My professional learning experiences help educators and administrators connect purpose with practice through professional development, facilitated Book and Pod Learning Groups, and courses. Grounded in lived classroom experience, leadership reflection, and research, these early childhood and inclusive education, offerings explore inclusion, family partnerships, leadership, workplace culture, and reflective practice.
These ideas also extend into conversations across the broader profession. On Beyond Awareness with Diana Pastor Carson, I explore the experiences behind my first memoir Love Is a Classroom and what inclusion can mean for children, families, and teachers. On Think Inclusive with Tim Villegas, I discuss Shattered and Becoming: A Teacher’s Journey Between Policy and Purpose, my second memoir and what happens when policy, professional responsibility, and purpose collide. And on the Inclusive Education Project with Vickie Brett and Amanda Selogie, I share the strategies and relationships that have shaped my work teaching adult learners.
Across three 60-minute virtual meetings with me, this book group takes teams inside an inclusive early childhood classroom where relationships, policies, curriculum, family partnerships, disability, and professional decision-making intersect every day. As a learning community, I guide your team beyond reading the memoir as a personal story and use it as a case study for examining our work with families, individual education program and individual family service plan teams, and child-centered teaching.
Each participant will receive a paperback copy of Love Is a Classroom with their registration.
Best for: Early childhood teams, professional learning communities, and college or university departments
Focus: Inclusion, family partnerships, professional identity, collaboration, leadership, and policy-to-practice connections
Format: Three 60-minute facilitated virtual sessions across three to six weeks
Shattered and Becoming: A Teacher’s Journey Between Policy and Purpose examines what happens when professional values, leadership decisions, organizational expectations, and educational policy do not align. Across four 60-minute virtual meetings, participants use the memoir as a case study for exploring team values, vision, mission, and goals, interpersonal communication, ethical decision-making, and burnout.
Each participant will receive a paperback copy of Shattered and Becoming: A Teachers Journey Between Policy and Purpose with their registration.
Best for: Educators, program directors, school and district administrators, leadership teams, professional learning communities, and college or university faculty
Focus: Professional identity, leadership, organizational culture, ethical decision-making, burnout, and professional integrity
Format: Four 60-minute virtual facilitated book group sessions
The More Than a Disability season of Love Is a Classroom: Stories of Inclusion explores inclusion through the experiences of one child with cerebral palsy, his family members and professionals who have supported him. Across the season, listeners encounter different perspectives on participation, relationships, support, and what it means for a child with cerebral palsy to be a meaningful member of a classroom and community.
Best for: Educators, program directors, school and district administrators, leadership teams, professional learning communities, and college or university faculty
Focus: The social construct of disability, the social and medical models for intervention, and family partnerships
Format: Two 60-minute virtual facilitated sessions
The Navee’s World season of Love Is a Classroom: Stories of Inclusion examines inclusion through the experiences of Navee, a Deaf child, and the family members and professionals involved in creating access to learning, communication, and community. The season brings together perspectives on American Sign Language, Deaf culture, advocacy, communication, accessibility, and the decisions adults and systems make when a child experiences the environment differently from those around her.
Best for: Educators, program directors, school and district administrators, leadership teams, professional learning communities, and college or university faculty
Focus: Deaf culture, advocacy, communication, and accessibility
Format: Two 60-minute virtual facilitated sessions
The Bayfield Early Education Program season of Love Is a Classroom: Stories of Inclusion asks a broader question: What makes inclusion possible in a school? Through conversations with educators, a program director, a paraprofessional, and a parent, the season examines inclusion not as the work of one great teacher, but as something shaped by relationships, organizational culture, communication, shared leadership, external partnerships, and communal responsibility. Participants explore these topics and the improve retention and employee satisfaction, despite resource or systemic barriers.
Best for: Educators, program directors, school and district administrators, leadership teams, professional learning communities, and college or university faculty
Focus: Program culture, staff retention, and systems change
Format: Three 60-minute virtual facilitated sessions
Through eleven years of working with racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse adult learners, I have examined how “we” can make meaning of the “I” and “us.” The stories shared across three seasons of Love Is a Classroom: Stories of Inclusion, and twenty-five years in the profession help illustrate how individual experiences, relationships, and responsibilities contribute to communal inclusive practices. Participants examine how these practices support children with and without disabilities, invite greater participation from professionals and families who may feel disconnected from the program, and help classroom and program communities become more thoughtful and responsive.
Participants reflect on their values and beliefs, define, and develop and plan to collaborate with their fellow professional community members to begin growing classrooms and programs that truly feel inclusive.
