Preconference (PCXX)
PC01 | Opening Windows and Minds: Transforming Ourselves, Transforming Society
Participants will
- Engage in self-examination practices to help educators critically reflect on their own racial and historical literacy development;
- Examine educator moves and learn instructional shifts to equip students to develop racial and historical literacy, engage in critical discourse, and participate in systemic change;
- Explore and apply the five components of the Center for Anti-Racist Education (CARE) Framework (humanity, historical truths, critical consciousness, race and racism, and just systems) to recognize and eliminate bias in the classroom; and
- Prepare to navigate internal and external resistance to antiracist, pro-human instructional practices.
PC02 | Linking Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment to Improve Student Achievement
Since most schools and districts have more assessment data than ever before, teachers are awash with a resource that isn’t as helpful as it could be. What can school systems do? Explore the components of a feedback system that impacts student understanding. Learn to align the multiple measures that are available to design instructional interventions that improve student learning. Consider how quality assessment systems can help teachers know if they have had an impact.
Participants will
- Describe a formative assessment system;
- Use assessment data to make instructional decisions, including scaffolds for success; and
- Use assessment data to provide feedback that helps students drive their own learning.
PC03 | Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning
Experience curriculum-based learning and consider how it differs from traditional professional learning. Examine a set of research-based actions, approaches, and enabling conditions that effective schools and systems have put in place to reinforce and amplify the power of high-quality curriculum and skillful teaching. Consider strategies for applying them to your plans for professional learning.
Participants will
- Engage in core, structural, and functional design features and enabling conditions of curriculum-based professional learning and consider implications for your work;
- Examine the foundation for The Elements, a challenge paper from Carnegie Corporation of New York;
- Consider roles and responsibilities for putting into action the elements of curriculum-based professional learning; and
- Apply The Elements framework to assess current practice and make plans for next steps.
PC04 | Healthy Teachers, Happy Classrooms
Many teachers are simply and understandably burning out given the many demands they face in supporting students. Identify the factors that contribute to teacher burnout. Learn how to support teachers to restore their passion for teaching. Explore 12 brain-based principles for avoiding burnout, increasing optimism, and supporting physical well-being.
Participants will
- Support teachers to determine purpose and restore the passion inherent in the profession;
- Understand the correlation between humor, optimism, games, and increased immunity;
- Value the importance of quality nutrition, exercise, and sleep to support physical well-being; and
- Create a classroom that engenders optimal student success.
PC05 | Introduction to Liberatory Design: Design for Belonging
Learn about design thinking through a series of design for belonging exercises. Explore the liberatory design mindsets and feel, see, and shape an experiential moment of belonging for your own school, organization, or practice area. Draw on the process to plan a design action to take in your context.
Participants will
- Understand that design for belonging is a form of liberatory design;
- Design for a moment of increased belonging by using the design process to create conditions for the feeling; and
- Activate and foster liberatory design mindsets.
PC06 | Standards for Professional Learning
This interactive session will provide participants with an in-depth exploration of the Standards for Professional Learning (2022), focused on how the standards guide and support high-quality learning systems and provide high-quality professional learning for individuals and teams. Explore new resources and tools that illustrate key concepts of the standards, including equity, curriculum, assessment, instruction, and professional expertise. Engage in collaborative learning activities to apply standards' concepts and resources to a range of roles, responsibilities, and professional contexts. Participants will receive a copy of Standards for Professional Learning.
Participants will
- Gain a deep understanding of the content and structure of the Standards for Professional Learning;
- Apply the concepts in the standards to their own roles, responsibilities, and contexts by engaging in interactive and collaborative activities; and
- Leave with strategies, resources, and tools that support their individual and collaborative professional learning growth.
PC07 | Gathering Evidence on the Effects of Professional Learning
What kind of evidence verifies that your professional learning makes a difference? How can stakeholders know professional learning leads to improvements in teaching practices and the performance of students? Explore what factors influence the effectiveness of professional learning and consider the five levels of evidence necessary in evaluating professional learning. Discover procedures for establishing reliable indicators of success and how to apply research findings to design and implement truly effective professional learning.
Participants will
- Understand what factors trustworthy evidence shows contribute to the effectiveness of professional learning;
- Know the five levels of evidence that are essential in evaluating professional learning; and
- Develop procedures to plan effective professional learning experiences that impact teaching practices and result in improved student performance.
PC08 | Powerful Practices for Professional Learning
Are you looking to design high-quality, interactive, and relevant professional learning that can escalate changes in educator practice leading to improved student outcomes? Explore the specific learning needs of adults while experiencing a plethora of highly engaging processes to ensure those needs are met, all while extending your understanding of high-quality professional learning design. Collaborate with peers using a learning design template that can up your game in professional learning design.
