Summer 2026 Session

**New Course** 3 Credits In-Service Course (45 Hours) Summer 2026: June 29^th-July 3^rd Instructor: Gayle Meinkes-Lumia - gaylelumia@yahoo.com Course Description: Reading and Writing instruction through explicit, systematic components helps students develop both skill and self-regulation. Teaching students to goal set while addressing skills as focusing, persistence, and strategic self-talk ensures evidence aligned literacy success. Participants in the course will examine explicit instruction in key areas of phonemic awareness, phonics fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. They will learn how to develop readiness assessment in their students, build visions, design a learning plan for their students, and fully implement and evaluate literacy techniques that take their students well into the next generation of instruction. *A Must for K-12 Educators*

** New Course** 3 Credits In-Service Course (45 Hours) Summer 2026: July 6^th-July 10^th Instructor: Gayle Meinkes-Lumia – gaylelumia@yahoo.com Course Description: A teacher’s quality of presence and personalized encouragement foster an inclusive, welcoming atmosphere where students feel safe and empowered to be engaged and to learn. Teachers know that their presence is felt when a genuine connection exists, one that breeds confidence and respect, and allows for risk taking. Participants in this course will learn ways to develop their classroom presence and boost their students’ enthusiasm via varied engaging activities including cooperative learning, hands-on problem solving, relevant topics of discussion, meaningful student feedback, and increased learning opportunities. In the end, everyone will be able to refine their presence and focus on classroom authenticity. *A Must for K-12 Educators*

**New Course** 3 Credits In-Service Course (45 Hours) Summer 2026: July 13th-July17th Instructor: Gayle Meinkes-Lumia – gaylelumia@yahoo.com Course Description: Students currently are bombarded with truncated versions of everything, creating a mindset that loses concentration and focus readily. TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2019 and has since then added to the depletion of students’ abilities to concentrate. This course will explore the ways in which social media can be utilize to educators’ advantages, rather than disadvantages. Through a myriad of investigations, articles, and pedagogical research findings, participants will comprehend the ways that social media platforms can play important roles in their classrooms. The course will address interdisciplinary instruction, guiding students through effective direct and independent instruction, ways to inculcate social media into students’ readings and writings, as well as social media utilization in mathematics and science instruction. *A Must for K-12 Educators*

**New Course** 3 Credits In-Service Course (45 Hours) Summer 2026: July 20^th-July 24^th Instructor: Gayle Meinkes-Lumia – gaylelumia@yahoo.com Course Description: Many students in our classrooms experience frustration with assignments and activities; they tend to feel overwhelmed and give up, causing a myriad of outbursts or shutdowns. This course will guide participants on the ways in which to navigate students’ discouragement. Articles from neuroscientists will be utilized, a toolbelt of academic strategies will be addressed, concrete modeling, distanced self-talk, vocabulary acquisition, transformation of tasks, reducing their cognitive load, envisioning future goals, celebrating small victories, and scaffolding in order to break down complex tasks will all be discussed. The Insurmountable will become surmountable in the end! *A Must for K-12 Educators*

**New Course** 3 Credits In-Service Course (45 Hours) Summer 2026: July 27^th-July 31^st Instructor: Gayle Meinkes-Lumia – gaylelumia@yahoo.com Course Description: Developing spatial logic in any discipline is imperative for students today. Visual thinking enables students to deepen their comprehension of challenging material. In this course, participants will develop the skills necessary to deepen their students’ analysis in all subjects and to clarify their understanding via mapping, sketching, sculpting, comic strip creation, map writing, and many more. Visual thinking strategies will be demonstrated, ones that make students’ thinking visible, enable new connections, reveal and diminish gaps in understanding, and foster worthwhile conversations. Teachers will be able to develop ways to instruct their learners visually and offer avenues for mental models for students. Storyboards will be addressed as well as visual notetaking and story bubbles in real-time. *A Must for K-12 Educators*