The world of education is buzzing with topics such as tinkering, project-based learning, maker spaces, personalized learning, and design thinking. All of these have a place and a purpose, but not in the absence of academic rigor and instructional expertise. In this session, teachers and leaders will examine practices which focus on high-quality instruction, a strong academic core, and the skills that matter most for today's students. Participants will explore structures where learning is the focus and drives the intentional use of tinkering, project based learning, maker spaces, personalized learning, and design thinking. Environments can come alive with critical thinking, real-world applications to solving problems, and curiosity that is encouraged through creativity and innovation.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
This talk explores a socially, culturally, and digitally relevant model of literacy education that draws upon multicultural literature, contemporary events, and youth popular culture to inspire students as social actors, while also developing powerful readers, writers, speakers, and users of emergent digital technologies.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
The formative assessment process can double the rate of student learning, especially for those students who are most behind. Implementing consistent classroom practices of student self- and peer-assessment, developing systems for ongoing feedback, and promoting student voice in tasks and assessments will support students in making meaning, participating and contributing, and managing their own learning.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
How do we ensure that 100% of our students are prepared the demands of higher learning and the workforce? This session will highlight effective practices that support equity as we prepare students for success in high school, college, career and beyond. You will obtain tools that allow you to help students link their personal interests to career opportunities and see the connection this has to their current study and higher education. Learn how to build integrated career pathways where students master content core while developing career preparedness skills.
We all want students to find fulfilling careers that pay a living wage, and there are a number of things we can do to prepare them for this throughout their educational journey. In this session, we will discuss strategies to help students find what they like, what they are good at, what the world needs, and what they can get paid to do. These approaches can be applied at the classroom, district, or regional level, as we work together to help all students discover and pursue their ikigai, or purpose.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
This session will outline a model for introducing innovative, relationship-based strategies into the school system. We will highlight five programs that have created systemic school change while improving school climate and culture, all accomplished by developing productive and restorative stakeholder relationships. Our model aims to facilitate the planning and evaluation of both academic and social-emotional activities and initiatives.
Audience: Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Learn about the California Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework as defined within the Scale-Up MTSS Statewide (SUMS) Initiative. The session will look at the difference between Response to Instruction and Intervention and MTSS and introduce the domains of the state MTSS Framework and the Tiered Intervention Matrix. It will also introduce Universal Design for Learning as a critical component of the framework and the state standards.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Facilitated by specialists from the Center for Research on Equity and innovation at HTH Graduate School of Education, participants will use improvement science tools and methodologies to reflect on current practices, strengths, and needs of their organization in order to understand root causes. Participants will walk away with a plan to begin transforming their system into one that is equitable for staff and students.
Participants will learn how Fresno Unified has used rapid innovation techniques to advance active student voice in career readiness. They will also learn how the work has evolved to other district teams and departments, such as campus culture and how synthesis of the work is progressing to prevent silos. Student solutions will be highlighted with first-person accounts from students on how cultivation of their voice has increased their agency.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Learn how to apply research-based, instructional writing practices in K-12 disciplinary language and literacy contexts. Participants will discuss how to improve content learning through integrating purposeful reading, writing, and academic oral language.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
In teaching an interdisciplinary unit with a theme that is centered on the world of the student (social justice), teachers create a bridge between the world of academia and the reality of the student. Students can embark on an experience that provides an opportunity for them to engage in a more relevant and less fragmented experience where they begin to understand that all disciplines intertwine to create knowledge that serves them in their world. A true interdisciplinary unit goes beyond a mere humanities class. Multiple disciplines (math, English, history, science, art, and technology) are needed to create a curriculum that identifies the correlations between disciplines, but reveals how it is not possible to fully understand one’s world without recognizing all disciplines as equally important.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators
Despite the fact that research clearly shows that access to books and voracious pleasure reading are the only way to become proficient and advanced readers, many schools actually spend little to nothing on these components when compared to other expenses in their literacy budget. This presentation will combine telling statistics, personal anecdotes, and provocative questions to challenge the audience to re-examine their literacy priorities and budget their financial resources accordingly.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
