Preconference Sessions

Learn how to leverage asynchronous coaching to develop teacher practice. Explore how using technology tools for asynchronous coaching can deepen curriculum-based professional learning. Experience the asynchronous coaching progress, and hear about the impact on teacher practice.

Learn how one district developed ongoing professional learning for all assistant principals using research-based best practices on classroom instruction, teacher retention, and positive climate in schools. Explore how the district developed and implemented a division-wide action research model. Collaborate with others to create coaching protocols and develop an action plan for your context.

Explore ways to develop women leaders within your organization. Examine current research and engage in hands-on activities that inspire women leaders to impact organizational success. Learn strategies for developing a development program for women in leadership with perspectives from leaders representing two Colorado school districts involved this work.

Explore how central office and school leaders can center student experience to set their leader professional learning agenda. Learn processes and tools for engaging with students and using student experience to create visions for student learning and instruction. Examine the important role of leadership reflection on racial equity as a key part of personal and professional development.

Culturally responsive practice goes far beyond a curriculum, from the individual interactions between students and teachers to the systemic context of a student’s community. But traditional curriculum has not only hindered the development of this practice, it has also reinforced a focus on a singular perspective and experience. Analyze how curriculum can move beyond a textbook model to support teachers in engaging the lived and historical experiences of all students.

Everyone leads sometimes, few lead all the time. At the core of leadership is the ability to effectively communicate. Explore five communication skills that build efficacy, a collaborative culture, and stronger group relationships. Learn how to impact credibility, assign status to group members, redirect energy and focus into issues and away from relationships, open with impact, and create a safe environment when posing questions.

Learn what current research is saying about the role of the assistant principal, what experiences assistant principals perceive to be missing from their positions, and how you can empower your assistant principal to lead a thriving learning community. Examine the assistant principal’s role in school leadership to understand the opportunities and constraints defining the position and the impact on instructional leadership. Leave with knowledge of current research on the role of an assistant principal, what experiences assistant principals perceive to be missing from their position, and how principals can best support their assistant principals to lead thriving learning communities.

Learn how to create a systemic professional learning community (PLC) plan involving all stakeholders from the ground up. See how one district built capacity across district departments, campus administration, and teacher leaders, allowing all collaborative teams to function at high levels for improved student learning. Learn how to leverage the most important ideals of PLCs with specific frameworks and resources you can take back to your schools.

Evolve as learners and shift from an overreliance on “spray-and-pray” workshops to personalized professional learning. Examine ideas and strategies that empower educators to learn from kids, peers, and the world in a cycle of continuous improvement. Leave empowered with a plan grounded in research on effective professional learning models, aligned with Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning, and focused on inquiry-based learning to increase educator effectiveness and results for all learners.

Do you find yourself relying on the same old routines and activities? Looking to spice up your learning sessions? Gain insight on how to design professional learning that matters. Fill your toolbox with highly effective engagement strategies that make a difference face to face, in person, or online. Explore 25 strategies that can overlay any content, any grade level, and any school or district context. Get your adult learners engaged so that the content sticks.

Improving student engagement means more than beating back boredom with gimmicks that entertain but don’t educate. Examine original research findings that can lead directly to your students’ learning and success. True engagement is about mystery and magic, meaning and purpose, and focus and mastery. Gain an understanding of the five enemies of engagement blocking our paths and how to defeat them. Explore clear paths to student engagement that will enable you not only to improve your teaching but also change your school so engagement becomes less elusive and more achievable.

Explore how one district’s professional learning support team initiative and teacher leadership academy are instrumental in developing school-based teacher leaders who support and address all teachers’ needs, from preservice to teacher leadership. Learn how the district implements a cohesive and effective performance-based compensation system that recognizes, develops, supports, and compensates instructional and leadership excellence. Experience a model for developing, implementing, and testing a high-quality, teacher-directed professional learning program that empowers and retains a diverse teacher workforce while enhancing instructional practice and increasing student outcomes. Identify next steps for modifying and replicating models to support professional growth and student achievement.

See how one school created a solid foundation in schoolwide climate and culture that led to the development and implementation of a data-driven Tier 2 system of support. Expand your knowledge on how to seamlessly integrate Alternative to Suspension in a Tier 2 system that focuses on behavioral and social-emotional development.

