Learn: Discover the impact of family and community involvement on student success and explore various strategies for fostering meaningful connections. Explore effective, actionable methods for welcoming parents and community members into schools in a way that is both frequent and productive.
Engage: Participate in activities designed to map out your current family and community engagement efforts. Identify what is working well, uncover areas needing improvement and collaborate with colleagues to share insights and ideas. Use planning tools and resources to develop ideas that build upon your school’s existing practices.
Apply: Gain a framework to create or enhance a family engagement plan tailored to the unique needs of your school and a clear path for strengthening partnerships that support growth, belonging and the overall success of your students.
Learn: Take a deep dive into the principles behind culturally responsive, standards-based (CRSB) instruction and how to integrate into the F.R.E.S.H. framework. Explore the “why” and “what” of CRSB instruction and understand its crucial role in fostering student success in diverse classrooms.
Engage: Through collaborative exercises and targeted discussions, analyze real-world scenarios that illustrate the impact of culturally responsive strategies. Engage in dialogue with peers, share insights and experiences related to implementing CRSB instruction enhancing your understanding of its practical applications.
Apply: Gain actionable ideas for integrating culturally responsive elements into your lesson planning. With guided discussions and collaborative activities, develop a clear understanding of how to identify and apply strategies that align with academic standards, making learning more meaningful for students from all backgrounds.
Dr. Stephanie R. Boyce is an Edupreneur driven by her passion to reshape the educational landscape by making culturally responsive teaching a way of life.For the last decade, Boyce has focused her studies and work on matters of racial justice and equity for historically marginalized... Read More →
Tuesday February 25, 2025 8:40am - 9:30am CST
Salon 5Marriott St. Louis Airport
Learn: Discover quick and effective strategies for designing tasks that boost student engagement. Explore practical approaches that can be applied across various subject areas.
Engage: Take part in a hands-on, station rotation discovery model. This interactive setup will guide participants in creating a high-quality task tailored to their subject area and instructional goals.
Apply: Gain ready-to-use sample tasks that can be implemented immediately in the classroom, ensuring an impactful takeaway for engaging students.
Learn: Discover how augmented reality (AR) can transform learning experiences, offering students unique opportunities to explore concepts and engage with content in innovative ways. Gain insight into how AR can be effectively integrated across subjects, from science to social studies and more, using iPads.
Engage: Participate in an interactive session where you’ll explore AR applications, engage in hands-on demonstrations, and collaborate with peers to brainstorm ways to align AR activities with your curriculum goals.
Apply: Walk away with actionable strategies and best practices for incorporating AR into your teaching. Learn how to design immersive AR experiences that captivate students while enhancing their understanding of complex concepts across various subject areas.
Learn: Uncover the transformative potential of AI in education, from reshaping traditional teaching methods to supporting differentiated instruction. Panel experts will share perspectives on high-impact AI tools, practical applications and how to discern value amidst an ever-growing landscape of AI resources.
Engage: Participate in the discussion by using the Chat feature to ask questions, share insights and connect with both panelists and peers. A dedicated Q&A segment will allow you to explore specific questions, including how AI can enhance your role and support your teaching goals.
Apply: Gain actionable knowledge of current high-impact AI tools and examples of their use in educational settings. Learn strategies for leveraging AI to meet diverse student needs and enrich learning outcomes in ways that align with your teaching style and classroom objectives.
Learn: Explore how fostering creativity supports essential skills like problem-solving, analytical thinking, and collaboration. Gain clarity on what creativity looks like in the classroom and discover how iPads can serve as powerful tools to cultivate it.
Engage: Participate in interactive discussions to share ideas, challenges, and strategies for weaving creativity into your curriculum. Experience examples of creative classroom activities and collaborate with fellow educators to brainstorm innovative approaches.
Apply: Leave with practical methods to integrate creativity into your teaching practice using iPads. Equip yourself with techniques to inspire your students, encourage out-of-the-box thinking, and enhance learning outcomes across subjects.
Learn: Discover the expansive, free curriculum offered by Code.org, created to make computer science education accessible in every classroom. Attendees will explore the K-12 resources that align with state standards, focusing on foundational digital skills and computer science principles.
Engage: Through interactive discussion, participants will examine how Code.org’s curriculum integrates with their own teaching goals and classroom settings. We’ll also dive into available support, including teacher training funded through DESE, ensuring a fully supported rollout of these resources.
Apply: By the end of this session, participants will be prepared to bring Code.org's curriculum into their schools. They will leave with actionable steps and knowledge on accessing the resources, securing teacher training, and engaging students in computer science.
Learn: Explore how to achieve a healthier balance between technology and traditional skills in your classroom. This session addresses concerns about excessive screen time and the impact on essential soft skills, drawing from discussions held within my school district.
