMPETENCE AND MALPRACTICE
WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA
STUDENT SEARCHES
FIELD TRIPS
COPYING OF PRINT MATERIALS, VIDEOS, AND SOFTWARE
Balanced Assessments: What, Why, How?
With the increased interest in accountability and meeting the demands of No Child Left Behind, teachers are spending increasing amounts of time preparing students for tests and then testing them. Most people who currently work in public schools have not been trained in assessment or prepared by their professional education programs or their prior experience to understand, use and measure their success as educators by the metric of students’ test scores. This workshop is designed to explain the “nuts and bolts” of testing so that teachers can view testing as a source of information and power rather than just a drain on instructional time.
A Practical Approach to Developing and Using Common Assessments
In this one-day session participants learn how common assessments are key to bringing equity to learning, necessary for gathering useful data to enhance the learning of all students, and vital for disaggregating subgroup data to close achievement gaps. The information presented is based on current research and professional practice.
Using Test Data to Increase Learning and Close Achievement Gaps
We test, test, test, but testing alone does nothing except to sort schools and students into categories. In this workshop, teachers learn to use their school’s analyzed test data to improve curriculum, inform instruction, close achievement gaps and motivate students with the results of their learning.
Aligning Curriculum and Assessments to COMMON CORE STANDARDS
Update your school’s current curriculum and classroom assessments to meet the content and measurement requirements of the Common Core Standards.
Is High-Stakes Testing Good for Kids?