Is your district supporting the social-emotional development and self-care of educators and staff? We can’t serve our students well if we aren’t taking care of ourselves. Explore how to strengthen the SEL capacity among your staff through tribal leadership and collective teacher efficacy. Walk away with ideas, protocols, strategies, and resources that are ready for you to use in your efforts of growing your school culture.

The shift to remote learning has been particularly disruptive for students with individualized education plans in integrated co-teaching classrooms. Learn how you can support co-teachers to meet students’ individual needs even as district budgets for professional learning and special education services tighten. Explore a year’s worth of lessons learned about effective virtual coaching and virtual co-teaching. Leave with a tool kit of best practices for virtual professional learning to support virtual integrated co-teaching classrooms.

Providing a predictable structure of professional learning (in person or virtual) for instructional coaches fosters adult learning and allows for meaningful planning. Differentiating for coaches with varying levels of expertise and experience can be challenging. Meet your coaches’ learning needs while fostering a positive coaching culture. Experience our predictable structure while reflecting on your process for planning coach professional learning. Collaborate with others as we work through the three components of this structure. Design learning for your coaches using a predictable structure. 

The ultimate purpose of coaching is to impact student performance by changing educator practice. Explore and identify different coaching stances within a learning-focused continuum to promote role release and build sustainable practices. Learn different coaching tools to plan for systematic role release. Examine the process for developing an Innovation Configuration (IC) map and how to use it evaluate impact on educator practices. Develop next steps to apply learning in your context.

Learn how coaching new teachers through an “all in coaching program” and a structured non-tenure cohort academy supports non-tenure teacher performance, development and teacher retention over time. Hear testimony from recent non-tenure teachers, evaluate your current practices, and leave with a coaching plan for new teachers that supports their professional growth and retention.

Experience key aspects of an intensive video case-based, analysis-of-practice science professional learning program and leadership development program that has been tested in large and small districts and across the K-12 system. Learn about the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) professional learning program and our significant impact on teacher practice and student learning as well as how we are sustaining the program through teacher leadership development.

The principal as an effective instructional leader is an essential necessity to drive professional learning. But who supports principals in this deep and meaningful learning? Learn how principals can navigate the instructional landscape and develop their instructional leadership capacity while connecting the learning of multiple organizational learning systems. Experience the journey of Santa Fe Independent School District's development of the senior principal model. Leave with a blueprint of a model supporting principal development through mentoring, organizational systems of instructional accountability, and ready-to-use instructional tools.

How do district leaders, administrators, and school leaders approach the ever-evolving obstacle of inclusion and equity? Experience evidence-informed practices and approaches to tackle equity and inclusion (specific to LGBTQ identities) while developing your capacity to approach these challenges through exposure and analysis of real scenarios and case studies. Leave this session with a concrete action plan that embeds professional learning and accountability into your organization’s vision while developing strategies for sustained implementation and accountability policies.

Explore ways to lead a school or district through successful implementation of high-quality instructional materials while building your change management skills. Examine tools to help teachers make and remake their knowledge, stay the course, and reflect on changes to pedagogy while avoiding backsliding to old ways. Investigate how different district leaders supported people and themselves through the uncertainty, and leave with strategies to use student work to support change.

How do great leaders create the conditions necessary for everyone in their school to learn, grow, and move forward in a productive direction? Learn about a framework with practitioner-proven strategies that great school leaders across the country are using every day. Become familiar with the two domains of effective leadership and the corresponding dimensions these leaders employ. Experience the framework and learn how you can employ its ideas, strategies, and reflections to become the best leader you can be for your school community.

Learn how to develop and cultivate community in a constantly changing environment. Hear what happened when two teachers from different schools and two staff developers engaged in action research to address a serious problem of practice: What does it take to build community in the virtual and hybrid worlds? Explore what we learned, how we learned it, and what impact it had on students, the curriculum, and systems.

Video technology has the power to transform all aspects of your professional learning system, from teacher coaching to teacher-leader development to building libraries of instructional models to principal pipelines. Explore district strategies for launching, implementing, and supporting the use of video-based professional learning to create reflective and responsive practitioners and identify effects realized. Develop plans to integrate video-based professional learning in your own context.

Learn how one district used an eight-step evaluation process to assess the impact of its English learner program and make data-based decisions on future directions. Examine multiple data collection methods. Gain understanding of the challenges your district may face and how to overcome them. Reflect on your context to identify potential stakeholders. Create an action plan for implementing a program review.

Learn how trauma response symptoms impact development and disrupt learning. Work through a case study to create a trauma-informed safety plan that identifies potential triggers and signs of escalation, along with calming strategies to address challenging behaviors. Develop a plan to share these trauma-informed practices with other educators and support staff working with students exposed to trauma.

Learn how the Austin ISD’s professional learning team shifted to onboarding new hires in a virtual environment using andragogical best practices. Walk through the professional learning scope and sequence for a new instructional staff member, including a district welcome and multiple professional growth opportunities throughout the year. Leave with examples of tools and protocols that you can personalize for your own district’s use.

Inspire teachers to become comfortable with video-based learning and commit to engage in the process. Empower teachers to take risks and stretch their growth potential. Amplify professional learning networks for increased impact. Leave with strategies to use video-based learning as a tool for personalized professional learning

Hear from a team of 34 instructional coaches grades K-12 who one year ago began a mission to partner with teachers to impact their instruction for the better and take student learning and achievement to the next level. East Aurora School District 131 believes that a strategic focus on instructional best practices coupled with purposeful planning for ongoing higher-order questioning and complex student thinking will positively impact student growth so that all students can reach their full potential. Learn about common districtwide models and language around instructional coaching definitions, data collection, main roles, and examples of supports. 

Transformative coaching focused on standards, student equity, and effective instructional practices has aligned our system to push our shared core beliefs and student achievement forward in Aurora Public Schools. In this presentation, we will model this process for coaching towards equity through collaboratively engaging in a case study. Participants will consider how analyzing student learning in instructional and coaching conversations can establish a culture of equity within a school. Further, participants will have an opportunity to try on the process to consider how various stakeholders can prioritize an equitable learning environment through planning for instruction. The following question will guide our session: “How does analyzing student learning place equity at the center?” 

Explore how districts overcome the challenge of identifying targeted professional learning tied to student outcomes. Experience how a case study school district used the Data Equity Walk to build leaders' capacity to identify targeted professional learning from data-driven decisions. Leave with a data protocol and process and a sample SMART plan focused on the systematic collection of balanced data to inform ongoing professional learning.

Examining the literature clearly reveals the need to overhaul traditional grading practices, yet creating systemic change in secondary schools is often challenging. Many schools understand the "why" behind shifting grading practices but often lack practical steps to implement much-needed change. Leveraging the work of professional learning communities, learn how you can implement steps within your collaborative teams to improve grading practices at the secondary level.

Leading school change that advances its status from being lowest performing to one with the highest growth scores in the state requires effective leaders who establish systems and structures that result in significant improvements. Examine the leadership efforts to establish a school climate based on trust, collaboration, and collective responsibility to effect these changes, and leave with practical examples of protocols and procedures that ground a school in enduring change.

Do you see cracks in the implementation of new initiatives at your school? Repair these cracks and build a solid blueprint for change by learning through a process partnered with quality indicators for each step. Leave with an action plan to support your school.

Learn how teacher leaders from Denver Public Schools used action research to develop unique communities of practice that focus on anti-racist and culturally responsive pedagogies and result in real-time student and educator impact. Explore, through three different examples, how the action research model of professional learning can be adapted and applied across varied school contexts to drive measurable change and increase equitable, culturally responsive teaching.

See how partnerships expanded local capacity and transformed professional learning experiences into a blended learning format. By engaging teacher leaders to realign and streamline topics for use on a learning management system, the partnership incorporated culturally relevant practices and job-embedded assessment assignments into existing professional learning. Learn practical principles of asynchronous learning and adult learning theory, and apply these strategies to increase relevance and take programs to scale.

