Learning Forward Conference

Learn how Pomperaug Regional School District 15 (CT) spearheaded the work of the Middlebury and Southbury Equity and Inclusion Council. Hear the story of how we involved multiple stakeholders and the action steps we took to ensure all feel welcome and included in the schools but also the two towns of Middlebury and Southbury. Explore a set of questions to consider as districts work together with their communities to reach people of all backgrounds.

Participants will:

• Understand how a school system and community engaged together to be inclusive for students and adults;
• Understand how staff and students can help ensure that schools are welcoming and inclusive;
• Understand what the community can do to support equity and inclusivity; and
• Receive a set of questions to consider when doing this work with schools and the community.

Focus on rigorous content for all learners, with a focal point on English Learners, English Language Development Standards, and equitable practices. Discuss various classroom activity ideas, to include oral activities, to engage all learners. Explore professional development presentation styles to connect to classroom-based activities.

Participants will:

• Collaborate on equitable, oral activities;
• Apply knowledge obtained about professional development presentation styles to their own professional development; and
• Begin to understand how to increase rigor in the classroom for all learners.

Explore the interactive Mathematics Lesson Planning Protocol (MLP^2) to support teacher candidates and/or practicing teachers in planning high-quality mathematics lessons. Consider how many teachers encounter planning pitfalls using resources that don’t promote understanding of mathematics concepts. Discuss how to use the protocol to develop teacher expertise in making informed instructional decisions. Access a structure for planning and coaching conversations.

Participants will:

• Understand how the Mathematics Lesson Planning Protocol (MLP^2) adds equity considerations to intentionally designed instruction;
• Understand that when mathematics is meaningful, all students have the opportunity to access the content;
• Know how to use the protocol and how it was developed; and
• Consider options for use of the protocol in their own work or with other educators.

Learn how portfolios are a means for authentic assessment of student learning, not merely a collection of learning tasks and a quick turnaround for implementation. Explore what portfolios are, how they empower students to demonstrate their learning over time, and how to bring about systemwide change and a paradigm shift across grades 6-12 concurrently.

Participants will:

• Understand what a portfolio is and isn’t;
• Identify underlying beliefs about student learning and assessment;
• Determine alternatives to common assessment challenges that leave students out of the design equation; and
• Develop a starting point for their own exploration of how this would work in a classroom, school, or district after hearing about the work one district is doing.

Explore useful tips and ideas for increasing educator retention in your district or campus. Discuss the role of ensuring early success for novice teachers and administrators as a critical component of increasing educator retention. Engage in dialogue and gain strategies for onboarding, mentoring, and growing educators.

Participants will:

• Use this theory of action to begin planning in their contexts: creating sustainable programs that support onboarding and induction for newly hired/appointed teachers and leaders will drastically impact the retention of educators beyond their first year in their respective roles;
• Identify the non-negotiables for an onboarding and mentoring program in their districts; and
• Use the BEST framework to create and design professional development for mentors and mentees that will empower and transform both sets of educators.

Consider that teacher professional learning programs are often measured using quantitative tools and metrics, and while this can gauge effectiveness, it often doesn’t capture the extent of change. Learn how to use evidence to build on specific practices that lead to changes in teacher practice. Explore the use of both qualitative and quantitative data to build a robust understanding of the effectiveness of professional learning to support future implementation.

Participants will:

• Acquire ways to use backward design principles to identify types of qualitative and quantitative data to collect and how to use this data to evaluate professional learning;
• Evaluate qualitative data to make sense of quantitative metrics; and
• Understand how developing teacher noticing practices and reflection can serve as a method of data collection.

Engage with professional learning designers, researchers, and leaders of an international school network in Qatar as they share their journey to evaluate the impact of professional learning. Discover how the team developed metrics based on theoretical frameworks to evaluate professional learning. Learn how they improved their system of evaluation to impact teacher efficacy, institutional support, and student outcomes.

Participants will:

• Understand the process the team went through to develop and contextualize their professional learning evaluation tools;
• Know how the team adapted tools to evaluate professional learning impact; and
• Understand how to improve professional learning evaluation to impact teacher efficacy, institutional support, and student outcomes.

