Virginia Department of Education's Training and Technical Assistance Center at Virginia Commonwealth University

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is defined as  the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions (CASEL, 2023 p […]

Morphology may sound like a scary proposition to include in literacy instruction, especially for elementary students; but it doesn’t have to be that way! In fact, students of all ages respond well to morphology instruction when included in their vocabulary development lessons. Schwartz (2023) defines morphology instruction as identifying and defining affixes (i.e., prefixes and […]

As the Spring semester begins, some K-12 professionals will be looking to pursue leadership opportunities. What better way to strengthen your school’s morale and enlarge your span of outreach than to encourage leadership from within your building? One thing to consider is a mentorship process to support growing leaders from within. Authors Vince Bustamante and […]

Mathematics play has gained prominence in educational discourse as a catalyst for fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and a love for the subject. It introduces an element of joy, experimentation, and discovery into the learning process. Playful learning environments benefit cognitive development, neuroplasticity, social adaptation, and achievement of learning goals in young children (Cohrssen et al., […]

Virginia’s Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS), Birth-Five Learning Guidelines What are the ELDS? The Virginia Department of Education released a new set of unified early learning and development standards for young children ages birth to age five. The new standards focus on five areas of development: Where can I find the ELDS? The ELDS […]

Pedal switches, Makey Makey, and Bluetooth OH MY! The Assistive Technology lab has a variety of switches available for school and early intervention teams to check out. Pair them with any switch-activated device, and your students will be ecstatically able to interact with their environment. Are you looking for something that will give a sensory […]

Teachers and leaders continue to rebuild many aspects of the academic experience following the pandemic. Many of them can benefit from strategies to combat stress during the instructional day. In 2021, Elizabeth Steiner and Ashley Woo reported findings on teacher job stress. The results indicated that 78 percent of teachers experienced frequent job-related stress and […]

Soft skills such as navigating interpersonal relationships, time management, problem-solving, and decision-making are essential for all students. These skills are part of self-determination, “acting or causing things to happen as a person sets and works toward goals in their life” (Raley et al., 2023, p.403). Self-determination predicts positive classroom and post-school outcomes and improves access […]

We all know to teach strategies using explicit instruction or gradual release of responsibility (“I do, we do, you do together, you do alone”), which provides scaffolds and builds learner fluency while incrementally increasing student responsibility for the learning (Dawson & Guare, 2012, 2018; Fisher & Frey, 2011, 2021; Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2012; Fisher, […]

Morgan (Mo) McGlothlin has joined VCU’s Training and Technical Assistance Center as the Library/Office Administrative Assistant at the Region 1 Office located in Richmond, Virginia. She has a background in communications, customer service, and LGBTQI+ activism. Mo graduated from VCU in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and African […]