During a year of evolving needs, coaches and mentors provided constant, timely support to strengthen educators’ instructional practices. Learn how a district amplified this precious resource with coach-mentor triads in their new teacher program and applied data-driven practices to illuminate the impact, open dialogue among stakeholders, and respond to ongoing teacher needs. Examine how a coaching program is planned, evaluated, and improved using the Assessing Impact methodology.

Many schools and districts have adopted evidence-based practices to promote social and emotional learning for students, but how do you set up the right conditions and experiences for adults so they are prepared and confident to lead SEL? Hear the voices of educators in districts and schools, explore tools for adult SEL, experience simulated staff meetings, and customize a learning activity to use in your workplace.

Explore how  Miami Dade Public Schools address professional learning by developing virtual sessions of endorsements programs, professional tutorials, onboarding, mentoring, coaching, collaboration, planning, and professional learning conferences due to the pandemic. Learn how sessions were pivoted from face-to-face to virtual format to support all district personnel that serves as an exemplar for large urban school districts to model in meeting challenges presented by the pandemic.

Teacher leaders are instrumental to the academic achievement of all learners. The Hawai'i Department of Education provides numerous ways teachers can pursue leadership opportunities that, in turn, support students, staff, and school-level stakeholders. From mentoring beginning teachers to implementing action research and passion projects, and finally elevating teacher voice through advocacy work, Hawaii’s teacher leaders are continuing to promote learner success through value-added initiatives and opportunities.

Learn some of the most common traps and tropes that thwart school equity work. Examine the traps and tropes in action and learn ways to identify, unpack, and disrupt them. Leave this session with new ideas for recentering equity in your day-to-day work.

Consider how schools can move beyond one-shot equity professional learning and develop robust teams that create context-specific plans to dismantle racism. Explore how the use of equity improvement cycles builds capacity for school teams and cross-school collaboration and support. Learn from four principals of color about the process and teamwork and leave with protocols, resources, and materials to begin your context-specific team journey.

As America continues to fracture, the humanities offer the language of shared identity and experiences. Drawing from scholarly and instructional resources developed by the National Humanities Center, this session will explore interdisciplinary approaches to finding common ground through literature, art, and music in the English language arts classroom. From the beautiful vignettes of Whitman, Alabama, to the graffiti of social movements in the Middle East, we will discover and discuss open educational resource best practices in the context of culture, identity, and history.

Ensuring that all educators understand and implement high-quality instruction that yields ambitious outcomes for all learners requires a different model of professional learning. Analyzing live teaching practice is at the heart of one district's model, where educators create a shared understanding of high-quality instruction that provides coherence across the district. Explore the research behind the need for a shared understanding of high-quality instruction and why it is so challenging to achieve. Learn about the district’s approach to defining high-quality instruction. Examine the intent behind the professional learning design, and experience the active learning component of the district’s approach.

Classified employees -- from instructional assistants to bus drivers -- play a pivotal role in students’ lives but rarely have the same access to meaningful professional learning as licensed educators. Learn how the Oregon Education Association, representing nearly 8,000 classified members, used a variety of professional learning community (PLC) learning designs to support classified members across the state. Leave with ideas and resources for creating a system of PLCs to support classified employees.

There is no silver bullet in professional learning. Transformative professional learning in one setting may only lead to middling impacts in other settings. While there is limited research on effective professional learning, there is anecdotal evidence on the nuances of what types of professional learning works (and why it doesn’t). Explore what we can learn from anecdotal and emerging evidence from job-embedded professional learning such as mentoring, coaching, and teacher leadership. Consider the nuances of implementation, context, and resources that may impact the effectiveness of professional learning as well as the implications of anecdotal evidence on professional learning for research and practice.

Learn how new digital tools can be used to enhance professional learning. Engage in and discuss how these tools can positively impact professional learning opportunities. Apply new digital tool knowledge to an upcoming professional learning you are planning for your own setting.

Explore the seven factors researchers have identified that must be in place for instructional coaches to flourish. Gain strategies to help coaches understand the complexities of adult learning, create an instructional playbook, examine data, and use video. Learn the essential beliefs and habits of conversation that instructional coaches can internalize and practice. Examine effective leadership qualities and what your system must do to support coaches.