Participants will
- Explore a framework for designing and facilitating powerful professional learning that is directly aligned to Standards for Professional Learning;
- Experience a learning environment that meets the physical, social/relational, and learning needs of adults;
- Engage with facilitators as they model brain-friendly strategies that capture and hold learners' attention and increase retention; and
- Prepare to use tools provided in the session for the future design of high-quality professional learning.
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PC09 | Evidence Into Action Through Learning Science
Learn how the application of key learning science principles can elevate the teaching and learning that occurs every day in your school or district. Seize opportunities to implement the science of learning to develop excellent teachers who are equity focused and evidence informed. Strengthen your school system’s ability to leverage learning science to recruit and retain educators who meet the needs of all students.
Participants will
- Identify key learning science principles that ensure instructional effectiveness and equity;
- Evaluate current level of learning science proficiency in order to determine initial actions to build expertise in evidence-informed practice;
- Analyze identified components of successful evidence-to-practice implementation in teacher preparation and professional learning; and
- Develop a theory of change plan that begins to outline initial steps for building capacity for evidence-informed professional learning.
PC10 | Personal and Professional: Empowering Educators through Personalized Professional Learning
Even as our lives become more personalized, whether through custom ads, personal shoppers, or movie and book recommendations, professional learning for educators has not kept pace. Explore innovative practices that empower educators to take ownership of their growth. Apply the personalized learning principles of voice, co-design, social construction, and self-discovery to design a professional learning model for your district or school. Leave with planning tools and models to put a plan into action.
Participants will
- Gain strategies to integrate educator voice early in the professional learning planning;
- Learn to engage educators as co-designers who help identify the success metrics of professional learning and map out the action plan to achieve desired results;
- Consider the role that social construction plays in the professional learning process, including expanding the role of facilitator and definition of engagement; and
- Understand the importance of self-discovery and the various forms it can take in the professional learning cycle.
PC11 | The Feedback Process for Coaching and Implementation Support
Feedback is a key component of continuous improvement. Examine the attributes of effective feedback as well as the various types, purposes, and sources of feedback. Gain a deeper understanding of the feedback process and how to apply it to continuous learning. Learn how to create a culture in which educators routinely engage in the feedback process. Participants will receive a copy of The Feedback Process: Transforming Feedback for Professional Learning, 2nd edition by Joellen Killion.
Participants will
- Identify the attributes of effective feedback for adults;
- Understand the types and purposes of feedback for professional learning;
- Apply the feedback process to promote continuous improvement; and
- Explore how to create a culture that supports the implementation of the feedback process in professional learning.
PC12 | Coaching Matters
The term coaching matters suggests that an effective coaching program can impact student learning in a positive way. Examine the essential characteristics of effective building-level instructional coaching programs. Leave with examples and practical tools from a variety of districts, including protocols for building relationships with teachers and principals, ways to assess the impact of coaching, sample documents defining the roles of coaches, ways coaches can improve the culture and climate of the school, and much more.
Participants will
- Build capacity (knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices) to define and implement an effective coaching program that positively impacts student achievement;
- Use a coaching framework to examine all aspects of the coaching program;
- Analyze examples and structures as useful tools in carrying out the work of coaching; and
- Explore ways to move coaching from a focus on teacher behaviors to a focus on student results.
PC13 | Instructional Coaching: Going Deeper into Goals & Teaching Strategies
Two things are central to instructional coaching: setting goals and identifying strategies to achieve them. Dive deep into these two topics, with a particular focus on gathering data for goal setting and creating an instructional playbook to identify the highest-impact teaching strategies to help teachers hit their goals. Engage with other coaches to gain multiple perspectives and create an implementation plan. Leave with tools and forms you can use to ensure that coaching flourishes in your organization.
Participants will
- Learn a research-based coaching cycle, the impact cycle, that can be used in professional practice immediately;
- Learn about PEERS goals and what research says about goal setting;
- Learn how to gather engagement and achievement data that can be used for goal setting; and
- Learn why instructional playbooks are essential and how to create an instructional playbook.
- Recommended book: https://instructional-coaching-group.myshopify.com/products/the-definitive-guide-to-instructional-coaching
PC14 | Belonging Through Dignity: Evidence and Action
The biggest school and system leadership responsibility is creating conditions where each person can thrive. Achieve clarity on this priority for healthy school, classroom, and work environments. Learn how to better honor dignity in everything we do in order to activate engagement and foster improved achievement, performance, and retention. Experience a framework and improvement process to better serve our students, their families, and each another.
Participants will
- Deepen knowledge of dignity and belonging;
- Acquire an improvement process to ensure accountability for creating the conditions that people need to thrive in work and in school; and
- Enhance capabilities to both collect and use belonging data to identify a problem of practice and to address the problem with dignifying actions to ensure people have the opportunity to perform at their best.
