Under-Resourced Learners Summit Courses

Join with Ruby Payne, our national consultants, and many experienced educators to discover new strategies to serve your under-resourced learners population. If you're experiencing classroom management challenges, low achievement levels, increased dropouts, or you're in need of innovative ideas you can use immediately to address state and federal mandates, then you need to attend the 2011 Under-Resourced Learners Summit!

URL Summit is all about learning and strategies. Take a moment to review each of the workshops we offer to determine which are best suited for you.
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Redesigning High Schools for all Learners-Especially Under-Resourced Learners
Is your school seeing increased dropout rates? In this session you’ll review the underlying causes and unique characteristics affecting decreased student achievement and retention. You’ll also learn strategies to make teaching easier and learning faster for all students, across the curriculum.

This session examines:
  • The cost of dropouts
  • Generation Y characteristics
  • Immigrant student issues
  • Emotional resources and resiliency
  • Bonding and bridging capital
  • Relational learning
  • Instructional strategies
  • School-wide processes to monitor student learning
Throughout the session you’ll have access to practical, real-world guidance to improve your effectiveness in working with students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
Relational Learning in the Classroom
Developing relationships of mutual respect with students has been a key component of Ruby Payne’s trainings for years. This session will take participants beyond the basics of mutual respect to specific strategies to develop relational learning with today’s under-resourced and Generation Y students.

Discussion will revolve around the key characteristics of relational learning.

Learn about bridging and bonding capital; help students at the secondary level, develop a very specific and clear plan to address their own learning performance and a safe environment (emotionally, verbally, and physically) for themselves. It all begins with relationships.
Six-Step Process to Raise Student Achievement
In today’s world of accountability, decreased funding, and increased federal and state demands, teachers and administrators need simpler processes that yield significant increases in student achievement levels

This session presents an overview of a straightforward six-step process that educators can use to raise students’ scores—easily, quickly, and effectively.

You will learn:
  • Teacher friendly strategies to disaggregate data and determine its impact on AYP
  • Quick and highly collaborative curriculum alignment and pacing techniques
  • The elements of high-quality instruction
  • Alternative ways to monitor students’ progress throughout the year
  • Systemic interventions for at-risk students
  • A strategy for embedding these processes in your classrooms
While there is no "silver bullet" that will raise student achievement, this Six-Step Process delivers a method that works, step-by-step instructions for implementation, and strategies for working with staff to incorporate this collegial model.
How Bridges out of Poverty Communities Support Under-Resourced Students
Bridges Steering Committees are cropping up around the country and providing leadership and direction to address poverty in their communities. This session describes how schools and other sectors of the community can develop Bridges Steering Committees that can work around departmental silos to support under-resourced students.. These committees are beginning to work hand-in-hand with schools to address their inter-related issues. Come and learn how schools and agencies can work together to build sustainable communities and improve schools.
Working with Parents
Parents—engaged and involved? Or disconnected and unavailable? This session will examine five critical issues that have a major impact on working and communicating successfully with parents whose children are under-resourced. The understanding gleaned through these issues can unlock previously closed doors and lead to a better understanding between the home and school. Participants will leave this session with handy tips and resources that will build stronger relationships between the school and its families.
Behavior and Classroom Management
Is student behavior a challenge for you? Are you struggling to teach the "perfect lesson" because you’re disrupted by the actions of a few? Focusing on the under-resourced learner, this session will provide practical strategies for successful classroom management. Topics will address emotional safety, as well as standardized and clearly defined classroom procedures. Student behaviors will be classified and the classroom as part of a larger school system will be discussed. The bonus of this session is the use of simulations as tools to help improve the management of the classroom, especially for those looking for answers and strategies.
Math Strategies
Teachers who use aha! Process math mental models in their classrooms find them to be an effective way to increase understanding of complex problem solving topics.

In this session participants will learn to employ a variety of math mental models to help your students retain more information and grasp abstract concepts quickly.

aha! Process presents a strategy that requires students to plan, label, and sort information. The process helps control students' impulsivity and has been especially effective with students who are struggling with basic math skills. Mental models—a strategy to close the gap in student learning!
Algebra Strategies
Success in Algebra I is the best predictor of a student's ability to be successful in college. Algebra I teachers who use aha! Process math mental models to translate math from the concrete to the abstract have found success for even the hardest-struggling Algebra I students. In this session you will learn to correlate strategies with the levels of questions found in assessments to maximize time in the classroom and increase student performance.
Mental Models for Language Arts
Meet your AYP requirements easily!
In today’s world of increased accountability, teachers and administrators need simpler processes that truly pay off in student achievement. aha! Process mental models are a great way to make learning faster and easier.

aha! Process presents mental models for a whole range of language arts concepts in this interactive session. From structures and patterns of language arts to steps of the writing process, sorting information, organizing research, and grammar, these mental models make learning painless.