The role of the instructional coach changed dramatically during the pandemic. With the sudden shift to remote learning, many coaches became resource providers. When this is the only role that a coach plays, it can diminish the impact of the coaching program overall. Join this session to redefine what coaching is and isn’t, reset expectations for participation, and help those you lead to realign their understanding of how coaching supports student learning. Leave this session with a vision for how student-centered coaching can transform teaching and learning in your school.

Instead of leading to school transformation, equity implementation all too often reinforces a vicious cycle of failure because the keys to success are missing and the purpose of the effort is muddled. This session will bring clarity to what equity is all about so we can address it through specific actions: behaviors, practices, and policies. To that end, participants will experience a transformative process and acquire a pragmatic framework that they can use to guide successful equity implementation by centering belonging and dignity.

We have learned much as a field during pandemic teaching and distance learning. Let’s use that knowledge to rethink schools. What should schools look like in the future? How can students take responsibility for their learning? It’s time to build teacher and student agency and recover learning for everyone. 

Even though there is a plethora of research to point educators in the right direction, quality implementation of evidence-based strategies remains a consistent and widespread challenge when it comes to school improvement efforts. When educators share a sense of collective efficacy however, it results in the deep implementation of evidence-based practices. During this session, we’ll share ways to tap into the sources of collective efficacy through powerful professional learning to build support in schools and classrooms.

Visualize the worst presentation that you have ever been a part of as an adult learner. Now visualize the best one. No doubt there is a considerable difference between the two professional learning opportunities. Learn the answers to three basic questions: What are 20 strategies that I can use to make my professional learning experience unforgettable? What are techniques that result in sustained adult behavior change? What are 10 things that keep adults living well beyond the age of 80?

Learn how to plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so you and your team can achieve success with your system, your school, and your students. Gain understanding of the value and need for effective professional learning that impacts student learning and achievement. Examine the Standards for Professional Learning in an interactive setting, and practice using them as a measure of success. Dive into a variety of strategies for engaging adult learners. Reflect on your system’s needs, and design a plan for putting your learning into practice.

Increase your effectiveness as a school leader and your ability to lead ongoing professional learning in your organization. The work is grounded in research by The Wallace Foundation on the impact of effective principals on student learning and provides participants strategies and approaches to assist in leading high-achieving schools. Through lively conversations, sharing experiences and strategies, and focusing on increasing success for students, all participants will engage in meaningful learning that matters in their service to others.

While the pandemic revealed the fault lines of the education system, it has provided an opening to mobilize and transform the status quo. New forces arising from Covid-19 include more active learning for students, innovation by teachers, more participation from parents, and more opportunity for leadership to impact learning. Explore a coherence framework and strategies to deepen student learning, foster well-being, and address equity in schools, districts, and systems. This highly interactive session will use video, simulations, and case examples to highlight strategies that focus direction for collective purpose, cultivate collaborative cultures for change, deepen learning, and secure accountability to measure progress.

Investigate the elements of curriculum-based professional learning and their application to your curriculum implementation efforts. Compare and contrast your approach to planning professional learning with others who seek to ensure teachers experience the kind of inquiry-based learning they want for their students. Expand your tool kit for planning effective curriculum-based professional learning.

Professional learning leaders today must be able to show that what they do makes a difference. Stakeholders want to know if investments in professional learning result in verifiable improvement in educators’ practices and students’ performance. Explores factors that contribute to the effectiveness of professional learning and the levels of professional learning evaluation. Learn how to design and implement more effective professional learning experiences using these levels, how to gather quantitative and qualitative evidence on effects, and how to present that evidence in meaningful ways.

As students and educators cope with a pandemic, racism, and other stressors, schools need social and emotional learning with meaningful implementation, sustainability, and, most importantly, cultural responsiveness. Learn about a social, emotional, and cultural competencies framework that supports educators as they explore their assumptions and beliefs, develop and model their own skills, engage in responsive practices, and reflect to continuously improve. Examine how the framework connects social and emotional learning with culturally responsive teaching, supports anti-racist and anti-marginalization practice, and is foundational to achievement of academic standards. Gain strategies for applying it in your context, practice using it, and plan for next steps.