Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Special Education: The Enrichment Series: 2026-27

Hosted by Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Special Education

The Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Special Education is pleased to announce the following FREE webinar series opportunity: The Enrichment Series: 2026-27.

Virtual professional learning opportunities are designed to enhance and extend the training information provided through the PaTTAN Autism Initiative’s competency-based, large-scale professional development. These sessions provide participants with additional opportunities to deepen their understanding, expand their knowledge, and strengthen their application of best practices in educational settings.

The Enrichment Series: Be A Classroom Leader/Collaborative and Respectful Team
September 21, 2026, from 8:00 a.m.- 9:00 a.m. via Webinar
January 7, 2027, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar

The following training will focus on teachers becoming leaders within their classroom to all of the adults who work within the room. The content will define what being a leader is and give examples of leadership within the classroom. The content will discuss collaboration, barriers to collaboration, and creating a climate of respect that builds trust and allows for open communication.

The Enrichment Series: Collaborative Relationships: Parents, Related Services and Educators
September 21, 2026, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar
January 7, 2027, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar

Special education teachers have to collaborate and work with a variety of individuals. This training will focus on building and maintaining those relationships with parents, other related service providers, and general education teachers.

The Enrichment Series – Cooperation and Reinforcement
October 1, 2026, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar
March 4, 2027, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar

The purpose of this training is to provide classroom teams with a more in-depth look at the concept of reinforcement. Reinforcement is defined utilizing the definition from Applied Behavior Analysis, which is an established evidenced based practice. Reinforcement is a key principle in establishing cooperation skills in students.

The Enrichment Series: Social Routines
October 1, 2026, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar
March 4, 2027, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar

This training will focus on creating social routines for students who have limited or no communication skills. These social routines will be considered initial mands for these students. This training will help individuals identify the 3 components of establishing social routines. Data collection tools will be shared that can be utilized within the classroom.

The Enrichment Series: Direct Instruction
November 3, 2026, from 9:00 am – 11:15 am via Webinar

In this session, participants will deepen their understanding of the Language Arts and Reading Strands of Reading Mastery Signature Edition.
We will: examine core Direct Instruction practices. Explore how language instruction is coordinated with reading to build comprehension and improve overall student literacy outcomes.

The Enrichment Series – Manding
November 5, 2026, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar
February 4, 2027, from 2:30 pm-3:30 pm via Webinar

This training extends learning beyond the offered trainings and emphasizes deepening and refining skills for all classroom team members. Specifically on the topic of manding; teaching a student to request their wants and needs to be met. This training will define what a mand is, review teaching procedures, and considerations for different forms of communication.

The Enrichment Series: Intensive Teaching
November 5, 2026, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar
February 4, 2027, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar

This training will provide a brief overview of intensive teaching. This will include information about ABC analysis, verbal operants, teaching procedures, and error correction procedures. This does not replace the intensity and depth that the intensive skills training. This should be an added teaching experience to fortify skills that were established at the intensive skills training.

The Enrichment Series: Social Skills
December 3, 2026, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar
April 1, 2027, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Take a look at social skills from a developmental perspective. We’ll talk about why social learning can be challenging for some autistic learners, how assessment helps us identify meaningful social goals, and how we can intentionally create opportunities for social learning throughout the school day.
Rather than focusing on one specific curriculum or intervention package, we’ll focus on a framework for thinking about social skill development and instruction.

The Enrichment Series: Intermediate and Advanced Programming
December 3, 2026, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm via Webinar
April 1, 2027, from 8:00 am – 9:00 am via Webinar

This training is just a brief snapshot of the information that you will get at our Beyond the Basics training. To ensure you get all of the foundational concepts to understand the principals behind these protocols please sign up for that in person training. We are focusing on teaching you the protocols for upper-level tact skills. These are all taught utilizing the errorless teaching procedures that you should have learned in previous trainings. We will also discuss with you the skills tracking sheets and graphs that you will have with these programs. You should be familiar with graphing and skills tracking sheets as well from the initial training.

Target Audience: Teachers, Paraprofessionals, Other Related Service Providers

Presenters: PaTTAN Educational Consultants

Credits: Hours or Instructional Time & Registered Behavior Technician (RBT)