Engage: We will cover diverse topics, including virtual reality, traditional geography skills, handwriting versus speech-to-text, library resources, and the importance of face-to-face communication. Attendees will have opportunities for Q&A throughout the presentation to foster engagement.
Apply: Participants will receive a T-chart to assess their current balance between technology and traditional skills, along with actionable strategies for reinforcing soft skills in their classrooms. Leave with practical ideas to enhance your curriculum and promote student success in both realms.
Learn: Explore how to apply the F.R.E.S.H. approach in real classroom scenarios. Discover methods to develop Fun, Relevant, Engaging, Standards-Based and Higher Order lessons that elevate student learning and engagement.
Engage: Participate in interactive exercises designed to craft your own F.R.E.S.H. activities while collaborating with peers. By sharing examples from the field and engaging in group discussions, gain valuable insights into creating impactful lesson plans that resonate with diverse learners.
Apply: Gain a designed personalized F.R.E.S.H. activity tailored to your curriculum in addition to the skills to integrate the F.R.E.S.H. principles to implement inclusive and engaging lessons in your classroom enhancing the educational experience for all students.
Dr. Stephanie R. Boyce is an Edupreneur driven by her passion to reshape the educational landscape by making culturally responsive teaching a way of life.For the last decade, Boyce has focused her studies and work on matters of racial justice and equity for historically marginalized... Read More →
Tuesday February 25, 2025 11:10am - 12:00pm CST
Salon 5Marriott St. Louis Airport
Learn: Understand the essential components of a district- or building-wide behavioral support system and how to ensure it meets the diverse needs of all students. Explore real-world examples of effective implementation across schools and districts, and discover strategies for building a culture of consistent behavioral expectations and support.
Engage: Join a panel of administrators, behavior specialists and district leaders as they share their experiences and best practices. Use the Chat feature to collaborate with peers, share ideas and ask questions. Participate in a dedicated Q&A session to address your specific concerns and challenges in developing or refining a behavioral support system.
Apply: Discover how to initiate or improve a behavioral system in your district or building. Gain practical tools to monitor fidelity, assess effectiveness and maintain consistency across diverse learning environments while fostering a supportive culture for students and staff.
Learn: Discover how to incorporate students' personal vocabulary and experiences into literacy instruction, making the learning more meaningful and relevant. Identify various literary structures found across curriculums and learn how to use these structures to enhance students' reading and writing skills. Explore how dictation technology can be leveraged to support struggling readers and writers in capturing their thoughts and ideas.
Engage: Participate in interactive activities that model classroom practices and foster a positive learning environment. Create your own literary examples and experiment with dictation technology on your own device to understand its application for students.
Apply: Gain practical examples of literary structures and techniques for integrating students' personal language into literacy instruction. Reflect on how to use dictation technology to support struggling students and leave with strategies that can be transferred directly into your teaching practice.
Learn: Discover how the SSD MTSS Facilitator Team has effectively embedded cognitive, affective and tangible aspects of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) into their coaching and learning practices. Gain insights into how to support leaders in fostering a holistic approach to MTSS implementation.
Engage: Engage in exploration of the crosswalk matrices, MTSS playbook and other resources, plus, have meaningful conversations with peers and facilitators to explore practical ways to incorporate effective tips, strategies and practices into your own work. Collaborative dialogue will enhance understanding and inspire actionable ideas.
Apply: Gain information and resources that best fit contextually into your school systems to make data based decisions around equitably supporting all students within their settings ensuring that both cognitive and emotional aspects are considered in their MTSS systems.
Learn: Discover evidence-based prosocial education strategies that can be used with any age and content area. Examine successful Prosocial and Active Learning (PAL) Classrooms project data to gain insights into enhanced student climate and increased student engagement.
Engage: Discuss experiences and challenges related to student behavior and classroom management to discover new strategies. Analyze case study scenarios of prosocial strategies and discuss the implications and potential applications in your own setting.
Apply: Gain specific, implementable strategies for integrating prosocial elements into your existing curricula and concrete examples of how these principles can be applied in various educational settings.
Jen Foster has been harnessing the power of technology to support instruction for more than 20 years. Over the last 12 years, Jen has provided professional development to a wide variety of educators, school administrators, instructional coaches, etc. to enhance and grow their tech... Read More →
Learn: Gain insights from experienced educators as they share their journey of implementing the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) framework in math education. Panelists will discuss what initially inspired them to adopt BTC, the challenges they faced and the transformative impact it has had on their teaching and student learning. This session will explore key aspects of BTC, including the mindset shifts, classroom management strategies and relationship-building techniques that contribute to its success.
Engage: Throughout the session, participants will use the chat feature to ask questions, share reflections and exchange ideas with panelists and fellow attendees. A live Q&A segment will provide an opportunity to delve deeper into topics like overcoming initial hurdles, refining practices and fostering collaborative learning in math classrooms.
