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Douglas Fisher

Fisher, Douglas

Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has served as a teacher, language development specialist, and administrator in public schools and non-profit organizations, including 8 years as the Director of Professional Development for the City Heights Collaborative, a time of increased student achievement in some of San Diego’s urban schools. Doug has engaged in Professional Learning Communities for several decades, building teams that design and implement systems to impact teaching and learning. He has published numerous books on teaching and learning, such as Assessment-capable Visible Learners and Engagement by Design.


Areas of expertise
  • Common Core Implementation
  • Gradual Release of Responsibility
  • Text Complexity and Close Reading
  • School-Wide Literacy Intervention
  • Text dependent Questions
  • Literacy in the Content Areas

Workshops

  • Help All Readers Access Complex Text!: In this seminar, Frey and Fisher can provide whole schools with a professional learning experience in which participants, K-12, will learn step by step how to craft their own instructional plans around the 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Text:

    • Purpose & Modeling
    • Close & Scaffolded Reading
    • Collaborative Conversations
    • An Independent Reading Staircase
    • Performance
  • Rigorous Reading: Call it close reading, call it deep reading, call it analytic reading—call it what you like. By any name, it’s a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction. In this seminar, participants will find an instructional plan articulated so clearly, and so squarely built on research, that teachers, schools, and districts need look no further.

    Attendees will be able to:

    • Engage students in repeated discussions to help students delve into an author’s ideas
    • Use text-dependent questions, prompts, and cues
    • Offer feedback and assessments that help students demonstrate understanding

What People are Saying

“Doug gave one of the finest keynote addresses I have ever heard. He was engaging and has extraordinary expertise. People did not want him to end his presentation.”

-Gary Seastrand, Director, Center for the Improvement of Teacher and Education Schooling, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT