Professional Learning Series

Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2025  

Time: 4:00pm – 5:15 PM ET  

Cost: $75 single workshop, $240 for workshop bundle (free for UKY preservice teachers) 

Where: Zoom (Link will be sent after you enroll) 

Workshop description:  

This interactive virtual workshop invites teachers to explore what it means to cultivate care in classrooms from a culturally responsive lens. Teachers will walk away with ready-to-use strategies for managing classrooms, cultivating community, building relationships, and maintaining high expectations. We will also discuss how caring for ourselves—and our profession—creates spaces where students thrive. 

Enroll here by 5pm ET on October 20th!  

Register online

Instructor Bio: Dr. Jennifer L. Doyle’s activist-oriented research focuses on issues of race, equity, and educational justice through a critical social theoretical lens. Her current research uses youth participatory action research (YPAR) methods to situate Black, Indigenous, Youth of Color (BIYOC) as experts in community-based racial justice work, while her critical race autoethnographic research examines the role of white folx in the fight for racial justice. As a high school English teacher, she conducted her doctoral research facilitating book clubs with students who were incarcerated, examining the role of teachers in the school-to-prison nexus – from the perspective of students. Prior to her time at UK, she was a teacher-educator at her alma mater, the University of South Carolina, where she also served as a Professional Development Schools (PDS) university liaison at two local high schools. Her PDS work focused on (re)imagining models of school-university partnerships to center communities and dismantle racism. Doyle currently serves as the Program Faculty Chair for the MIC English program. She is a scholar-activist, local community member, and a new mother. 

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025  

Time: 4:00pm – 5:15 PM ET  

Cost: $75 single workshop, $240 for workshop bundle (free for UKY preservice teachers) 

Where: Zoom (link will be sent after you enroll) 

Workshop description:  

In this workshop, participants will learn how to integrate asset-based pedagogical practices during the IEP development process. Participants will leave this workshop with resources to support the development of a strengths-based IEP and additional tools for student centered inclusive practices. 

Enroll here by 5pm ET on October 20th! 

Register online

Instructor Bio: Dr. Whitney Hanley’s research focuses on transforming systems and practices that perpetuate opportunity gaps and marginalization of Black, Indigenous Youth of Color (BIYOC) with dis/abilities. Hanley uses intersectional and social justice frameworks to analyze the qualitative ways teacher identity is shaped and how to support educator decisions that resist and disrupt inequities and forms of oppression, particularly as it relates to Black girls with dis/abilities. Her most recent research focuses on using critical frameworks to guide practice-based opportunities that give pre-service teachers the language they need to discuss racism and ableism as well as dispositions necessary in the work of inclusive, equitable education. 

 Enroll here by 5pm ET on October 20th!

Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2025  

Time: 4:00pm – 5:15 PM ET  

Cost: $75 single workshop, $240 for workshop bundle (free for UKY preservice teachers) 

Where: Zoom (Link will be sent after you enroll) 

Workshop description: This interactive workshop will increase awareness of and justification for classroom physical activity practices as a mechanism for enhancing overall wellbeing while equipping participants to integrate and champion movement in the classroom. Participants will discover and explore the multiple dimensions of health, forms of classroom physical activity, tips for integrating and managing movement, and common facilitators that support implementation. Further, promotion strategies and methods of mitigating perceived barriers to classroom movement will be addressed to enable facilitation of a physically active school culture that supports active students as engaged learners. 

Enroll here by 5pm ET on October 20th! 

Register online

Instructor Bio:  

Dr. Hildi Nicksic – teacher, reader, runner, nature-lover – joined the University of Kentucky faculty in 2022. A native Oregonian, she spent 16 years in Texas prior to moving to Kentucky. She holds a doctorate in Health Behavior and Health Education from The University of Texas at Austin and taught for seven years in the health division at Texas A&M University in College Station. With over ten years of experience as a public-school classroom teacher in grades ranging from kindergarten through seventh, Dr. Nicksic is passionate about teaching and strives to provide students with meaningful learning experiences that facilitate critical thinking and application of content to real life. Her primary interest is classroom physical activity, which refers to student engagement in movement within the general education classroom as facilitated by the classroom teacher. As a member of the Department of Kinesiology & Health Promotion, Dr. Nicksic serves as the Program Faculty Chair for Health Education and is delighted to be preparing UK students to teach and support holistic wellness! 

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025  

Time: 4:00pm – 5:15 PM ET  

Cost: $75 single workshop, $240 for workshop bundle (free for UKY preservice teachers) 

Where: Zoom (link will be sent after you enroll) 

Workshop description: Managing a classroom doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. In this interactive 75-minute virtual professional development workshop, participants will learn proven strategies to establish strong routines, build positive relationships, and create a learning environment where students feel safe, engaged, and ready to succeed. Through real-world examples, collaborative discussions, and actionable tools, participants will leave with practical techniques they can implement immediately making classroom management less stressful and more effective. 

Enroll here by 5pm ET on October 20th! 

Register online

Instructor Bio: Liz Brown, M.Ed., has been an elementary school educator for over 15 years. From classroom teacher to school administration, Liz has seen many sides of the education realm. Recently, she has worked as an adjunct professor for Aquinas College and this summer, she opened her own Educational Consulting business. In her free time, Liz loves the beach and playing with her children outside. Liz and her husband, Justin, live in Grand Rapids, MI with their two daughters and son.