Student Activities Caudill College of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies Community and Outreach Authentic MSU Student Success Academic Excellence

Morehead Writing Project offers professional development opportunities for area teachers

26 May 2020

Before schools potentially reopen in the fall, teachers in Morehead and the surrounding region will be able to take advantage of a variety of online professional development opportunities through the Morehead Writing Project (MWP) Online Summer Institute (OSI) in coordination with the National Writing Project.

The Morehead Writing Project has been delivering online professional development (led by Kentucky educators with experience teaching online and hybrid classes) for almost 10 years. The National Writing Project has been providing research-based comprehensive literacy professional development for decades.

Teaching conditions in the upcoming school year will likely be different for the entire school year. Classrooms, buildings and districts will need educators ready to plan classes that can be flexible enough to meet new challenges in education while simultaneously educating a diverse student population and supporting teacher’s mental and physical health.

“We have no idea at this time what our education system will look like in the fall, spring or possibly for the next few years, but one thing that we do know is that educators will need to be flexible and ready to work with a variety of tools to meet this changing and challenging new world,” said Dr. Deanna Mascle, instructor of English and site director of the Morehead Writing Project. “Morehead Writing Project’s OSI has always included asynchronous online instruction for the nine years of its existence and is led by instructors whose experience extends even further. Our flexible instruction and project-based learning approach offer participants the unique opportunity to design lessons and units guided by personal experience and their individual teaching context.”

Educators from kindergarten through college in any discipline, teacher leaders, literacy coaches, supervisors of instruction and principals can all benefit from Morehead Writing Project’s professional development opportunities. MWP is approved to provide professional development by the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and a preferred provider for the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) grant and the FY20 Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy grant. The OSI also has been approved for Effective Instructional Leadership Act (EILA) credit.

The Morehead Writing Project’s OSI educators develop the skills and knowledge they need to meet this challenge in the following ways:

Educators will gain first-hand experience through an online self-paced program that can later be applied to their specific teaching context.
The program’s embedded, project-based learning helps educators gain first-hand experience and insight into developing their project-based units of instruction.
Required creation of individual online lesson plans while receiving coaching, models and a library of resources that can be adapted for classroom needs.
Participants will be introduced to a wide range of tools and strategies through educators with experience teaching both online and hybrid classes that can be harnessed for their future teaching challenges.
Comprehensive literacy instruction (reading, writing and critical thinking) to help educators at any level across all content areas embed strategies in their classes.

The OSI will take place online during the Summer I (June 8 through July 2) session at Morehead State University. The cost is $1,000 for 36 hours of professional development credit. Those interested in graduate credit can enroll in ENG 608 for three graduate credit hours (and ENG 609 for three hours and a total of six) through Morehead State University’s graduate program. Students enrolled in the classes for graduate credit do not need to pay the professional development fee.

There will be weekly expectations and participants should expect to do a minimum of eight to 10 hours of work each week (double that participants elect to take six graduate hours). There is no specific time and date participants need to work and they can jumpstart work if preferred.

To learn more about the professional development opportunities through Morehead Writing Project, visit www.moreheadwritingproject.org or contact Mascle at d.mascle@moreheadstate.edu or by calling 606-783-5280.

For more details on reduced tuition for Kentucky educators, as well as information on graduate and certification programs offered by the Volgenau College of Education, visit www.moreheadstate.edu/kyeducators.