Best for: Early childhood educators, special education departments, conferences, and program teams
Focus: Inclusive practices, classroom community, program culture, teacher reflection, family relationships
Format: Keynote, workshop, or conference session
Based on experiences shared in Love Is a Classroom , Shattered and Becoming: A Teacher’s Journey Between Policy and Purpose, Stories of Inclusion, and the concepts from the twelve college courses I’ve designed and taught at the community college, participants explore how seeing each child in the context of their family shifts communication, planning, and daily practice. The training highlights practical ways to grow meaningful relationships with families, especially when policies, language, or expectations create barriers.
Best for: Educators, family engagement coordinators, and program leaders
Focus: Family partnerships, communication, trust-building, culturally responsive practice
Format: Workshop or full-day training
This training grows from my work as a research assistant in Nicki Crick’s lab at the University of Minnesota in 2002 and 2003, where I studied relational and physical aggression, findings from my 2006 master’s thesis on intervention programs for children whose behavior challenges adults, nine years in public schools, and eleven years of learning with hundreds of early childhood professionals and families. I have worked with dozens of highly regarded curricula and approaches. Some can be effective when programs provide sustained coaching, stable staffing, and consistent implementation. However, many professionals work without those conditions. When support feels insufficient, often behaviors can leave even the most experienced early childhood professionals feeling powerless, voiceless, overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next. This training examines how family experiences, curriculum, and relationships across a program can help participants develop responses that fit the realities of their work and that teams can sustain over time.
Best for: Early childhood programs and program administrators
Focus: Challenging behavior, family partnerships, curriculum, trust-building, and shared responsibility
Format: Workshop or full-day training
This training began with work I completed during a graduate certificate in Early Childhood Policy in 2005. It continued to evolve during my doctoral studies and dissertation. Those academic experiences shaped how I understood compliance. Twelve years in early childhood classrooms and eleven years working with adult learners deepened my understanding of compassion and the challenge of balancing the two. This training explores the tension between legal requirements and the deeper work of creating truly inclusive environments. While IDEA, ADA, and Section 504 ensure access to education, they do not guarantee belonging, trust, or meaningful inclusion. Participants examine how compliance appears in real classrooms and how it can both support and limit the work in schools and programs.
Best for: Program directors, administrators, and special education leaders
Focus: IDEA/ADA compliance, ethical decision-making, policy vs. practice, inclusion
Format: Keynote of workshop, or full-day training
Just like early childhood programs, inclusive adult learning communities begin with the heartset and mindset. Grounded in eleven years of teaching adult learners in face-to-face, virtual, and online courses, this training draws from my work with immigrants, refugees, and historically marginalized students in Aurora, as well as students living and working in rural and resort communities across Colorado. Participants examine how learners’ professional knowledge, cultural and linguistic experiences, responsibilities, and prior experiences with education shape their learning community. They also consider how communication, deadlines, technology, course organization, feedback, and instructor authority can either recognize these contributions or create barriers. Participants work on responding with love and compassion, while maintaining clear expectations and boundaries.
Best for: University and Community college faculty, adult educators, workforce trainers, and program leaders
Focus: Adult learning, inclusion, reflection, engagement across diverse populations
Format: Keynote, Workshop, faculty training, or professional development series
The Growth Model for Inclusion Course is a guided professional learning experience that helps educators and leaders examine how inclusion grows across an entire school or program, not only through individual teaching practices, but through the relationships, environments, and systems surrounding children, families, and professionals.
Across five modules and fifteen units, participants explore the Growth Model for Inclusion through animated, interactive video lectures that use visual graphics and images to make complex ideas easier to understand and apply. Each unit also includes a literature review connecting the strategies and concepts to research and professional knowledge.
The course incorporates previously unreleased video and audio footage from Season 3 of Love Is a Classroom: Stories of Inclusion, featuring the Bayfield Early Education Program (BEEP). These lived examples give participants opportunities to examine how inclusion, collaboration, leadership, professional judgment, family partnerships, and organizational conditions are experienced in practice.
Individual and group activities help participants apply the model to their own setting, reflect on strengths and barriers, and identify realistic opportunities for growth. Most participants complete the course together as a school or program at their preferred pace, creating a shared language for reflection and change. A facilitated hybrid option is also available.
Depending on the offering and participant location, experiences may provide 1 to 45 hours of continuing education credit. Across every format, participants examine practice, strengthen relationships, and identify practical opportunities for growth in their classrooms, programs, schools, and organizations.
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