In order to meet the professional development needs of our special educators in West Fargo, the special education leadership team has developed several learning cohorts focusing on best practices in special education. Our educators will have choice in which cohort they select for their special education professional development during the 2022-23 school year.  

Learning Cohorts (see attachment) include sessions on foundations of literacy, AIM - Social Emotional Behavior Curriculum, Bridges Math Intervention, Social Emotional Interventions, Foundations of Visual Impairment, Middle School Math Intervention, Specialized Classroom Framework and Curriculum, New Special Education Teacher Learning, Speech and Language Choice Sessions, Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Supporting Transition Age Students, Developmental Progression of OT and PT Therapy. 

There are a total of 11 hours of face to face or synchronous professional development covered by the learning cohort sessions. Each Learning Cohort has the flexibility to meet in the format that best supports the participants. All sessions must be attended or content for missed sessions will be reviewed by the participant and a summary of their learning in 3-5 paragraphs will be due withing 2 weeks of the absence (prior to the next cohort learning session). 

2 hours will be dedicated to a mid-term project that focuses on implementation of the participants learning.  Projects must include evidence of the learning cycle: identify the new content they have learned so far, list collaborative partners supporting their PLC discussions, include data of how their student's responded to the implementation, and a reflection on how the participant is continuing to implement and make it their own. 

2 hours will be dedicated to an end of year reflection summarizing the learning and implementation from the second semester of learning.  The reflections should be no more than 1 page in length and should include evidence of the participant's learning and implementation.