Learn what needs to be in place for a coaching program to impact student learning. Examine the essential characteristics of effective building-level instructional coaching programs. Walk away with examples and practical tools from a variety of districts, including protocols for providing feedback to coaches, ways to assess the impact of coaching, and sample documents defining the roles of coaches and the role of the coach champion. Presenters will model virtual learning strategies and provide examples of ways to support the social and emotional needs of teachers and coaches during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How do school districts translate a vision to become more culturally responsive into real practice that deepens student relationships, builds academic mindsets, and increases student ability to engage in rigorous learning that moves the needle on achievement results? See how to overcome the implementation gap by using collaborative inquiry methods that facilitate deep changes in mindset as well as instructional norms for leaders and teachers. Explore the role that collaborative inquiry methods play in executing an effective implementation plan to integrate culturally responsive practices into social and emotional learning initiatives as well as instructional initiatives centered around literacy, math, and STEM. Learn from case studies and experience an opportunity to review and revise your existing plans as you apply what you learn.

What does it mean to be an authentic learning principal and learning leader? Apply a learning and improvement lens to the principal’s major responsibilities. Assess your current state and consider reasons to invest in new learning and new actions. Dig into cases of high-performing and low-performing schools to distinguish effective principal practices. Examine how investing in learning and improvement produces higher levels of performance and impact for staff and students. Receive a copy of the newly released The Learning Principal, co-authored by the session facilitators.

This interactive seminar presents practical strategies for structuring and conducting engaging learning experiences for adults in a virtual environment. Examine tested principles of learning and teaching that involve adult learners in meaningful explorations of concepts, ideas, and information using online learning tools. Explore theory and practice using an effective design template and accessible presentation strategies for connecting groups to you, one another, and important content.

The teaching and learning landscape has dramatically changed in schools and districts across the country. Leaders on the front lines are making decisions that impact teachers, support staff, parents, and students. Engage with superintendents and principals as they share their experiences and the leadership lessons learned while navigating in uncharted territory. Learn how they are working hard to ensure all students have access to a high-quality educational experience in spite of a not-so-clear path.

Invited guests include: Dr. Jill Baker, superintendent (Long Beach Unified School District, CA); Dr. Joseph McFarland, superintendent (Derry Township, PA); Dr. Calvin Watts, superintendent (Kent School District, WA); Dr. Kenneth Salim, superintendent (Cambridge Public Schools, MA); and Steven D. Holmes (Sunnyside Unified School District, AZ); Paul Kelly, 2019 NASSP National Principal of the Year finalist (Township High School District 214, IL); Dr. Crystal Cooper, principal (Gwinnett County Public Schools, GA); and the 2021 NASSP National Principal of the Year.

The research is solid: Adults working together effectively can increase student achievement. Learn individual and group strategies that increase collective efficacy. Assess yourself, your department, grade level, or school's ability to collaborate effectively. Explore specific, focused strategies to help you build a repertoire for addressing individual and group needs to support ongoing learning for the adults in schools.

Measuring the quality, effectiveness, and impact of professional learning requires thoughtful planning and implementation of an evaluation process and is more crucial now than ever given the multiple complexities of education today. Educators’ professional learning is the primary vehicle for developing their capacity to meet the daily expectations of teaching and leading in adaptive times. Acquire a process for assessing the effectiveness and results of professional learning to create a plan for evaluating your own professional learning programs. Participants will receive an ebook version of Assessing Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning, 3rd ed. (Corwin/Learning Forward, 2018).

With students and educators learning in virtual or blended environments, professional learning design and implementation must reflect best online design practices and meet the needs and desired outcomes for adult learners. Explore strategies for designing and facilitating virtual professional learning that is aligned to the Standards for Professional Learning, is supported by research on adult learning theory, and uses best practices in a virtual context.

Dan Heath is a senior fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. Heath is the coauthor, along with his brother Chip, of four books: Decisive (Currency, 2013), Switch (Crown Business, 2010), Made to Stick (Random House, 2007), and The Power of Moments (Simon & Schuster, 2017), and author of his newest book, Upstream (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2020). Dan and Chip Heath’s books are New York Times bestsellers, and have earned Amazon ratings of at least 4.6 out of 5.0 (across 2,600 reviews). The Heath brothers’ books have been translated into over 30 languages. Previously, Heath worked as a researcher and case writer for Harvard Business School. In 1997, he co-founded an innovative publishing company called Thinkwell, which continues to produce a radically reinvented line of college textbooks.

Dan Heath will answer your questions after his keynote address on Monday morning.