If we really want to create learning environments in our schools where all learners are valued and seen as capable of achieving desired outcomes, we have to begin with the belief that they can. But to cultivate this belief, we must start with understanding ourselves. In this session, we will use the design thinking process to explore our own identities and the unique lenses we apply to our environments. Then, we will unpack four academic mindsets for deeper learning (from Dr. Camille Farrington’s work at the University of Chicago) and leverage our collective voices to ideate about how to cultivate academic mindsets for deeper learning in our schools and classrooms.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
This presentation will share the story of a principal's leadership journey with her school and the learning path she decided to take to ensure equity and excellence for students, teachers, staff, and families. She will share how she built trusting relationships and systems that changed the school's mindset and culture, and then allowed inclusive settings to thrive and ensured agency for all stakeholders, especially students.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
This session will describe an innovative process to ensure student and community voice in the development of the district LCAP. Sweetwater Union High School District will provide background on the first ever State of the District event, which included showcases, performances, alumni guest speakers, and school discussions facilitated by students. This event was a chance for our community to gather to see what schools are doing and to actively participate in the district’s vision for each student. Participants will understand the techniques used to train school leaders and their students using a protocol that engaged each school community in a discussion around our four LCAP goals.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Explore the College Board’s resources and services to prepare students for a successful transition to college using the SAT Suite of Assessments (SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, PSAT 10 and PSAT 8/9), K-12 Integrated Data Portal, and AP Potential and Instructional Planning Reports to close achievement gaps. Dive into the College Board/Khan Academy Official SAT® Practice partnership by experiencing personalized instruction and practice to help students fill their knowledge gaps and take a journey on connecting low-income and minority students to scholarships, college credit, college admissions applications, and assessment fee waivers.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Learn about equitable practices that support all students in achieving a deeper understanding of mathematics. Design a plan for your classroom, school, or district that avoids deficit labeling, supports effective grouping structures, and ensures each and every student has access to high-level mathematics tasks.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Elementary Administrators, District Office Leaders
This discussion will center on an historical look at the educational experiences of Black and Latino males, review constructs and theories of social and cultural capital and show how implementing targeted interventions, such as conferences and symposiums, can improve the engagement and educational outcomes of these historically underserved groups.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators
A teacher’s dream is to have a collaborative, organized system providing all students access to relevant, rigorous curriculum. We have bridged the dream with the practical. In this presentation, we offer our approach to keep the pioneering spirit alive for educators and students, sharing how we use tech tools to ensure all students ― regardless of teacher or level ― participate in the best possible education. We will also showcase the byproduct of this planning system: a school-wide initiative called “The Genius Project.” Digital planbooks, lockstep lesson planning, and virtual collaboration are at the heart of our professional learning model, which is changing the classroom experience.
Audience: High School Teacher, High School Administrators
With ever-increasing options, integrating technology into instruction can seem overwhelming. Join us for an interactive session to learn easy and innovative ways to engage students (and staff) and facilitate learning through technology. We will share a Systems Leadership Framework and explain how technology connects throughout the framework, supporting your ability to lead various initiatives within your system. We will discuss how technology can be used to facilitate learning, engagement, and differentiation to increase equity and access for all students. Lastly, we will address finding the balance between using screen time and face-to-face interaction to continue to develop communities of learners.
Please note that this session is interactive and a device is suggested for full participation.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, Elementary Administrators
Human relationships are the driver for student learning, the intrinsic motivator that students need in an increasingly self-motivated-learning world. Dr. James Comer of Yale University said, “No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.” In this workshop, participants will explore the issues and factors that foster the most important feature of high-quality afterschool programs: positive relationships. We will address the importance of developing staff members who build supportive relationships in afterschool programs. Specifically, participants will gain a greater understanding of what it is about afterschool staff members that leads to significant relationships, which is important in supporting our students’ success in school and life.
Audience: Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Facilitated by specialists from the Center for Research on Equity and innovation at HTH Graduate School of Education, participants will use improvement science tools and methodologies to reflect on current practices, strengths, and needs of their organization in order to understand root causes. Participants will walk away with a plan to begin transforming their system into one that is equitable for staff and students.
