West Roxbury, MA



Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Skills with Engagement & Motivation
TLC Educational Solutions Strategy-based Professional Development workshops are specifically designed to provide the skills needed to teach and interact with today’s students. Educators are challenged to raise the problem solving capability of their students and develop the skills to become Life Long Learners. Whether at an On-Site Workshop or Invitational Seminar, we provide teachers and administrators with strategies aligned to PreK-12 College and Career Readiness Standards designed to promote higher order thinking. Involving students in Higher-Order Thinking learning experiences not only motivates them to participate and learn, but makes them more capable of thinking critically and creatively and carry that learning into real life situations.
Workshop Sessions
Building Metacognition by Developing Understanding of the Learning Process.
Engaging students in the learning process begins with clear understanding of high cognitive demand targets or goals. Understanding strategies designed support their learning and reflecting on how to apply to them to different situations builds their metacognitive skills. As students plan on how to approach a task, use strategies to solve problems and reflect upon how the strategies worked, they gain self-assessing and self-correcting skills. These skills are referred to as self-regulation and are key to students becoming Life Long Learners.
Opening the Door to Higher-Order Thinking with Strategic Questioning.
Teachers can use Strategic Questioning strategies to increase student higher-order thinking and creativity. Higher-order questions are open-ended and do not have only one “correct” answer. Alternate ways to solve problems are encouraged. Students gain confidence in both answering and asking questions that shift from the “What” to the “How…”, “Why…”, and “What other…” to name a few. Questioning strategies help students make sense of concepts and apply what they have learned to novel situations.
Developing Higher-Order Thinking Instructional Approaches.
Raising the cognitive demand of learning experiences with strategies that focus on higher-order thinking gives students the capacity to process information at a higher level of cognition. A crosswalk of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge provides a guide to this shift toward higher cognitive demand experiences. Teaching specific “Problem Attack Strategies”, modeling these strategies, and allowing students to demonstrate these strategies, develops replicable processes for the student.
Scaffolding Instructional Strategies that Raise Student Ability to Operate on Their Own
Scaffolding involves giving students support at the beginning of a lesson and then gradually turning over responsibility to the students to operate on their own (Slavin, 1995). This allows both student and teacher to transform the classroom experience into one of collaborative teaching and learning and increases capacity for higher-order thinking. One of the keys to success is giving students time to grapple with difficult problems.
CLICK HERE for a PDF downloadable flyer for the Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Skills with Engagement and Motivation workshop.
About TLC Educational Solutions, LLC
TLC Educational Solutions is a company that provides high-quality, strategy-based professional development for teachers and administrators throughout the United States and Canada. Strategy-based means that the on-site workshops or invitational seminars are planned and delivered to not only give the participants information about the educational topic, but more importantly provide researched-based strategies the educators can go back to their classrooms and schools and use immediately.
Patricia and Terry Crum (TLC Educational Solutions) are certified international trainers for the Center for Teacher Effectiveness (CTE), and the highly-acclaimed Time To Teach program. As associates with CTE, they offer two main trainings:
- “Classroom Management Strategies That Work”
- “Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Student Motivation & Engagement.
Patricia and Terry also provide international on-site workshops and invitational seminars on a series of additional strategy-based educational topics through TLC Educational Solutions to include the following:
- “Creating a Highly Engaged and Effectively Managed Classroom Environment
- “Building a Motivated Student Learning Environment through Engagement and Modeling”
- “Guiding Instruction Using Formative Assessment”
- “Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Skills with Engagement & Motivation”
- “Developing Quality Assessments”
- “Developing Classroom, School, or District Writing Assessments”
Our TLC Educational Solutions Classroom Strategies for the 21st Century workshops are offered independently or with the integration of technology (for example the “Maximizing Student Engagement with Instructional Strategies and Technology” workshop.). These TLC Educational Solutions workshops each have a manual that doubles as a workshop training manual while also providing teachers with an on-going resource to support their professional development. The workshops and manuals are personalized to meet the specific needs of the schools.


What We Can Do For Your School
Work with you to…..
- Increase learning and reduce disruptive behavior
- Utilize strategies that actively engage students
- Give students increased opportunities for reflective and rigorous feedback
- Stimulate student engagement in the classroom
- Strengthen appropriate evidence of learning
- Develop effective formative, summative, and performance assessments
- Increase cognitive demand and higher-order thinking skills
- Build healthy classroom relationships
- Control factors that contribute to learning and behavior
- Enhance academic achievement and behavior success
- Give teachers more time to teach curriculum
- Improve teacher job satisfaction
TLC Educational Solutions Professional Development can be delivered utilizing a variety of different formats:
• On-site workshop for individual buildings or specific groups of teachers in a large district i.e. New Teachers.
• Shared On-site workshop for several small schools or groups of small schools, hosted by one of the schools or at a location that best accommodates a group.
• Train the Trainer Seminars for school systems that would prefer to have district staff serve as trainers for individual buildings.
• Invitational Seminars with per person pay. We offer Invitational Seminars in several locations across the country each year.
TESTIMONIALS
ABOUT PATRICIA & TERRY
Patricia & Terry are internationally certified trainers for the Center for Teacher Effectiveness as well as independent trainers and educational consultants for TLC Educational Solutions, which is their personal business. They work directly with schools and school districts to provide workshop proposals, schedule Professional Development, and provide experiences that will meet the needs of the staff that attend their workshops and seminars. Patricia and Terry provide professional development and consultation to schools and districts in the areas of Classroom Management, Differentiated Instructional Strategies, Strategies for Student Motivation & Engagement, Higher-Order Thinking, Formative Assessment, and Developing Assessments. Our TLC Educational Solutions workshops are offered independently or with the integration of technology (for example the “Maximizing Student Engagement with Instructional Strategies and Technology” workshop).
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

