Teacher Development

Authentic Professional Development. Expert Effective Teachers.
SELF’s Teacher Cohorts offer specialized training with the opportunity for micro-credentials for general education teachers, special education teachers, and interventionists, creating a pipeline for future teacher leaders.
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Create Your Own
Teacher Cohort

Facilitated by expert special educators, SELF Teacher Cohorts provide specialized training for all teachers working with diverse learners. Our individualized approach is designed to meet the unique needs of your staff through training sessions, professional learning communities, and coaching on implementation of research-based best practices for diverse learners.

SELF will work with your team to create a customized teacher cohort experienced focused on one of the following: 

Training designed for special education teachers to support the unique challenges of a substantially separate setting, through a disability justice and educational equity lens.

  • Create an individualized assistive technology plan for your students
  • Employ a system of fading prompts
  • Improve teacher-paraprofessional collaboration
  • Create disability justice-oriented transition plans for all students

Specialized training on tiered behavior supports for special education teachers, classroom teachers, and behavior interventionists.

  • Implement Tier 1 trauma-informed interventions
  • Build secure attachment relationships with students who have experienced trauma
  • Manage escalating student behavior
  • Gather multiple data points to write a trauma-informed FBA +BIP

A foundational course for general education teachers in inclusive teaching practices through a Universal Design for Learning framework.

  • Implement UDL to provide highly differentiated assessments, materials, and methods to meet the needs of all learners.
  • Conduct an accessibility and inclusion audit for your classroom
  • Advocate for students with disabilities school-wide

Specialized training on foundational math skills for educators supporting upper elementary and middle school students performing below grade level.

  • Design a culturally sustaining math space
  • Develop strong students habits in the mathematics classroom
  • Support students’ conceptual understanding through productive struggle
  • Design student-centered lessons to develop students’ procedural fluency
  • Integrate adaptive reasoning into core math lessons

A foundational training series to equip new special education teachers with the skills and knowledge needed to provide excellent instruction, case management, and compliance.

  • The history of special education and our legal obligations as educators
  • Disability categories and key practices by exceptionality
  • Differentiate between accommodations + modifications
  • Develop plans for strong partnerships with Related Service Providers
  • The connection between MTSS + Special Education

SELF Paraeducator Cohort provides specialized training for paraeducators working with students with exceptionalities.

  • Understand the values and mindset connected to supporting students with disabilities (language choice, classroom environment).
  • Analyze current responsibilities within the paraeducator role to develop a framework of excellence.
  • Analyze best practices for paraeducators in tracking and analyzing data while supporting students. Determine how to make shifts in student support authentically through ongoing data review.

Impact and Testimonials

Have other teachers in local schools done this? What did they say about it?

"Following the creation and implementation of a trauma-informed behavior plan, my targeted student has responded more appropriately to other classmates and is completing more work in class. He went from failing three classes the 1st semester to only failing one during the 2nd semester.”

— Alumni of Supporting Behavior through Trauma Informed Lens

I enjoy the collaboration and content that the SELF cohorts and professional developments provide. The information is always very relatable to the content we are working on in our classrooms and the resources are always given to you in a manner that you can immediately take back to the classroom to implement.

— Middle School Special Education Teacher

“Special Education can be somewhat isolating, particularly a self-contained classroom. The specialized cohort for supporting students with low incidence disabilities has been phenomenal in terms of giving me a group of peers for collaborating with.”

— Anonymous