Preconference (PCXXX)
PC01 | Assessing the Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning
Measuring the quality, effectiveness, and impact of professional learning requires thoughtful planning and implementation of an evaluation process. Explore an eight-step process for evaluating professional learning. See how to assess the evaluability of a program, formulate evaluation questions, and construct an evaluation framework that includes data sources, data collection methods, and data analysis. Learn to apply the process to create a plan for evaluating your own professional learning programs. Participants will receive a copy of Assessing Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning (Corwin/Learning Forward, 2018, 3rd ed.).
Participants will
- Define the steps of the evaluation process;
- Assess the evaluability of an existing professional learning program (outcomes defined as KASAB, standards of success, indicators of success, theory of change);
- Revise professional learning core components to increase evaluability, if needed; and
- Construct an evaluation framework (data sources, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, timeline) for your own professional learning program or a simulated one to answer the evaluation questions.
PC02 | 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 instructional materials and what that means for student and educator learning goals and agendas. Participants will receive a copy of Becoming a Learning Team (Learning Forward, 2018, 2nd ed.).
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.
PC03 | Coaching for Instructional Equity
Leverage the science of learning through a culturally responsive lens. Identify instructional practices that accelerate students’ ability to complete unfinished learning. Examine the teacher moves to become a stronger cognitive mediator and support productive struggle that grows student brainpower. Connect equity goals to improving the instructional core, and understand the role of instructional coaches in ensuring instruction leads to more equitable outcomes.
Participants will
- Identify instructional practices that accelerate students' ability to complete unfinished learning;
- Go beyond diversifying the curriculum and focus on decolonizing instruction in ways that leverage diverse students' collectivist learning practices;
- Articulate the teacher moves to become a stronger cognitive mediator and support productive struggle that grows student brainpower;
- Connect equity goals to improving the instructional core; and
- Understand the different roles instructional coaches need to play to ensure instruction leads to more equitable outcomes.
PC04 | Coaching Matters
Examine the essential characteristics of effective building-level instructional coaching programs, using a coaching framework to examine all aspects of the program. Explore ways to move coaching from a focus on teacher behaviors to a focus on student results. 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 and the role of the coach champion, and 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.
PC05 | Compassionate Coaching: Navigating Barriers to Professional Growth
Dive into a framework for compassionate coaching that helps coaches avoid the distractions, obstacles, and detours that can take educators off course. Examine the components of the three-phase coaching cycle tailored to each individual and understand the conditions for implementing them. Identify barriers that educators face and explore techniques to address them. Get ready to reimagine instructional coaching with compassion, with strategies to adjust coaching moves to meet educator needs.
Participants will
- Identify the coaching pathways of autonomy, belonging, and competence;
- Examine the components of the three-phase coaching cycle tailored to each individual and understand the conditions for implementing them;
- Identify compassionate coaching cocus areas for several barriers that educators face; and
- Explore techniques to address each barrier with the compassionate coaching focus area.
PC06 | Creating Equitable Environments Where (Most) Teachers Can Supervise Themselves
Examine your beliefs and experiences about written feedback, and use an Innovation Configuration map to assess your own feedback skills. Learn how to create an evaluation process that helps teachers see their practice clearly and develop a personalized plan for growth.
Participants will
- Examine your own beliefs and experiences about written feedback;
- Write and receive feedback about your written feedback; and
- Assess your feedback using an Innovation Configuration map.
PC07 | Curriculum-Based Professional Learning Transforms Teaching
Learn how to shift from traditional professional learning to curriculum-based 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
- Reflect on how the preconference experience aligns to The Elements and assess your approach to professional learning.
PC08 | Equity Isn’t Just a Word - It’s an Action
Learn about the antiracist professional learning series offered to principals in the Austin Independent School District at the height of the global health crisis and racial violence in the U.S. Engage with a community of learners to reflect on your personal influence as an educator. Create a plan of action to build personal and collective capacity to disrupt systemic inequity in your school and district.
