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Seminars,
Workshops and Publications
for Staff and Leadership Development
Contact us at clabaugh62@gmail.com
(Titles where active, are hyperlinks to pertinent on-site literature)
We at NewFoundations are well aware of and sensitive to the fact that institutions, particular public institutions, have both a technical as well as a political dimension. We are careful, always, to distinguish between the role of analyst -- generally appropriate for troubleshooting and planning -- and the role of advocate -- particularly appropriate when dealing with external audiences, or across internals lines of division separating constituencies, e.g. administration, staff, clientele, etc. We believe that the health of an organization depends strongly on not confusing these two roles, but respecting the areas in which each works best.
NewFoundations' specialists offer a variety of practical seminars and workshops for educators. We respect the professional experience of our clients and do not talk down to them. Seminars feature active learning and structured inquiry, not lecture. If you have a specific interest, the following topics can be adapted to fit your needs.
Competitive
Proposal Development for Curriculum and General Planning
Curriculum theory often overlooks the real problems of competing demands
for scarce resources in contexts of cultural diversity. This workshop
helps educators develop programs where scarcity is an everyday fact and
agreement about policy implementation is hard to come by.
Contending
with Extremist Attacks
School official routinely find themselves to be the targets of extremist
groups. Knowing their strategy and tactics helps school people defend
themselves against unpleasant surprises. Through activities,
participants will come to better understand and more effectively combat
intrusions by such extremists into the school community.
Coping
with Competing Expectations
What is the school that people worry about its being effective and moral
and politic, often at the same time? The school is perceived as
different things by different people, and even as different things by
the same person under different circumstances. This workshop examines
various perspectives and their implications for practice and policy
implementation. A priorities inventory is administered to participants
and analyzed. The perpetual "pendulum swing" of school reform movements
and shifting community demands can be understood as the competition of
competing expectations. Practical ways of addressing this chronic
situation are explored which give participants a handle on dealing with
the complexities of schooling.
Dealing
with Conflict
A series of workshops that brings participants to proactively
anticipating and dealing effectively with school conflicts. Participants
learn new techniques for assessing levels of commitment and other tools
necessary to develop consensus on school programs. Participants will
learn to recognize how basic organizational dynamics may work to impede
program implementation.
Developing
and Writing Mission Statements
A survey technique of participant school community members is used to
provide the foundation of school philosophy and mission statements that
go beyond mere sloganizing toward expressing real and practical
consensus on the purposes of the school.
Developing
Criteria for Decision in a Pluralistic Context
Pluralism need not generate political stalemate. Political struggle over
criteria for decision can be forestalled. This workshop shows how to
build up consensus prior to criteria formulation so that recognizable
equity is built into the decision-making process.
Diversity:
need human differences generate educational problems?
Not every difference makes a difference. Responding to educationally
irrelevant differences generates a variety of problems for the school.
This seminar focuses on what is educationally relevant, and the
practical problems of legal versus moral conceptions of difference.
Specific attention is given to issues of ethnicity, handicap and gender.
Justifying
and Defending Your Decisions
Transform court summons from a dreaded inquisition into a more than
equal sparring match. Learn how to found your decisions on principle and
evidence and be prepared to deflect and neutralize potential and actual
attacks on your judgment.
Meeting The New Geography Standards
Geography has emerged as a subject of importance in the curriculum. New
state and national standards set benchmarks for student achievement.
This interactive, hands-on workshop helps familiarize teachers with the
discipline and shows them how to develop materials and lesson plans that
bring student achievement up to those standards
Practical Token Economies
Using substantially cognitively adapted approaches to behavior
modification, a practical method of dealing with classroom management
tried and tested for nearly twenty years at troubled middle schools will
be presented. Training and simulation sessions will examine the costs as
well as the benefits. Particular focus is made on the replacement of
extrinsic with intrinsic, school appropriate rewards. Cross-cultural
variations in application will be reviewed.
Preventing,
Detecting & Combating Plagiarism and Cheating
Plagiarism and cheating have always been headaches for educators, but
the Internet has turned those headaches into migraines. Well over 100
sites offer students free papers, papers for hire or detailed
instructions on how to cheat. This hands-on workshop arms educators with
knowledge and specific techniques for dealing with this dishonesty.
Teaching Grammar without
Teaching Grammar
Participants will learn how to rely on natural student linguistic
capacities to have them deduce structures and construct their own
approaches to the grammatical patterns of the target language. The use
of both structural and transformative linguistic approaches will be
demonstrated. Indirect, yet highly effective methods of teaching
vocabulary, grammar and concept development will be shown. Interactive
sessions will enable participants to carry it all back to their
classrooms.
Writing
School Policy That Works.
Participants will use new techniques to critically examine policy
formulations for their political and practical effectiveness. Emphasis
will be on developing actual documents for use. The likely political
interaction between policy and affected constituencies will be charted
so as to provide direction for approaches to implementation.