Explore how principals are redesigning their leadership based on Standards for Professional Learning and the roles they play in leading learning of adults and students. Experience using the cycle of continuous improvement and designing adult learning based on the equity standards and the Culture of Collaborative Inquiry and Learning Designs standards. Examine the new standards from the role of the principal and leave with a plan of action to move forward with authentic implementation in our schools.

Participants will:

• Engage in understanding and using Standards for Professional Learning to increase your effectiveness;
• Explore the new standards with a focus on equity, learning designs, assessing progress, and leadership; and
• Develop a plan of action for implementing the standards with intentionality.

Engage in a discussion with instructional leaders from Goochland County Public Schools (VA) and the University of Richmond about their, and your, successes and challenges in creating and implementing authentic yet scholarly-informed coaching models. Learn how Goochland and UR have partnered to create organizational alignment (for teachers, school leaders, parents, and coaches) around a coaching program that is both organically grown and highly informed.

Participants will:

• Apply the work done by Goochland and the University of Richmond to their coaching teams to create better cohesion and a unified goal for instructional outcomes;
• Share their experiences in developing and implementing a coaching program in preK-12 schools; and
• Understand how to develop and leverage relationships with university partners.

Discuss how top-down directives often do not create the buy-in necessary to create institutional and classroom change, and that new initiatives are often met with reluctance, apathy, and sometimes flat-out refusal. Explore of framework of Inquire, Discover, Create, and Implement. Learn how one school’s inquiry-based framework empowered staff to identify student and professional needs, create measurable goals, and implement systems to impact change.

Participants will:

• Understand the process behind an inquiry-based framework to identify student and professional needs;
• Use the information through the process to create measurable goals;
• Implement systems to achieve impact based on the inquiry-based framework; and
• Envision how an inquiry-based framework could work at their own schools.

Discuss how it takes a village to support professionals. Explore how fostering mutually supportive relationships and networking with others help grow skills, confidence, and knowledge, allowing individuals to develop into better versions of themselves. Participate in a conversation about how feeling supported by empowering colleagues can lead to personal growth, professional opportunities, and sustainable success.

Participants will:

• Recognize and internalize ways to improve networking skills and strengthen professional connections;
• Analyze their current professional contacts for potential networks and support systems; and
• Map out a plan to strategically position network opportunities and sustainable professional and personal growth.

Learn about Learning Forward's Academy, a professional learning experience that offers educators an unmatched opportunity to profoundly deepen their expertise and increase their capacity to meet the challenges in the modern educational landscape. Hear from Academy coaches and members about how this 2 and ½-year inquiry-based learning experience has transformed their work.

Participants will:

• Learn about the Academy experience; and
• Hear about opportunities to expand their involvement Learning Forward.

Discuss how every educator can – and should – be an advocate for high-quality professional learning. Learn to make your case, tell your story, and win support. Explore advocacy strategies and tips that are applicable to any advocacy effort. Hear current updates on federal news and action. Join us to hone your skills, build confidence, and get excited about being an advocate.

Participants will:

• Understand tips and strategies for effective advocacy;
• Build confidence in participating in advocacy activities; and
• Keep up to date on federal Title II news.

Discuss the importance of a strong foundation of trust to ensure equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students. Experience the power of five trust-building practices alongside a continuous cycle of learning for instructional leaders. Walk away with successful strategies to sustain professional learning and improve student achievement.

Participants will:

• Gain five key trust-building practices;
• Understand self-reflective questions to support an informal inventory of current practices;
• Understand a cycle of continuous improvement to increase student achievement and ensure equitable opportunities and outcomes; and
• Review successful practices to implement to help all instructional leaders meet short and long-term goals.

Learn how the Center for Strategic Leadership partnered with Metro Nashville Public Schools to develop a residency program for aspiring school leaders to better equip them to sustain existing learning practices, systems, and cultures. Explore the benefits of professional partnerships to establish leadership pathways informed by data and district needs and discuss components of principal residencies to inform the development of job-embedded leadership pathways.

Participants will:

• Understand key components of a meaningful residency program;
• Explore creative partnership and funding opportunities; and
• Discuss opportunities for and barriers to residency programs for design in their school or district settings.