Participants will
- Learn about the antiracist professional learning community created to support principals in crisis and uncertainty and consider your path toward critical love of your school and district;
- Use the essential elements of cultural proficiency for critical self-reflection on your personal bias, values, and beliefs, and the impacts on students in your care;
- Reflect on your personal influence as an educator and consider what co-creating identity-safe schools and classrooms for students might look, sound, and feel like; and
- Create a personal plan of action that includes a collective commitment with colleagues to change systems and practices that reproduce inequity in schools.
PC09 | Great Instructional Coaching
Explore the seven factors that lead to successful instructional coaching, based on 25 years of research. Learn coaching skills that can be used in professional practice immediately. Engage with other coaches to gain multiple perspectives and create an implementation plan to take back to your school or district. Leave with tools and forms you can use to ensure that coaching flourishes in your organization.
Participants will
- Learn research-based coaching skills that can be used in professional practice immediately;
- Discuss each strategy, principle, tool, or idea with other coaches to gain multiple perspectives on the learning that is shared; and
- Create an implementation plan to take back to your school or district.
Recommended book: https://instructional-coaching-group.myshopify.com/products/the-definitive-guide-to-instructional-coaching
PC10 | Leading From the Inside Out
Explore an approach to school improvement and innovation that works from the inside out, unleashing not only student curiosity, but teacher curiosity as well by creating a culture of collaborative inquiry. Discover the power of peer-to-peer coaching in triads for school improvement and identify next steps for implementing them in your school. Use evidence-based pathways to improvement to identify your school’s next step toward innovation and improvement and focus for your professional learning.
Participants will
- Understand and share with others the power of curiosity and how to cultivate it in teachers, leaders, and learners;
- Understand the differences between an inside-out, curiosity-driven approach to school improvement and an outside-in or top-down approach;
- Discover the power of peer-to-peer coaching in triads for school improvement, and identify next steps for implementing them in your school; and
- Use evidenced-based pathways to improvement to identify your own school's next step toward innovation and improvement and focus for your professional learning efforts.
PC11 | Leveraging Learning Systems to Create a Culture of High Expectations for All
Explore strategies for developing high-performing learning systems that build trusting relationships, raise expectations for students and staff, and engage all in a cycle of continuous improvement. Examine ways to design learning that best meets the needs of adults and deepens student learning. Learn how to remove barriers that often prevent students from having meaningful learning experiences. Leave with tools that will strengthen your leadership.
Participants will
- Understand and define a system of learning that results in changes in adult practices;
- Develop skill in building trusting relationships; and
- Exit with clear strategies and learning designs that facilitate teams moving through a cycle of continuous improvement.
PC12 | Reimagine Teacher Leadership
Explore steps to improve teacher leadership in your school or district using A Systemic Approach to Elevating Teacher Leadership (Killion et al., 2016) as a guide. Learn how teacher leadership promotes collaborative cultures, equitable learning environments, teacher agency and credibility, improved decision-making, and a dynamic teaching force. Plan how to monitor and evaluate teacher leadership and apply what you’ve learned in your school or district.
Participants will
- Explore definitions of teacher leadership, equity, and excellence;
- Understand the purpose, benefits, and desired outcomes for advancing teacher leadership in schools and school systems;
- Integrate elements of Standards for Professional Learning into the daily work of teacher leaders;
- Plan how to monitor and evaluate teacher leadership;
- Identify the essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teacher leaders;
- Apply the new knowledge about teacher leadership in your school or district; and
- Learn with, from, and on behalf of one another.
PC13 | Reimagining Leading and Coaching for Everyone’s Well-Being
Develop knowledge, insights, and skills related to the well-being needs of students, staff, and yourself in a volatile world. Reimagine how to engage with practical well-being strategies not usually considered in social and emotional learning practices, such as learning outdoors, developing ethical guidelines for technology use, and addressing controversial issues through the curriculum. Leave with an ability to lead deep educator reflection about issues such as how well-being is part of learning and how emotions like anger and disgust shouldn’t just be managed but reimagined in terms of their positive value for changing the world.
Participants will
- Deepen your knowledge of social and emotional learning and well-being;
- Reimagine how to engage with practical well-being strategies not usually considered in SEL practices, such as learning outdoors, developing ethical guidelines for technology use, and addressing controversial issues through the curriculum; and
- Leave with an ability to lead deep educator reflection about issues such as how well-being is part of learning, not an add-on to or offset for it; about how well-being is a sociological as well as a psychological responsibility; and about how so-called negative emotions like anger and disgust shouldn’t just be managed but should sometimes be reimagined in terms of their positive value for changing the world.