Apply: Gain practical insights and advice to start your own BTC journey or enhance your current practices. Whether you're a BTC novice or looking to refine your approach, you'll gain actionable strategies for creating a thinking-centered environment that engages students, builds problem-solving skills, and transforms your math instruction.
Learn: Discover how Discovery Education Experience simplifies lesson planning and enhances student engagement. Explore standards-aligned resources and tools for PreK-12 that support dynamic and interactive teaching.
Engage: Participate in a collaborative challenge to “Escape the Discovery Education Room” with your peers, solving clues while exploring innovative tools and strategies. This interactive activity showcases how Discovery Education can transform the learning experience in your classroom.
Apply: Gain actionable strategies and fresh ideas to integrate Discovery Education resources into your lessons, empowering you to captivate students and streamline planning. Prepare to implement these tools and elevate your teaching!
Learn: Explore how to effectively use video to record and teach lesson demonstrations that can be uploaded to a dedicated YouTube channel. Discover how recorded lessons can capture students' attention through step-by-step modeling for projects, skill development or desired behaviors.
Engage: Utilize project materials, acquired skills and a cell phone camera to practice teaching and demonstrating a lesson that will be uploaded to your YouTube channel created for this purpose.
Apply: Gain skills to launch your own YouTube video lesson demonstration to support students who may struggle, provide resources for absent learners and maximize preparation time during lessons, especially when teaching multiple classes back-to-back.
Learn: Discover the transformative role of becoming a lead learner in the Open-Source Learning model. Dr. David Preston will guide you through the principles of full engagement, vulnerability and restorative dialogue that empower educators to inspire learners by example.
Engage: Participate in reflective exercises and discussions that help you uncover opportunities for personal growth and empathetic facilitation. Collaborate with fellow participants to explore strategies for building meaningful connections and fostering resilience in learning environments.
Apply: Gain actionable steps to embody the lead learner mindset. You’ll gain clarity on how to model risk-taking and vulnerability while supporting your students' learning journeys, ensuring every moment becomes an opportunity for growth and discovery.
Learn: Explore how Pear Deck by Go Guardian enhances classroom learning through an integrated suite of tools designed for instruction, engagement, assessment, and intervention. Understand how these tools are rooted in learning science and tailored for K-12 classrooms.
Engage: Discover best practices for using Pear Deck to actively engage students, gather real-time feedback, and assess understanding. Engage in interactive demonstrations that highlight how Pear Deck can transform your teaching approach and improve student outcomes.
Apply: Leave with practical strategies and the confidence to incorporate Pear Deck into your curriculum. You’ll learn how to utilize the platform’s features to enhance instruction and support student learning, helping both teachers and students reach their full potential.
Learn: Explore how Discovery Education Experience can enhance every part of your school day, from sparking curiosity with immersive videos and virtual field trips to providing engaging, standards-aligned content for lesson planning.
Engage: Bring your laptop and dive into hands-on activities that demonstrate how to use Discovery Education for transitions, recess or downtime. Collaborate with fellow educators to uncover creative ways to integrate these tools seamlessly into your daily routines.
Apply: Gain strategies to captivate students and extend learning beyond the classroom by sharing resources with students and families. Whether you’re new or experienced with Discovery Education, you’ll gain practical tools to elevate your teaching and engage your students.
Learn: Discover the latest AI tools and their potential applications in the classroom. Discover cutting-edge technology and showcase how AI can create new learning opportunities, sparking innovation for both educators and students.
Engage: Actively experiment with AI tools while engaging in thought-provoking discussions on the broader impact of AI on education. Collaborate with peers to explore AI's role in transforming the learning experience.
Apply: Gain practical ideas and strategies for leveraging AI in your classroom. Be prepared to create transformative learning experiences that harness AI's potential to engage and inspire students.
Learn: Delve into the latest and most effective AI for all students but especially those who require additional support.
Engage: Take part in a hands-on, station rotation discovery model to create high-quality task(s) tailored to your subject area and instructional goals.
Apply: Gain new found insights that are ready to be applied into your classroom fostering an open-minded approach to integrating AI responsibly.
Learn: Discover the essential components of an AI Transformation vision, including strategies for data protection, fostering student well-being, and preparing staff and students for AI integration. Gain insights into best practices for creating a forward-thinking plan that balances innovation with responsibility.
Engage: Collaborate with peers through interactive discussions to identify common challenges and share ideas. Participate in guided exercises to outline initial steps for building an AI vision tailored to your school or district's unique needs.
Apply: Leave the session equipped with a structured framework for developing a comprehensive AI Transformation vision. Gain practical steps to kick-start your journey, from addressing readiness gaps to planning for implementation and monitoring progress effectively.