PC15 | Tools for Leading in Challenging and Polarizing Times
Schools are on the front lines of many challenging discussions, from health and safety measures to curriculum choices, from issues of academic freedom to discipline policies. Discuss how to collaborate and engage respectfully with others for the health of the school and the collective well-being of all within it. Gain a framework and tools for discussing polarizing issues in productive and humane ways and strategies for managing stress and emotions during difficult interactions. Experience facilitative approaches for having productive conversations.
Participants will
- Distinguish between solvable problems and polarities;
- Gain the critical skill of suspending certainty in order to think with greater openness and complexity;
- Learn to take increased responsibility for a side of a conversation and use of language during challenging moments;
- Know how to support group members during difficult conversations; and
- Learn to identify and manage emotions, discomfort, and stress in healthy ways
PC16 | Teaming and Engaging Difficult Conversations: A Developmental Approach
Teaming and collaboration catalyze learning and teaching in schools and systems. Consider how educators engage effectively in teams and turn toward difficult conversations to enhance collaboration. Understand adult developmental theory and how it supports growth and student achievement. Learn about a developmental approach to teaming and engaging difficult conversations. Develop skills for building structures and cultures that support individual and team growth.
Participants will
- Understand how developmental theory applies to teams and teaming;
- Gain skills to improve collaboration and communication among teams; and
- Apply strategies to conduct difficult conversations to advance adult growth and student achievement.
PC17 | Becoming a Learning Team
Gain step-by-step guidance in using collaborative learning time for teachers to solve specific student learning challenges. Examine a process for using student data to craft student and educator learning goals leading to learning plans, implementation steps, and progress monitoring. Focus on the role of learning teams in implementing high quality instruction and what that means for student and educator learning goals. Participants will receive a copy of Becoming a Learning Team, 2nd edition.
Participants will:
- Understand the value and importance of collaborative learning to improve teaching and learning;
- Take steps to launch a learning team cycle with five key stages and examine how to implement each with specific strategies and supporting protocols;
- See how to support the meaningful implementation of high-quality instructional materials;
- Adapt the cycle to fit specific school and district calendars and initiatives; and
- Leave with a road map to focus on the day-to-day actions in classrooms among students, educators, and instructional materials for maximum impact.
PC18 | 12 Angry Men: The Power of Productive Conflict
Explore the classic film 12 Angry Men and make connections to conflict evident in the film to discuss the five qualities of collaboration that support effective teams. Learn about meaningful team member participation and the importance of open inquiry. Examine techniques of consensus-building among diverse team members. Understand how conflict reveals new ideas and information.
Participants will
- Define productive conflict and understand its value;
- Identify the high-leverage best practices associated with effective collaborative teams; and
- Understand trust-building and trust-busting behaviors.
PC19 | Instructional Leadership for Powerful Student Learning
As an instructional leader, your primary responsibility is to ensure high-quality learning experiences in every classroom, for every student, every day. Explore how to help teachers become self-reflective practitioners whose thoughtful approach translates into real gains in student achievement. Learn how to transform schools into cultures of commitment rather than cultures of compliance. Gain building blocks to create such cultures and design a plan to move forward immediately.
Participants will
- Embrace the need to differentiate their coaching and supervisory support of their teachers;
- Determine and implement a capacity-building approach that builds reflection and technical expertise; and
- Collaborate to build a culture that strives toward continuous improvement, curiosity, and expertise.
PC20 | A Pathway to Continuous Improvement: Becoming a Learning System
The Standards for Professional Learning are foundational to ensuring our systems are learning systems. Learn that in learning systems, educators value adult learning as much as student learning, thrive through collaborative inquiry, and create conditions that foster high-quality teaching and learning for all. Explore the critical attributes of a learning system, how the Standards for Professional Learning guide learning systems to continuous improvement, the role of change theory, and how to develop a culture of collaborative inquiry.
Participants will
- Establish a personal vision of a learning system and a theory of change on how to move their own organization closer to becoming one; and
- Design strategies and approaches promoted in the Standards for Professional Learning to strengthen their leadership in leading learning systems.
PC21 | Leading for Rigorous Learning
Leaders affect the greatest number of people in a system, making them a potential catalyst for transformation. Explore leadership habits that ensure your students experience surface, deep, and transfer learning. Coach educators and teams to design rigorous learning, collect and analyze evidence of such learning, and respond with high-leverage actions that foster positive impact. Leave with a set of strategies to lead with and for rigorous teaching and learning for staff and students.
Participants will
- Draw connections among surface, deep, and transfer learning;
- Align surface, deep, and transfer levels of learning to high-yield instructional practices;
- Learn strategies for collecting and analyzing evidence of impact across levels of learning; and
- Develop leadership habits that will support rigorous instruction and strengthen learner agency.