PC14 | Reimagining School Leadership: Understanding Adult Resistance to Change
Reimagine a style of leadership designed to address resistance to change while simultaneously supporting staff members. Explore ways to assemble a collective leadership approach that addresses both logical and illogical forms of resistance to change. Learn to use transformational leadership approaches that support staff and hold them accountable to change.
Participants will
- Learn how to assemble a collective leadership approach designed to address both logical and illogical forms of resistance to change;
- Learn how to use transformational leadership approaches to support and professionally and ethically hold staff accountable to change;
- Explore how transformational leadership contributes to a healthy school culture; and
- See how coupling support and accountability is a necessary combination for promoting necessary changes.
PC15 | Reimagining the Way We Plan and Evaluate Professional Learning
Explore factors that contribute to the effectiveness of professional learning and the levels of evidence most crucial to planning, implementation, and 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.
Participants will
- Explore the criteria for determining the effectiveness of professional learning;
- Learn how to use levels of evidence to design and implement more effective professional learning; and
- Understand how to gather crucial evidence on effects and present that evaluation evidence in meaningful ways.
PC16 | Sit & Get Won't Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Adult Brain
Gain an understanding of why it can be so difficult for adults to change their behavior. Explore techniques that result in sustained changes in adult behavior. Plan your next professional learning experience using an original template provided and incorporating some of the 20 brain-based strategies that take advantage of the ways all adult and student brains learn best.
Participants will
- Ascertain why it can be so difficult for adults to change their behavior and determine the order of that change when asking adults to implement new behaviors;
- Examine six principles of adult learning theory that should be considered when interacting with faculty and staff and implementing professional learning communities;
- Experience 10 characteristics of quality professional learning that should be applied when implementing professional learning;
- Acquire facts about the adult brain as it relates to working with faculty and staff and planning and implementing quality professional learning; and
- Plan your next professional learning experience using an original template provided and incorporating some of the 20 brain-based strategies that take advantage of the ways all adult and student brains learn best.
PC17 | Standards for Professional Learning 2022
Dig deep into the 2022 edition of Standards for Professional Learning, focusing on how the standards support high-quality professional learning. Use tools and resources to examine standards concepts such as guiding assumptions, equity, curriculum, assessment, instruction, and professional expertise. Engage in collaborative learning to apply these concepts to your role, responsibilities, and professional context.
Participants will
- Gain a deep understanding of the content and structure of Standards for Professional Learning;
- Apply the concepts in the standards to your own roles, responsibilities, and contexts by engaging in interactive and collaborative activities; and
- Determine which strategies, resources, and tools can support your individual and collaborative professional learning growth and development.
PC18 | Stretching at Your Collaborative Edges
Learn how to develop yourself as an educator and as a human being so that you can become a bigger and better version of yourself as a team member and a leader. Explore five ways to stretch at your learning edges to develop yourself to be an even more effective collaborative team member committed to educator effectiveness and continuous improvement. Leave with strategies and tools to bring back to your teams to develop your professional learning culture.
Participants will
- Know yourself and your identity;
- Suspend your certainty and think with greater complexity and openness;
- Take increased responsibility for your language and communications;
- Engage with reciprocity and live out loud your belief of mutual respect for all;
- Build your resiliency and work on your emotional health; and
- Leave with strategies and tools to bring back to your teams to develop your professional learning culture.
PC19 | Teacher Clarity for High Expectations and Accelerated Learning
Identify the components of teacher clarity, which requires that teachers understand what students need to learn, communicate learning intentions to students, develop with students an understanding of success criteria, deliver lessons in relevant and engaging ways, and ensure that assessment drives instruction. Examine methods for promoting teacher clarity, assessing student knowledge, and fostering ownership in learning. Understand how high expectations are infused in every instructional decision.
Participants will
- Identify the components of teacher clarity;
- Describe meaningful learning experiences for students to reach high expectations; and
- Learn about the alignment of curricular expectations, instruction, and informative assessment.
