Montessori Professional Development OnLine
Some of our professional development programs are 90-minute or 2-hour webcasts. Longer multi-session courses are hosted on the Thinkific learning platform. You will be redirected when clicking to register or learn more about each.
We offer offers a wide range of live, pre-recorded, or blended programs for Montessori guides, leaders, and administrators. All of our courses are feature interactive discussion and participant access to course resources. The courses are designed and facilitated by senior Montessori leaders, to engage, educate, and inspire. We also offer live two-way online professional development to schools that we customize to meet each school’s special needs.
For more information on any of our programs, please contact either Tim Seldin at timseldin@montessori.org or Kathy Leitch at kathyleitch@montessori.org.
View all of our multi-session course on our Thinkic learning platform
Keeping Parents Happy: Tools for Engagement and Partnership
Join us for a webinar on Jul 27, 2020 at 4:00 PM EDT.
Keeping families committed to our schools and engaged in the “partnership” of supporting their children has been a real challenge. Join us as we explore the importance of that partnership and the ways we can engage in pro-active conversations and communication, and ideas for building a strong school and family community. A professional development webcast led by Christine Lowry, M.Ed.
Christine Lowry is a Montessori credentialed special educator with over 30 years of experience working with students toddler- high school. She offers online workshops and courses to the Montessori community, and custom professional development, consultations, and coaching to schools working toward a school-wide model of inclusion, and educators supporting students with diverse needs in their classrooms.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Firmly Rooted, Bending Tree: How to Keep It Together in Turbulent Times as a Montessori Guide, Parent, or School Leader
Join us for a webinar on Jul 30, 2020 at 4:00 PM EDT.
As a Montessori guide, parent, or school leader children and adults are looking to us for answers, for reassurance, for hope. But what do you do when you feel like you have nothing left to give when anxiety and overwhelm have taken you prisoner? Now more than ever, we need to engage in what Maria Montessori called the act of “spiritual preparation.” In this live, interactive webinar, Andrew Kutt and Jonathan Wolff will present an array of mind-body tools and self-management techniques for staying calm, centered, positive and adaptable – so that we can meet the enormous challenges we are facing and support those we care for, teach, and lead. Join us for an experience of peace and personal renewal.
Jonathan Wolff is a consultant, trainer, speaker and author who infuses his work in leadership development with 30 years of experience as an educator and administrator. In addition to serving as a senior consultant for the Montessori Foundation and working with the Montessori Leadership Institute, he was the Founder and Director of Learning for Life and Montessori Leadership.
Andrew Kutt is the founder and Head of School at the Oneness-Family Montessori School, in Bethesda, Maryland. He is a Montessori educator, teacher trainer, Montessori consultant, frequent workshop presenter, writer, poet, and an accomplished recording artist.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Yes, You Can Teach It All: Managing the Elementary Montessori Curriculum
August 4 through October 12, 2020
This will be the eighth cohort of this course, which seems to meet a real need for many elementary guides. We will begin on August 4, 2020 and run 8 weeks through October 12th.
There is no one time when you must be online live. The work will unfold week-by-week. Optional discussions will be offered a few times during the course.
To many elementary Montessori guides, the instructional process is intimidating, even baffling. The curriculum seems daunting and intellectually challenging, even for the adult. This course will help you to address these challenges and gain new confidence.
Creating A Culture of Shared Responsibility
This is a pre-recorded course that offers great insights and strategies to those of you who missed the three live sessions.
What changes would you like to see at your school next year? As a teacher, how would you like to have more opportunities to share ideas for program improvement with fellow staff and administration? As an administrator, would you like to see more staff step up in support of program standards and policies? Join us for three sessions as we discuss how to create an organizational culture of shared responsibility, collaboration, and personal accountability. Montessori schools which exhibit this kind of positive climate tend to achieve better results in programs, enrollment, retention, parent engagement, and staff effectiveness and morale. Give Your Voice, Lend A Hand gives participants an opportunity to create an action plan for enhanced professional effectiveness and work satisfaction.
What Are Your School’s “New Year” Resolutions?
If you want the people you lead, or teach with, to be better Montessori practitioners, exhibit more professionalism, and be better communicators with children, colleagues, and parents, they need to set self-improvement goals during prep week. Some Montessori schools go so far as to require teachers to formulate individual, teaching team, program level, as well as all-staff goals. These schools sometime identify a theme of the year, such as better communication with parents, lengthening the uninterrupted work period, or focusing on character education.
How a Montessori leader can motivate their people to engage in this type of start-of-year planning is the topic of this pre-recorded three-week online course.
The recorded sessions were highly interactive with time set aside for questions and sharing of ideas. We will be happy to respond to questions from students enrolled in the pre-recorded course. A comprehensive workbook is included be provided to all participants.
Cultivating Deep and Deliberate Engagement, The Essentials of Self-Directed Learning
Maria Montessori called it concentration. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it flow. Neuroscientists call it deep and sustained brain engagement. The ability of a child to become absorbed in play or work activity is foundational to learning. It is how new neural connections are formed. According to many educators, the ability to maintain focus is the single biggest predictor of academic success. This workshop will highlight the conditions and elements necessary for deep and deliberate engagement to occur.
Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of what deep engagement means and why it is a key element in the process of normalization. Participants will have an opportunity to create a personal action plan to use at their schools.