Heartland AEA's PEC to host Transition Times Workshop

It’s never too early for students to start planning for their future! The Parent & Educator Connection (PEC) will host a Transition Times Workshop on Tuesday, October 22. Families and educators of 7-12th grade students on IEP’s, students ages 14 and older and school district professionals are invited to attend. Click here for an informational flyer for the workshop.

To register, contact Maureen Schletzbaum at mschletzbaum@aea11.k12.ia.us or Susan Gill at susan.gill@dmps.k12.ia.us. Please leave your name, phone number, number attending and your school district. If accommodations are needed, please make request by October 9.

New Online Professional Development Course Proposal Form

In an effort to improve our professional development services, two more course proposal forms are now on-line. Study Group and Collaborative Action Research proposals used to be paper forms that were completed and submitted for license renewal and graduate credit. Those forms have now been converted to on-line proposal forms.

To submit a course proposal, authors should go to the "Classes, Workshops and Trainings" tab on the left side of Heartland's home page. Click on "Course Proposal Forms" then choose the appropriate format by clicking on the format type. To create a new proposal, click the box and hit "search". This will take you to the on-line form which follows a similar format to the current on-line proposal form for catalog or site-based courses.

We are excited to offer this updated service to our internal and external clients - this will be a much more "user-friendly" application.

For questions, contact Sue Schirmer, Professional Learning and Leadership Consultant, at at (515) 270-0405 or (800) 255-0405 ext 14379 or sschirmer@aea11.k12.ia.us.

ASCD's Fall 2009 Conference: Unlocking Seven Strategies of Formative Assessment

This October, Iowa ASCD’s fall conference features Jan Chappuis, who will speak on Formative Assessment. Jan works directly with Rick Stiggins and has a wealth of practical information to help educators. ETS recently published Jan’s book: “Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning”. The book is included with each participant’s registration. It is formatted in a way so that school teams can use it both as a learning tool and as an instructional tool, as it includes forms that are reproducible for use with students in the classroom. Jan was the speaker at last year’s workshop and she was very well received. This year, she will walk participants through her book and explain how school teams can use the assessment tools to further student learning. This workshop aligns very well with the Iowa CORE; there are already several Iowa schools using the book with district leadership teams and PLC’s as they study how to instruct and assess the Core.

The Iowa ASCD is encouraging school groups to send a team, as this is an area that will assist staff in their understanding of how to use formative assessment to inform instruction. Click here for a brochure of more information on the conference and how to register.

You may direct questions to Pam Vogel at (641) 347-5215 or pvogel@east-union.k12.ia.us.