Participants will:

• Build understanding of the importance of student voice in teacher and staff learning;
• Apply a student voice professional learning planning tool to their specific context;
• Connect the use of diverse student voices to equitable professional learning experiences; and
• Reflect on ways in which student voice can increase teacher efficacy, retention, and equitable practices.

Discuss how, while heteronormativity is a pervasive culture within many schools in the United States, more inclusive curricula promotes less hostile and safer environments not only for students but also parents and the community. Focus on one aspect of creating a more inclusive curriculum. Explore how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) integrated curricula can create diversity in educational representation and allow students to flourish inside and outside the classroom.

Participants will:

• Understand the importance and impact of LGBTQIA integrated literacy across multiple disciplines;
• Increase awareness of the issue of LGBTQIA student and staff issues to increase campus safety;
• Build ability to access tools for policy change;
• Know how to use and integrate representative resources and curriculum;  
• Increase confidence in accessing LGBTQIA curriculum and resources to use in the classroom; and
• Increase awareness of the literature on this topic.

Explore the importance of alignment. Discuss how students learn and teachers thrive when high-quality instructional materials, effective teaching practices, and authentic assessments are deeply aligned. Engage with scenarios from the field and use a consultancy protocol to workshop instances of misalignment in your own settings in an effort to move toward deeper alignment.

Participants will:

• Know the importance of alignment between curriculum instruction and assessment;
• Explore scenarios from the field of misalignment; and
• Identify instances of misalignment from their own contexts.

Discuss the impact of educator attitudes, beliefs, and culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy on student achievement. Explore the latest research on the relationship between educator beliefs and student outcomes. Engage in a reflective discussion to identify asset-based approaches and dismantle deficit-based approaches to teaching students who may be culturally and linguistically different.

Participants will:

• Understand the need for culturally responsive attitudes and beliefs;
• Reflect on the need for educator confidence and efficacy when engaging culturally diverse learners; and
• Apply practical strategies for developing beliefs that are congruent with high expectations for diverse students.

Hear about a suburban district’s journey as they re-establish their Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework and refine practices to be more responsive in a post-COVID world. Explore how Minnetonka Schools (MN) builds on their legacy of high performance by striving for continuous improvement by establishing systemic MTSS processes and practices.

Participants will:

• Understand how to design a systemic model that meets five research-based criteria for an effective MTSS framework: Data-based decision making, multi-level instruction, fidelity and evaluation, infrastructure and support, and assessments;
• Understand Minnetonka's three-year implementation plan to shift understanding of the former RTI model to a comprehensive MTSS framework; and
• Understand how to use a data protocol to diagnose the health of their district's Tier 1 core instructional program.

Consider how andragogy and its original principles have long dominated discussion of educators’ learning needs, yet 21st-century adulthood is fundamentally different than adulthood was when the theory developed. Explore what it means to be and to become an adult today, leveraging knowledge from the field of human development to discuss updated perspectives on professional learning design, implementation, and evaluation.

Participants will:

• Know a brief history of major perspectives on adult development, adult learning, and andragogy;
• Discuss how future professional learning design should approach educators’ needs based on principles of human development and learning, knowing that many early career educators may feel caught between adolescence and adulthood;
• Determine how to update professional learning design, implementation, and evaluation based on the differences between adulthood in the 21st century and adulthood in the past; and
• Reflect on the distinct developmental needs of the typical early-career educator, exploring how more nuanced and human-centered design, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning may contribute to retention and growth for our least-experienced educators while also supporting the growth of all educators as lifelong learners.

Discuss how frequent, high-quality, asset-based feedback can result in increased trust and high achievement for all scholars. Learn how this process may create some discomfort at first but leaders overcome this reality by building trusting relationships. Hear about the critical role teacher/leadership coaching plays in helping educators overcome their disempowering mindsets, embrace new practices, and improve scholar outcomes.

Participants will:

• Understand how to engage faculty members in an ongoing dialogue about instructional practices and the effect that these practices have on student learning;
• Gain protocols that help teachers and leaders generate a shared definition of effective teaching and learning; and
• Acquire concrete strategies for supporting educators to make real-time instructional shifts based on data.