To be effective, professional learning leaders need a deep understanding of the practices they share with teachers. An instructional playbook ensures learning leaders have that knowledge. Learn about the elements of instructional playbooks, including one-page summaries and checklists for the main teaching strategies that you share, and begin to create your own.

Virtual coaching models coupled with competency-based learning structures can provide the personalized, relevant support teachers need to be more effective in their classrooms. Explore the benefits of video-based coaching and how districts are implementing it. Learn how this cost-effective approach supports educators as they pursue National Board Certification.

Share a powerful experience in dialogue in which we surface our personal biases. Explore the challenges of equity in the current educational climate. Participate in uncovering how we might lift others up through empowerment, and develop capacity for crafting conversations that count. Brainstorm strategies to create small moments that lift others up.

A framework with a research-based vision for science teaching and learning has led to new science standards across three-fourths of the U.S. Focus on the key instructional shifts targeted by these standards, including the central role of using students’ own questions to drive their learning and connecting students’ science learning to their own lives. Discover how these shifts are reflected in instructional materials and the types of discourse needed to support these approaches, in which students build, test, and refine their science ideas. Examine the role of coaches, principals, and professional learning leaders in supporting teachers to make these shifts. Explore how to conduct and debrief classroom observations for this type of teaching.

Learn how one district measures the magnitude of initiatives and keeps the total amount of change in the sweet spot between so much change that nothing gets done well and not enough. Determine how to calculate the magnitude of both individual change efforts and all efforts in an organization, and how to stay within your organization’s limits.

Learn and discuss strategies to build teacher leadership capacity that impacts professional learning communities (PLCs) and teacher leadership. Practice ways to support the work of PLCs among thought partners in your school. Discuss strategies to develop the leadership capacity of teachers that will impact their PLC work. Explore ways to connect professional learning plans to teachers’ work in their PLCs. Develop an action plan for supporting teachers in their PLCs to make a difference.

Explore how professional learning communities create and sustain a culture of learning, collaboration, and results. Learn the continuous improvement tools and strategies that have suppooorted the award-winning Adlai E. Stevenson High School for 25 years. Create a plan to facilitate the work of collaborative teams of teachers as they plan instruction, assessment, and interventions.

Integrate the principles of blended learning in all areas of instructional design while gaining insight and practical strategies to redesign lessons into personalized learning experiences for hybrid or blended environments. Follow us through our incremental process of creating student-centered learning by altering path, pace, and place in the learning cycle from concept to pilot to early implementation.

Explore a highly strategic, efficient, relevant, and effective way to implement an approach to strengthen adult social and emotional learning (SEL). Consider how to braid initiatives to bridge research to practice at the classroom, school, and organizational levels while addressing common implementation challenges. Examine one district’s steps to strengthen adult SEL in an effort to reduce turnover, improve climate, and increase educator effectiveness. Create a plan to apply knowledge and strategies in your setting.

Hear from a principal and coach at an urban high school about coaching systems that work. Consider the conditions necessary for effective coaching relationships. Examine systems that support adult development and hold adults accountable for taking up their own learning to improve teacher practice and student outcomes. Practice a coaching conversation and explore a sample coaching ecosystem as a tool for reflection on your own context.

Learn concrete practices and processes for virtually coaching educators to better understand and instruct your linguistically and culturally diverse learners. Gain awareness about critical skills for building virtual partnerships with educators and how trust is best cultivated. Gain practical strategies, planning tools, and new ideas for expanding your linguistically and culturally diverse instructional support for all educators in your school, district, or organization.

Examine how to close the knowing-doing gap around equity by bridging the space between best intentions and instructional practice. Learn how one district leverages teacher leadership through an equity liaison program. Identify strategies for using formative data to develop and track the implementation of school-based equity plans. Gain strategies and protocols for monitoring progress toward implementation goals.

Examine how a midsized urban district increased equity and closed gaps in students’ educational experiences, even while shifting to a virtual environment. Analyze steps taken to address academic disparities and look at change actions by stakeholder groups that are bringing issues of access and high expectations to the forefront. Learn how the district designs and facilitates robust, differentiated, culturally responsive, and customized professional learning to strengthen and sustain leadership capacity among principals and all staff. Leave prepared to assess change actions and refine equity plans within your local context.

Learn how a school district remains accountable to its commitment to racial equity within the context of an ongoing in-depth analysis of courses for the purpose of curricular revision and change that supports all students, especially students of color. Explore how to develop and sustain a district process that involves students as both leaders and participants. Examine strategies in addressing systemic and institutional resistance to racial equity transformation. Identify strengths and opportunities for growth in racial equity transformation leadership in your district or organization.

