To improve the learning outcomes and well-being of all children and youth by providing services and leadership in partnership with families, schools and communities.
Since this is the first day back for many school districts following winter break, the Jan. 3 HAA meeting will be held entirely via Zoom. It will begin at 9:00 a.m. and consist of partnership updates only. Superintendents will receive a calendar invitation with links to the Zoom meeting and agenda.
The December Future Ready Network meeting will be on Dec. 15 and will be a full day with the Future Ready meeting in the morning from 8:30-11:00 a.m. and a workshop session in the afternoon from 12:30-2:30 p.m. District teams can join in person in the Heartland AEA Regional Education Center, 6500 Corporate Drive, Johnston or via Zoom at this link. The day will focus on Work-Based Learning and will include guest speaker Kristy Volesky from the Department of Education Bureau of Career and Technical Education and Laura Williams from the Iowa Clearinghouse for Work-Based Learning. Several districts will also present their Work-Based Learning programs and how they use the Iowa Clearinghouse to manage their projects. The afternoon workshop is for educators who are interested in becoming a district project board manager in the Clearinghouse.
If you would like to know more about becoming a project board manger on the Clearinghouse, watch this short video.
If you are interested in becoming a Clearinghouse project board manager for your district, please complete this survey.
Visit the Heartland AEA Future Ready Website to stay up to date on news, resources, past network Zoom recordings and more! For more information, contact Sue Schirmer, Heartland AEA Professional Learning & Leadership Consultant.
When students activate Immersive Reader in their Pear Deck session, the text from the slides is extracted, opening in a window that provides scaffolding and customization opportunities. Students can make choices to:
To have the text read to them (and adjust the reading options),
To change the appearance of the text in terms of size, font, spacing and background contrast color
To highlight parts of speech and syllables
To use additional features like line focus and translation
This month’s tip about using Immersive Reader is a recommendation from Michelle Gebel, 5th grade teacher in Indianola. She loves the access to the text students have when using the text-reading feature of Immersive Reader. Take a look!
An innovative professional learning opportunity that provides a toolkit of how the brain develops, along with ways you can develop healthy brain development in children from Birth to 5 years old.
One of the most powerful features of this curriculum is that it translates very complex concepts in a way that is digestible, meaningful and relevant, and provides a range of interactive activities that enable participants to integrate and apply these concepts in their daily work supporting young children.
The Iowa Council of Administrators of Special Education is presenting two great learning opportunities for administrators who are looking for more information about the many facets of apologizing related to special education disputes and conflicts, and legal issues in special education regarding parent involvement. The webinar series will be Jan. 18 and March 29, 2023. View the series information here and register at this link.
