Professional Development Workshops
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As the Director of Instruction for the Regional Training Center, the mid-Atlantic leader in graduate education course offerings, Mike is an expert on educational professional development. He has taught more than 70 graduate courses, facilitated hundreds of days of professional development, designed or co-designed 3 graduate education courses, regularly speaks at state, regional, and national conferences, and supervises more than 125 graduate education instructors in three states who in total teach more than 20 different face to face and online courses.
Mike’s presentations are consistently rated at the highest levels and he is often asked for return engagements. He will work with your district, or organization, to custom create the most memorable professional development your educational staff has ever experienced. The following are Mike’s most requested topics for professional development: |
For the past three years, Mike Kuczala has provided our district with high-quality, meaningful professional development on critical topics expertly tailored to the needs of our staff members. Mike’s sessions are consistently well-received, with teachers across the PK-12 spectrum expressing positive feedback and requesting follow-on sessions. |
The Kinesthetic Classroom
The Kinesthetic Classroom: Teaching and Learning through Movement is a brain-based approach to teaching and learning that helps teachers move from the traditional self-view of “teacher” to a new paradigm of “facilitator of learning” and “designer of the learning environment." Teachers will not only leave with dozens of immediately usable strategies for k-12 classrooms across all disciplines, they will gain a more focused understanding of how the brain learns and a working knowledge of a 6-part theoretical framework for thoughtfully and purposefully using movement in order to raise student achievement. The 6-part framework includes (1) preparing the brain to learn, (2) using brain breaks, (3) supporting exercise and fitness, (4) creating class cohesion, (5) reviewing content using movement and (6)teaching content using movement. The key to the training is the hands-on involvement of the teachers themselves; teachers experience the transformation of theory and research into practical application in an exciting manner.
Brain-Based Teaching and Learning
Mike’s foremost expertise lies in his understanding of how the brain learns. He brings the research to life in immediately applicable ways. Brain-Based Teaching and Learning focuses on how the brain prefers to learn, memory systems and their role in every classroom, and how to make instructional practice more brain-friendly. Topics include cognitive information processing, the primacy-recency effect, the role of emotion in learning, and the core brain principles that make for a successful teaching and learning process. The critical difference in Mike’s workshops, are the way they are designed. Teachers and administrators experience how the brain learns, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly – but the result is always the same – the many “a-ha” moments that lead to new levels of mastery teaching.
Student Motivation
Through Mike’s research and study about the brain and motivation he has designed the graduate course Motivation: The Art and Science of Inspiring Classroom Success and custom builds motivation seminars and workshops based on 9 motivational insights that improve classroom climate, instruction, and academic achievement. Motivation as it applies to the teaching and learning process are experienced: basic human needs, the driving force behind all human behavior, inspiration and peak performance, energizing classroom strategies, and frameworks that encourage change and achievement.
A Small Sampling of Mike’s Clients: |
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