Professional Learning Blog for 2025-26: I'd Like to Speak to the Manager

Management in the Active Classroom

The theme for this year's Professional Learning blog, "I'd Like to Speak to the Manager", draws from EL Education's Management in the Active Classroom, and will provide guidance to help teachers learn, practice, and master techniques and protocols that build self-discipline, responsibility, engagement, and leadership skills in their students. Each week, this blog will feature one strategy in the form of a brief instructional video that supports effective classroom management. 

So with no further ado, here's the first post of the "I'd Like to Speak to the Managere" series.

Management in the Active Classroom: Setting Up Your Classroom Environment 

The physical setup of your classroom makes a powerful statement about what's important to you and your students.

 

 

Summer 2025 Professional Learning Re-Cap and New Professional Learning Opportunties

Welcome back to school! If you didn't get a chance to attend this summer's Professional Learning offerings, please see the slide decks below to learn about a variety of AI tools as well as what's new in Google Workspace. If you are looking to learn asynchronously, you are welcome to join WG's Badgelist platform for self-paced "micro-learning" opportunities that translate to CTLE credits.

Badgelist is an easy-to-use, online platform that enables educators to showcase their skills and achievements through digital badges. Whether you're learning new strategies, mastering a teaching tool, or expanding your expertise, Badgelist provides a way to document and share your growth. By submitting evidence of your learning, you'll earn a verified digital badge—like a modern-day merit badge—that highlights your commitment to ongoing professional development.

New Badgelist opportunities:

• AI Playground: 
• 5 badges--Brisk, Diffit, MagicSchool, SchoolAI, NotebookLM
• AI in EducAtIon: 
• 4 badges--Introduction, Academic Integrity, Prompting, AI for Students
• Google Education Plus: 
• 7 badges--Classroom Gradebook, Classroom Groups, Google Vids, Originality Reports, Practice Sets, Read Along, YouTube Questions
• Click here to join the WG Badgelist group
• Click here for an overview of how it works
• Click here for a video walkthrough

Summer Slide Decks

What's New in Google Workspace?

Click here to view the slide deck outside of this blog post.

Topics Covered:

• Google Classroom Updates
• Google Vids
• Gemini

AI in Education

Click here to view the slide deck outside of this blog post.

Topics Covered:

• What are Large Language Models (LLMs) and how do they work?
• How might AI tools impact teaching and learning both positively and negatively?
• Craft prompts to get desired outputs
• AI Plaground: Brisk, Diffit, MagicSchool, SchoolAI, NotebookLM
• Text-to-Image tools and prompting

Take a Minute: Stand Up Meetings

Stand-Up Meetings

Question: Can you have a productive staff meeting in just 15 minutes?

Having staff stand for meetings keeps them quick—15 minutes, max—and efficient.

Take a Minute: Whiteboard Relay

Whiteboard Relay

Question: What gets kids jumping out of their seats to show what they know?

The team competition is fierce in this informal assessment activity, in which students have to work together to win.

Take a Minute: Flash Philosophy

Flash Philosophy

Question: What's a simple activity to get kids thinking?

In this quick warm-up that sharpens critical thinking, students wrestle with moral and ethical questions—while also gaining communication and writing skills.

Take a Minute: Attendance Question

Attendance Question

Question: How can you use roll call to connect and check the vibe?

Transforming a mundane task like roll call into a chance to connect and share a moment with students makes the start of class more joyful.

Take a Minute: The Last Question

The Last Question

Question: How do you get kids to keep thinking, even when the lesson is over?

When time is up at the end of a lesson, there’s one last question teachers can ask to get students to reflect on their work—and how they’d improve next time.