Participants will:

• Understand the impact of administrator feedback on teacher growth and student achievement;
• Know about different strategies and models for providing effective feedback to teachers;
• Understand key components of effective feedback and examples of best practices;
• Develop practical skills, tips, and tools to improve the quality of feedback given to teachers; and
• Know how to implement effective feedback strategies in their own schools or districts.

Participants will:

• Understand coaching strategies and skills to co-create conditions of trust and collaboration with teams;
• Know ways to authentically engage teams in conversations with different levels of data;
• Understand the benefits of using a data protocol that fosters collective teacher efficacy and promotes continuous improvement; and
• Reflect on how taking a coaching approach can shift teams from compliant data talks to empowered action that improves for outcomes for all students.

Unpack a case study on Educate LLC’s work with a school district in New York City that centers best practices for data-driven teacher leadership that fosters equity. Experience a process for equity-centered data analysis with a specific emphasis on driving outcomes for vulnerable populations. Engage processes that support data-based decision making with equity at the core and success for all as both the journey and the destination.

Participants will:

• Know how to foster inter-school collaboration to support districtwide initiatives around data-based capacity building;
• Know best practices for taking an equity-based approach toward engaging data in teacher teams; and
• Know how to engage collective responsibility through creating action plans that drive data-based instruction to improve student and educator outcomes.

Learn about Learning Forward's Academy, a professional learning experience that offers educators an unmatched opportunity to profoundly deepen their expertise and increase their capacity to meet the challenges in the modern educational landscape. Hear from Academy coaches and members about how this 2 and ½-year inquiry-based learning experience has transformed their work.

Participants will:

• Learn about the Academy experience; and
• Hear about opportunities to expand their involvement Learning Forward.

Learn how to shift traditional perspectives of observation from a process that happens to educators to a shared conversation between leaders and teachers. Explore how school leaders were able to translate an abstract teacher evaluation framework to a collaborative observation structure that improved classroom teaching and student outcomes. Analyze your own evaluation framework and identify opportunities for educators to co-create a culture of empathetic observation through professional learning.

Participants will:

• Understand traditional perspectives of evaluation and the role empathy plays in connecting or disconnecting teachers from the process;
• Learn from case studies from the School District of Philadelphia that tell the story of how leaders have approached changing the culture around observation and evaluation at the school level;
• Acquire impactful practices for beginning the work of re-defining observation in their educational settings; and
• Analyze their own evaluation frameworks and consider opportunities to foster an empathetic culture of observation and feedback.

Explore how leaders, staff, and stakeholders work together to drive implementation efforts through a statewide Virtual Professional Collaborative. Learn how this collaborative is addressing the unique challenges of virtual schools through coaching, professional development and data collection. Attend to gain awareness and experience how the Kansas Learning Network partnered with virtual schools and state department leaders across Kansas.

Participants will:

• Understand how Kansas Learning Network developed a statewide professional virtual collaborative through leadership, communication, collaboration, and data-based decision making;
• Understand how to meet student needs and address challenges/barriers through the use of statewide data, small group data, dialogue, and best practices during a common collaborative time; and 
• Understand the benefits of providing content through professional development from outside experts and using coaching practices to push thinking for participants virtually so educational professionals can come together to share, teach and learn from one another eliminating the barrier of distance.

Participate in a guided session that explores changes and challenges with classroom and school culture. Address issues you’re facing at your institution and discuss ideas or solutions with other educators. Engage with other educators to problem solve, share ideas, and explore ways to improve and impact classroom culture.

Participants will:

• Establish a compelling vision for professional learning;
• Sustain a coherent system of support; and
• Advocate for results-oriented, evidence-based professional learning.

Join Learning Forward and the U.S. Department of Education for a sneak peak of the new National Educational Technology Plan (anticipated winter 2024). Preview some of the plan’s findings and recommendations and discuss how educators might support the plan’s implementation. Consider your roles as system leaders, school leaders, and policymakers in laying the groundwork for taking up the plan’s recommendations. Find out what you need to know about this forthcoming critical document.

Participants will:

• Preview some findings of the new National Educational Technology Plan;
• Align findings to current needs in school districts and schools across the country; and
• Provide input to plan development team about how plan can be best supported in implementation.