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Professional Development Workshops

Our customizable trainings are tailored to align with state, district, and school needs and policies.

Why choose Close Up professional development?

All of Close Up’s professional development workshops and corresponding resources are:

  • Multipartisan: Our approach to student discourse centers on presenting all sides of an issue before asking students to take a stand.
  • Active: Sessions center on modeling the activities participants will use with their own students, giving them an opportunity to seek guidance based on their own experience.
  • Comprehensive: We provide A-Z training—not only classroom materials but guidance through all stages of discourse, from facilitation techniques to how to address challenges that emerge.
  • Student-Driven: We create a role for educators as facilitators and keep the topics, points of discussion, and perspectives firmly centered on students and their interests.
  • Adaptable: The techniques and resources provided allow teachers and administrators to decide on which issues to engage; they can be utilized beyond the scope of the lessons included.

Scroll down the page to read more about our various workshops!

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Navigating Challenging Election Issues at School

This workshop is designed to help teachers and administrators across all disciplines frame and respond to discussions about complex social and political issues. In this session, you will:

  • Explore strategies for navigating controversial election topics by helping students focus on issues instead of candidates.
  • Learn practical techniques to establish norms that foster empathy and civil dialogue.
  • Apply a values framework to multiple policy issues to engage in productive discourse.
  • Develop the skills to lead students in a critical analysis of election media coverage.
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Facilitating Productive Civil Discourse in Your Classroom

Teachers will gain practical tools and explore resources and strategies for taking a multipartisan approach to complex issues such as criminal justice reform, immigration reform, climate change, and economic inequality. In this session, you will:

  • Learn a values framework for examining political disagreements.
  • Learn and model the key structural differences between discussion, debate, and deliberation.
  • Explore a set of scenarios on the topics of criminal justice, COVID-19, and protest, and learn actionable techniques to keep students on track when discourse breaks down.
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Media Literacy and Citizenship

Teachers will examine the concepts of media literacy and participate in activities that help students engage with a wide range of media sources, read critically, apply media literacy concepts to social and digital media, and identify efforts to mislead. In this session, you will:

  • Examine the role that media plays in our interpretation of historical events.
  • Model lessons that provide real-world applications of the eight major media literacy concepts.
  • Learn to use readily available online tools to enhance media literacy skills in class.
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Community-Engaged Classrooms

Using a proven framework for action from Close Up’s Impact programs, teachers will learn to foster students’ civic and political efficacy and help them take real-world action on issues they care about. In this session, you will:

  • Examine a series of youth-led initiatives to learn how community projects enhance learning.
  • Use a community inventory to help students develop responsive community engagement projects.
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Tutorial on Close Up’s Current Issues

This tutorial gives teachers direct instruction for using Close Up’s Current Issues resources and civic readiness curriculum. In this session, you will:

  • Walk through a sample of one of the dozens of Current Issues topics and learn the best ways to engage students in respectful discourse that incorporates multiple perspectives.
  • Examine a series of lesson plans to ready your classroom for discussing complex current issues.
  • Explore multimedia content (including videos from policymakers, podcasts, and recorded seminars) and learn about national online student deliberations available for your classroom.
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30-Minute On-Demand Workshops

Our short, on-demand sessions are ideal for individual educators looking for self-paced training and PD recertification.

 

671 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203

703-706-3300 or 800-CLOSE UP

CST-1002082-40:
Registration as a seller of travel does not constitute approval by the State of California.

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