Preconference Sessions

The intent of an effective coaching program is to create equity and excellence in both teaching and learning. For the program to influence positive results for students, a variety of conditions must be in place. Learn what these conditions are and how they impact learning for students as well as for teachers. Walk away with examples from the book Coaching Matters and practical tools from various districts, including sample documents defining the roles of coaches and the coach champion, job descriptions, agreements between coaches and others, and an assortment of sample protocols. Presenters will model virtual learning strategies to support the learning of teachers and coaches.

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.

This session will address the importance of transformational leadership. School culture provides the context for all good strategies. A transformational leader understands how to motivate, develop talent, and build consensus. Today’s era of constant change requires leaders who understand the development of human capital. We will examine four leadership competencies: communication, trust building, professional support, and accountability.

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.

Many states have developed standards focused on culturally responsive and sustaining education. Despite new standards and the popularity of culturally responsive instruction, there are too few instructional coaches trained to support teachers' ability to implement it fully. In this preconference session, we will cover the Ready for Rigor approach to culturally responsive instruction. We will look at coaching moves to help teachers go beyond superficial applications of culturally responsive pedagogy. In addition, participants will learn how a collaborative inquiry approach within a professional learning community can increase teacher effectiveness in the practice of culturally responsive instruction to help students accelerate their learning.

Teacher leadership is a powerful strategy for continuous improvement of teaching and learning to attain equity and excellence. It promotes collaborative cultures, equitable learning environments, teacher agency and credibility, improved decision-making, and a dynamic teaching force. When lead teachers take responsibility for what matters most, increased student learning, innovation and change occur. Using A Systemic Approach to Elevating Teacher Leadership (Killion et al., 2016) as a guide, we will explore steps to improve teacher leadership in your school and district.

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. 

Multilingual students present opportunities to make schools more inclusive and more equitable for all students. Discover how all educators in a school can learn more about students' diversity and bring multiple perspectives into the classroom through literacy and language-rich instruction that integrates students' backgrounds, assets, and needs. Analyze ways that school leaders can set the tone for equitable schooling that is culturally and linguistically responsible while also showcasing classroom-level outcomes collectively. Examine sample lessons and text sets.

The ability to examine the link between specific mathematics teaching practices and student learning requires that teachers build new understandings, skills, and mindsets. Engage in a coaching and professional learning process that increases teacher effectiveness through formative assessment of student learning aligned with mathematics curriculum standards and research-based instructional practices. Explore ways of using this process to help teachers come to know their students as mathematical thinkers and take concrete action toward equity in the math classroom. Plan for implementation of this lab approach in your own setting to empower teachers and students as mathematicians and improve mathematics achievement.

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.

Feedback is a core part of a continuous improvement process for educators. The usefulness of feedback among educators depends on its quality, the context in which it is provided, and the frame of mind of those engaged in the process. 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 employ it to promote increased educator effectiveness. 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.

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.

School leadership teams have the potential to positively impact their school community and develop collective leader efficacy as a team in the process. Collective leader efficacy develops when the leadership team works together, understands the complexities of working as a group, has confidence in each other’s ability to improve learning conditions for students, and develops the competence to do so. In this session, school leadership teams will learn the necessary driver, focus, contributor, preconditions, and practices to develop collective leader efficacy.

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.