You’ll also learn how to implement rubrics to assess performance and help you gauge your students’ progress against adequate yearly progress standards.
Developing the Resources of Your Students
It all begins with the resources the student brings to the classroom. For years, A Framework for Understanding Poverty has defined poverty through the lens of eight resources. Dr. Payne has added a ninth resource for today’s under-resourced learner. Participants in this session will analyze and learn to more effectively use these resources to determine interventions. Review the new checklists and discuss ways to use with today’s students. Interventions based on resources that are present can be a key to changing a student’s life!
Working with Boys in the Classroom
Boys account for 85% of the discipline problems in school. They also constitute the largest population in Special Education, Title 1, and those who have reading and writing problems. Boys are the ones who have committed the violent acts in America's schools, and they are the most likely to drop out of school.

This session focuses on the “why” behind male behavior in school and what schools can do to begin making school more "boy-friendly." Issues that affect boys who come from poverty, as well as middle class, will be explored in this session.
Meeting the Educational Needs of African-American Boys
One of the most misunderstood, maligned, and underserved segments of the public school population is the urban minority male student. African-American males in particular often operate within a "hidden rule system" that is vastly different from the middle class rule system that governs America's schools. Because the majority of public school teachers are female, white, and middle class, rule conflict is often inevitable. This conflict is evidenced by the number of minority males who are in Special Education and alternative school placements.

This session examines the hidden rules of African-American males in general and poor African-American males in particular. Methods and strategies for building significant relationships and promoting higher academic achievement are also presented. Participants will be given the opportunity to evaluate real-life classroom scenarios and to dialogue about appropriate interventions and approaches.
Language and Story Structure in Your Classroom
Language resources allow a person to share understandings, experiences, and information with others. Without language, the only other options are drawings or nonverbal signals. Language is the tool to build social capital, to express thinking, and to organize and relate personal experiences.

Explore the need for student development in the areas of registers of language, patterns of discourse, vocabulary development, and story structure. Vocabulary can limit or enhance the school experience and the development of social capital as much as any other factor.
Social Networking Strategies for Instruction and Classroom Participation
What is social networking? What is Web 2.0, and why is it important? Today's web technologies create a culture of participation with which our Gen Y students are familiar—but teachers may not be. This session will introduce you to the more important developments of the last few years and help you get up to speed with the latest in web terminology and applications for the classroom.
Concentration of Blogging and Wiki Activities into Instruction and the Classroom
This hands-on session will give participants detailed information on creating blogs and wikis, as well as insight into how this technology can be used to engage your Generation Y students in learning. Participants will also be introduced to online media resources such as NBC’s iCue. As part of this workshop attendees will create their own blogs and wikis. Participants should attend the Web 2.0 in the Classroom Overview or have a basic knowledge of Internet technology prior to attending this session.
Understanding Students of Hispanic/Latino Descent and Their Parents
Hispanic/Latino students have the highest dropout rate. Many experience cultural tension in school when behaviors are misinterpreted as rude or disengaged but are actually a result of cultural upbringing. This session provides an understanding of hidden rules in the Hispanic/Latino culture and issues that Hispanics/Latinos encounter in public schools. Participants will learn strategies to enable students and parents to foster improved academics and socialization.
User-Created Content: Café Learning over Breakfast Mini-Sessions
These are informal presentations and discussions that will occur over breakfast. Imagine a meeting room with clusters of tables and chairs for high-energy dialogues in small groups of 5 to 10 colleagues on user-created content.

Content, Design, and Logistics:
  • These are informal “nuts and bolts” sessions focusing on a single idea.
  • There will be a mix of topics, from the lighter side to a specific practice, discussion, or even a call for help.
  • All content must be non-promotional.
  • No media, computers, or displays—just storytelling and dialogues!
  • You will be given a flip-chart and markers to use at your table.
  • All sessions will be numbered, and attendees will rotate through by choosing two sessions in which to participate.
  • Each mini-session leader will need to present his/her topic in two back-to-back sessions with a short break in between.
  • Leaders will allow for at least five minutes (or more) of interaction and questions (ideally throughout) and should prepare for a group as small as four to six people or as large as 30 participants.
Apply to become a mini-session presenter! Request descriptor of session.
RtI: Response to Intervention
Learn about the what, the why, and the how of response to intervention (RtI) and the under-resourced learner. This session will cover student intervention teams, the rationale behind the RtI mandate, and the intervention process for student achievement. We will focus on the three tiers of intervention and the progress monitoring of student growth. This session will provide an overview of the training and support available from aha! Process consultants.
The R Rules: A Guide for Teens to Identify and Build Resources
“How do you plan on getting to college?” “By car.”

This session will provide an overview of The R Rules, a curriculum for teens based on the work of Ruby K. Payne, PhD. Resources allow choices. One resource or the lack of it can mean the difference between success and failure. For many learners resources are undervalued, unidentified, or so low that choices don’t exist. The R Rules is an asset model full of tools and activities for inquiry and exploration to increase awareness and skills. Relationships of mutual respect guide teens as they identify, build, and use resources to support steps to their future pictures by translating abstract concepts into realities.

The R Rules: R + R + R = R + R + R
Rules, Rigor with Relationships build Resources, Results and Respect

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