Educational Consultant and Speaker

Nancy W. Sindelar, Ph.D., works with schools to address the numerous post Covid challenges facing educators. As a seasoned educator, she implements the mandates for accountability and school improvement and guides educators in developing standards-based curriculum, assessments and data collection and shows them how to use data to produce improved learning results and close achievement gaps. She knows that schools are often hotbeds for emotional and stressful circumstances that lead to legal consequences and helps educators understand teacher and student rights and the responsibilities related to maintaining an orderly educational environment. Finally, she recognizes that schools can increase productivity, improve instruction, and reduce turnover by implementing high functioning teacher teams and teacher mentor programs. Her customized online and in person seminars focus on three separate areas of educator training.

1. The process of producing systems to gather and use assessment data to inform teaching, improve learning and close achievement gaps.

2. The understanding of legal issues in education and how a teachers’ constitutional rights change once they enter their classrooms.

3. The development of teacher mentor programs that support new teachers in understanding curriculum, assessments, and the use of data and assimilate them into the culture and responsibilities associated with a new educational environment.

Educational Assessment and Data-Driven Instruction

Trainings and presentations focus on increasing student achievement through the alignment of local curriculum and assessments to state and common core state standards and the use of assessment data to inform and diversify instruction and close achievement gaps. Teacher professional development programs foster improved outcomes by identifying evidence-based principles of effective instruction conducted through analysis of assessment data and the development of high-functioning teacher teams. By focusing on data-driven instruction, Nancy has helped schools move from state academic “watchlists” to “most improved status,” based on state test scores.

Benefits

• A common understanding of the indicators of effective instructional practices and materials
• A system for elevating the use of best practices through data analysis
• Tools for easy, efficient data collection and analysis

Legal Issues in Education

A thoughtless statement or inappropriate physical contact can land an educator in court. This is especially true in schools, where daily contact, high emotions and stressful situations can come together at the wrong moment. As such, it is important for teachers and administrators to understand the balance between the rights of students trying to express themselves and the rights of teachers trying to maintain a safe, orderly learning environment. Many teachers don’t know their constitutional rights, and even fewer understand how their constitutional rights change once they enter the classroom. Teacher professional development programs foster an understanding of the rights of teachers and students and emphasize the relationships among child abuse and mandated reporting, standards-based curriculum and academic freedom, and contracts and teacher tenure.

Benefits

• Understanding of the rights and responsibilities of teachers and situations leading to teacher liability
• Knowledge of the relationship among curriculum, academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of religion
• Understanding copyright laws and use of the office copy machine
• Understanding contracts, tenure, and teacher dismissal

Teacher Mentorship

Schools can increase productivity, improve instruction and reduce turnover by implementing teacher mentor programs. New teachers receive knowledge, skills, support and inspiration, while mentors simultaneously derive satisfaction, professional fulfillment, and a sense of loyalty to their school. Mentor teacher programs provide guidelines for pairing excellent teachers with new hires, guidelines for mentor/mentee relationships, and activities for assimilating new hires into the culture and responsibilities of a new educational environment.

Benefits

• Improved understanding of the curriculum, assessment and data collection process for new teachers
• Development of positive and effective instructional practices for new teachers
• Professional fulfillment and satisfaction for mentors

Professional Background

Nancy is an Executive Consultant on assessment for the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), a peer reviewer of REL products for Mathematica Policy Research and the subject matter expert and speaker for two fifteen-part video series produced by Savant Learning: Assessment for Teaching and Learning and Using Data to Manage Change. Nancy has worked with the Gates Foundation on “Closing the Gap” materials and spoken at numerous national conferences, including meetings of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), American Association of School Administrators (AASA) and the National Association of School Boards (NASB). She is skilled in helping Illinois schools meet the teacher evaluation demands of PERA and schools across the country meet the curriculum and assessment demands of the Common Core State Standards. Her customized seminars and online presentations reflect her years of professional practice as a teacher, administrator, university professor and national consultant.