Explore the collaborative inquiry approach used by a fast-growth school district. Dive into strategic processes that foster deep collaboration and inquiry among principals, central office leaders, and teachers to enhance instruction and close achievement gaps across the organization. Work collaboratively to design structures that will move your organization and professional learning forward.

Learn about the latest digital tools that can be used to enhance participants' professional learning experience. Engage with and discuss how these tools can positively impact professional learning opportunities. Apply new digital tool knowledge to upcoming professional learning you are planning for your own setting.

Examine how to use blended learning to address the identified needs of educators in all stages of the profession. Explore principles and features from research that impact professional growth, while making smart use of technology to optimize teachers’ learning and amplify offline efforts. Engage in blended professional learning activities and consider ways to incorporate them in your own setting.

Analyze the strengths and limitations of survey methods as a tool for assessing professional learning effectiveness. Gain an understanding of the process for piloting, revising, and validating a survey using authentic evidence from participants. Apply Guskey’s framework to your initiatives by identifying key measurable outcomes (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) targeted by your professional learning program. Gain tools to generate an outcome survey tailored to your program.

Valerie Kinloch is the Renée and Richard Goldman Endowed Dean of the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh and vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Her books include: Still Seeking an Attitude: Critical Reflections on the Work of June Jordan (Lexington Books, 2004), June Jordan: Her Life and Letters (Praeger, 2006), Harlem on Our Minds: Place, Race, and the Literacies of Urban Youth (Teachers College Press, 2010), Urban Literacies: Critical Perspectives on Language, Learning, and Community (Teachers College Press, 2011), Crossing Boundaries: Teaching and Learning with Urban Youth (Teachers College Press, 2012), Service-Learning in Literacy Education (Information Age Publishing, 2015), and Race, Justice, and Activism in Literacy Instruction (Teachers College Press, 2019).

Valerie Kinloch will answer your questions after her keynote address on Monday afternoon.

Anthony Bryk became president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2008. Previously, he held the Spencer Chair in Organizational Studies in the School of Education and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His deep interest in bringing scholarship to bear on improving schooling is reflected in his books, Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement (Russell Sage Foundation, 2002) with Barbara Schneider and Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2010). His most recent book is Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better (Harvard Education Press, 2015).

Anthony Bryk will answer your questions after his keynote discussion.

Learn what districts can do to support teachers when they have limited or no existing coaches. Examine the similarities and differences between in-person, blended, and virtual coaching. Explore ways to expand instructional coaching opportunities beyond the scope of your school or district. Discover firsthand the power of using real-time video to reflect and set goals.

Examine one suburban school district’s efforts to create an inclusive environment that values hearing from students, parents, and guardians; hiring staff that reflects student demographics; providing professional learning that focuses on equity and social justice; and creating safe spaces for staff and students. Increase your awareness, knowledge, skills, and advocacy for the purpose of minimizing bias. Gain specific strategies and resources that address implicit and explicit bias, support marginalized groups of students/staff/families, and foster equity and social justice accountability of stakeholders.

Learn how district leaders can ensure they are using culturally proficient practices to overcome barriers of gender inequities. Explore strategies to help female and male educational leaders confront and close the gender equity gap — a gap that denies highly qualified women and women of color opportunities to model inclusive leadership for all students. Identify systemic barriers and share recommendations for district leaders to intentionally close the gender gaps in hiring practices and student performance.

Explore the science of reading and effective literacy instruction. Develop roots in the science of reading and engage in practical applications of the theoretical models. Engage in virtual activities related to implementing effective language and literacy practices that raise student achievement.  Consider ways to implement evidence-based instruction in a virtual setting.

Learn about the key domains of effective leadership and the diverse practices today's leaders employ that enhance adult and student performance. Engage in appreciative inquiry to identify your unique leadership strengths and focus areas and work collaboratively with others to maximize those practices. Create a road map for implementing the effective practices successful leaders employ that foster effective teaching and learning.

Learn how teachers and leaders in one urban district developed a high-quality Innovation Configuration map that created opportunities for observers to garner feedback on their feedback. Examine your own beliefs and experiences about written feedback. Use the Innovation Configuration map to assess your feedback. All shared strategies are workable in virtual and face-to-face settings.

Learn how to establish systems and structures that break down a culture of silos. Experience a large district's culture shift that rewards collaboration over isolation. Create a plan and develop a shared vision for increasing intradepartmental communication to positively impact services that support teaching and learning.

