Free Webinar to help schools create inclusive cultures

One of the challenges for teachers is to learn to work with students in ways that respect their various cultures, enabling them to learn more effectively.

Arizona State University’s Equity Alliance will offer a free Webinar dealing with that topic at noon, March 19.

“Coaching for Inclusive Practice” is a one-hour session created by NIUSI LeadScape that enables coaching teachers and school staff members to create a school culture that serves all students.

The Webinar will help school leaders to move coaching from a problem-solving model to strategic capacity building that will change the way teachers and staff understand their work.

“Our coaching model provides a ‘framework’ for understanding and planning the types of conversations that are needed to broaden teachers’ understanding of their own assumptions and engage them in more thoughtful planning to effectively teach all students,” said Elaine Mulligan, assistant director, NIUSI-LeadScape.

“We’re helping coaches to help teachers understand what it is they don’t know about the way they interact with students – the unconscious assumptions they make based on their own experiences. Once teachers are aware of this, they can change their approaches to be more effective for students who don’t learn in ways that U.S. teachers use as default approaches.”

Registration for the webinar is available online at http://www.equityallianceatasu.org/ea/webinar.

The Equity Alliance at ASU represents a set of funded programs that promote equity, access, participation and outcomes for all students. Equity Alliance offers free webinars on topics related to improving equity in schools throughout the year. Past webinars on topics including “The State of Equity in Public Schools,” “Building Inclusive Schools” and “Professional Learning for Equity” can be downloaded at http://www.equityallianceatasu.org/webinar.

NIUSI-LeadScape, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, is developing a professional community of school principals of inclusive schools. The project’s professional learning tools incorporate research-based effective strategies and methods as well as research-based effective content on what principals need to know and do to achieve effective, inclusive schools.

For more information, contact Mulligan at (480) 965-8378 or elaine.mulligan@asu.edu.