Creating a Highly Engaged and Effectively Managed Classroom Environment
Implementation of strategies designed to develop and support effectively managed classrooms results in students on task, well-behaved, and engaged in the lesson. Educators will gain strategies for building positive relationships with and between students, respond to day to day challenges with new effective strategies, and make their classrooms an asset for learning.
CLICK HERE for more information

Building a Motivated Student Learning Environment Through Engagement & Modeling
Building a motivated student learning environment is the result of research-based, classroom-tested Routine, Reflective, and Rigorous instructional strategies that engage students and increase their ability to learn in a variety of ways. Formative feedback, involving students with their own learning, learning with their peers, and higher order thinking strategies pave the way to a highly engaged and motivated classroom. For more information …CLICK HERE

Classroom Management Strategies That Work Professional Development
Time To Teach Classroom Management Strategies That Work! is a research-based, evidence-based, highly successful set of classroom management strategies. Schools, districts, and teachers that undergo the nationally-acclaimed training developed by the Center for Teacher Effectiveness, routinely report a surge in: test scores, student on-task time, teacher job satisfaction, time available to teach more curriculum, and parent/community involvement and support…CLICK HERE

Guiding Instruction Using Formative Assessment
Guiding Instruction Using Formative Assessment provides strategies that encompass three levels of formative feedback, giving teachers real-time information to adjust instruction, and bringing students into the center stage of the learning process. Students are involved in meeting goals that standards and curriculum dictate and are empowered to take charge of their own learning. They become actively involved in their own learning and collaborative learning with their peers. To learn more about this training ……CLICK HERE

Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Student Engagement & Motivation
Time To Teach Differentiated Instruction (DI) is a consistent DI teaching method that helps teachers reach students who are unmotivated, unwilling, or unable to work. By presenting many different strategies, teachers will be able to plan lessons that will touch on many different modes of learning. Included in this training will be strategies on brain-based learning, effective learning strategies, learning how to develop lessons blending kinesthetic, social, inter/intra personal learners and many more. Tiered lessons, story-telling, tools for randomizing participation will be presented… CLICK HERE

Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Skills With Engagement & Motivation
Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Strategies into learning experiences not only motivates students to participate and learn, but makes them more capable of thinking critically, responding creatively, and carrying that learning into real life situations. Engaging Instructional Strategies, Strategic Questioning, and Scaffolding raise the Metacognitive ability of students and increase their capacity to grapple with challenging learning experiences. …CLICK HERE

Developing Quality Assessments
Quality assessments are based on state, district, or school standards with the capacity to provide valuable feedback to teachers and students, while serving as a vehicle to raise cognitive demand of instruction and learning. The focus on assessment design includes selective and constructed response, performance assessments, and rubric development. The critical components of universal design, bias and sensitive issues included in this training all affect how accurately an assessment measures what students know, understand and are able to do. CLICK HERE

Developing Classroom, School, or District Writing Across the Curriculum
Developing skill in solid instructional practices for providing writing skills across the curriculum is critical to student success in school and success in life. This workshop is designed to give all teachers specific skills needed to enhance Creative Writing, recognized Traits of Writing, and Text Development Analysis (TDA)/Document-Based Assessment (DBA) skills for all students. CLICK HERE

Maximizing Student Engagement with Instructional Strategies and Technology
Engaging students with instructional and technological strategies that honor individuality and each person’s learning style, proving opportunities for on-going, meaningful feedback, developing student ownership of their own learning, and incorporating instructional strategies that promote higher-order thinking skills are all key components of effective education in the 21st century.CLICK HERE for more information.
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CLICK HERE to contact us or to request a quote!

Uganda Martyrs Primary School
Since 2007, Patricia and Terry have been involved in education in Uganda, Africa. They have visited a number of schools in Uganda on several occasions to observe educational procedures in this Third World country. They have worked closely with two schools in a remote part of Uganda… CLICK HERE
About Your International Trainers: Patricia & Terry
Dr. Patricia Crum & Mr. Terry Crum
402.431.2351
drcrum@tlceducationalsolutions.com
Patricia and Terry draw from over 40 years of educational experience in the roles of teacher, coach, administrator, presenter, and district level leader. Together they bring PreK-12 experience and presentation skills to engage teachers and administrators in developing effective instructional, technological, and classroom management strategies. They offer a variety of professional development workshops in classroom management, differentiated instruction, higher-order thinking, student engagement & motivation, and formative assessment.
Terry integrates humor with his skill in connecting research-based educational practices with strategies teachers can take into their classrooms, use the very next day, and throughout the school year. His classroom experience and PreK-12 administrative background, bring understanding and appreciation of the needs of educators today. He is creator of school programs that have been recognized with state and national awards including one awarded by the President and Vice-President in the White House Rose Garden.
Patricia combines her extensive classroom experience in private and public schools with skills gained in her current role as a district level leader for PreK-12 curriculum, instruction, and assessment in a large suburban school district to provide practical strategies for educator professional development. She is a Presidential Teaching Award Finalist and co-author of an American Psychological Organization book and other publications.
Educators attending Patricia’s and Terry’s team-taught workshops experience strategies modeled, practiced, and integrated with time to process how they can implement new strategies into their classrooms. Schools looking to support their teachers’ growth in 21st Century and College & Career Ready skills will find Patricia and Terry there to assist. Large and small schools find flexibility in Patricia’s and Terry’s ability to meet their professional development needs. Included, but not exclusive, is the opportunity to choose workshops with or without integration of technology.
You get two outstanding presenters-one great training!