Explore professional learning resources and structures through the lens of personal goal-setting and professional competency development for teachers and coaches. See how to design a series of personalized, practice experiences for educators, including personalized practice activities, interactive webinar sessions, professional learning community engagement, and video, that target job-specific competencies in support of growth toward professional goals. Examine ways to gather and analyze data to show the connection between individual and collective learning experiences and growth along a competency continuum.

In light of current world events, incorporating student voice into instructional decision-making is more important than ever. Explore a continuous improvement model designed to capture student voice for the purpose of altering adult instructional practice. Brainstorm with other practitioners while analyzing your own district’s or school’s practices. Complete a gap analysis addressing student perspectives on teacher mindset and practice, and create an action plan for monitoring efforts to shift adult behavior through a professional learning and walk-through/observation process.

Learn how one school district used Innovation Configuration maps and Learning Forward's Implementation standard to initiate and sustain systemic changes focused on improving core academic and social and emotional learning outcomes for all students. Use the multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) IC map to focus personal and team reflection on critical aspects of implementation, then use data-based decision-making to develop action plans that will guide next steps for leaders and learning communities.

Learn why virtual reality simulations are effective tools for helping teachers gain strategies for better classroom management and a more equitable learning environment. Hear how one district is integrating virtual reality into existing structures for teacher development and the outcomes associated to increase teacher retention. Experience simulations in virtual reality that blend artificial and human intelligence, and gain an understanding of how technology can be leveraged to deliver immersive learning scenarios.

Learn about the process, professional learning, and structures necessary to equip teachers and leaders with requisite skills to prioritize and embrace empowerment for all learners. Deepen your understanding of what it means to be leaders of race, equity, and diversity dialogues. Identify challenges and barriers in society that impact educators’ ability to create and sustain cultures of empowerment for all learners. Examine key tenets within equity pedagogy and prejudice reduction strategies.

Preparing students for a fast-paced, complex world that is culturally diverse and constantly evolving amidst a pandemic offers a chance to see what it really takes to be an equity warrior. Virtual learning requires collaboration between school and home that is respectful, complementary, and open. Explore bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, and learn how to interrupt practices that undermine the achievement of all students. 

Discover innovative techniques to strengthen leadership in yourself and others to accelerate the impact on student achievement. Explore high-yield strategies to improve leader performance, including targeted coaching aligned to leader standards, personalized professional learning that leverages leaders’ talents and strengths, and wraparound supports that build leaders’ capacity to retain high-quality teachers. Investigate digital tools for monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of principal coaching to ensure student success. Leave with a digital leadership tool kit to assist in building a performance culture that positively impacts students.

Explore eight areas of focus to consider in effectively leading a learning community focused on high levels of achievement for all students. Create an understanding of what "leading with intention" means for school leaders at all levels. Examine effective habits that create a positive mindset as you create and sustain a community focused on learning. Reflect and practice with tools and resources for implementing focused daily leadership actions.

Examine how one high school leadership team is supporting its math department to understand its own strengths and potential, develop shared vision for all students, and co-identify and tackle a significant shared problem of student learning. Leave with tools, processes, and examples to support condition-setting for teacher problem-solving and plan for your next steps.

Create learning experiences that stick — that is, make a difference in educator practice and transform learning for students — through thoughtful planning of the content and design of the learning experience. Explore avenues to create memorable learning experiences and engage in a peer review protocol to examine your own professional learning plan using the Standards for Professional Learning, social and emotional learning competencies, and design elements for engaging adult learning. Upgrade current and future professional learning experiences. Bring your own learning plan to work on with a partner during the session.

Consider 10 essential questions, based on research and school and district experiences, that can help you develop effective, research-based strategies to better recruit, support, and retain teachers of color in your school or district. Gain an understanding of why teachers of color leave schools, and explore potential ideas and solutions from teachers. Acquire resources, tools, and an action plan for recruiting, supporting, growing, and retaining teachers of color.

Listen to a leading researcher on grading and assessment present evidence challenging conventional grading policies and practices. Learn steps for successfully transitioning to a grading system that reports multiple measures of a student’s performance. Hear a district’s firsthand experience in revising its grading system and reporting methods to align with a districtwide purpose statement committed to communicate student learning at a specific point in time.

Building on their award-winning book, Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools, Amanda Lewis and John Diamond will discuss how racial inequality is embedded in school organizational practices and routines and what educators can do to disrupt that process. Leave with tools to better understand racial inequality in your own context and some ideas for what to do about it.