If we really want to create learning environments in our schools where all learners are valued and seen as capable of achieving desired outcomes, we have to begin with the belief that they can. But to cultivate this belief, we must start with understanding ourselves. In this session, we will use the design thinking process to explore our own identities and the unique lenses we apply to our environments. Then, we will unpack four academic mindsets for deeper learning (from Dr. Camille Farrington’s work at the University of Chicago) and leverage our collective voices to ideate about how to cultivate academic mindsets for deeper learning in our schools and classrooms
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
The Data Dashboard is a tool to reveal essential milestones for student language development in any target language. This county office developed-model demonstrates the power of visually analyzing student progress. In this session, administrators and teachers will discover critical tools for mining their own local data and improving their students' academic and linguistic outcomes.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
In schools that achieve multiple evidences of equitable and excellent learning results, we have found that leaders exhibit specific mindsets that influence school culture, teaching, and learning. This session will describe both the challenges leaders face as they seek to pursue equity and the mindsets of leaders who successfully overcome those challenges.
Audience: Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
This session will share the stories of statewide, award-winning school counseling programs that have improved equity, access, and outcomes for all students. These innovative school counseling programs use evidenced-based practices aligned with the American School Counselor Association national model. School counselors in these districts have aligned their programs to the Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), to create multi-tiered, multi-domained systems of support. School counselors ensure all students receive core instructional curriculum and data driven interventions in the domain areas: academic, college/career, and social emotional development. This session will share best practices in K-12 settings.
Audience: Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
It has been wonderful to see a growing acceptance of student-centered learning, where the student is welcomed to pursue any course of inquiry while at school. In a sense, this is the beginning or the revival of academic freedom for our students. Teachers can now say to students “What matters to you, matters!” Yet educational alienation persists and the infinite personal interests and loves our students still have little or no place at school. Participates will gain concreate methods that provide students with learning opportunities that value everyone.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Elementary Counselor, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Elementary Administrators, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Mt. Carmel has spent four years reorganizing and reformatting how students and teachers engage in the process of learning. Participants will understand how agency – developed first in the adults at Mt. Carmel – helped build pathways to achievement for our students through relationships, mindsets, and innovations. We will explore our four-year process of developing and implementing our purpose statement, “Crafting the Student Experience.” We will look at how this purpose statement has generated a number of questions about our practice and how the pursuit of answering these questions has helped us uncover many answers to some of our challenges. The session includes how to improve data markers for A-G completion, attendance, discipline, and a kind and caring culture.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, District Office Leaders
Participants will learn about the young Latino male and his rite of educational passage. This includes the critical importance of answering the three core questions connected to success in education for Latino males: Who am I? Where am I going? How will I get there? Session topics will cover a demographic portrait of the Latino male; the current condition of education for Latino males; why so many are failing in school; how to empower Latino male students; developing a local blueprint for community action including student achievement, student engagement, college recruitment, retention, graduation, student service leadership models; school and college climates; and Latino father engagement. Personal student testimonials are included.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
As a teacher at a Title I school, the presenter understands the importance of differentiating lessons for all learners in the heterogeneous classroom. Technology fosters equity in the classroom to further prepare students with 21st century skills, and to be college- and career-ready. This approach to teaching includes English language development, special education, and gifted students. By attending this session, educators will learn through action research data and results, how to support students’ needs using one-to-one classroom technology through video production. Teachers will walk away with engaging strategies to support culturally relevant lessons and promote equity for all students.
Audience: Elementary Teacher, Middle Teacher, High School Teacher
Facilitated by specialists from the Center for Research on Equity and innovation at HTH Graduate School of Education, participants will use improvement science tools and methodologies to reflect on current practices, strengths, and needs of their organization in order to understand root causes. Participants will walk away with a plan to begin transforming their system into one that is equitable for staff and students.
Participants will learn about San Marcos High School's Quest Academy, an innovative cohort model program for incoming 9th-grade students that focuses on increasing academic achievement, student agency, and student voice. Participants will learn about the history of the program, recruitment efforts, curriculum, and sustainability efforts.
Audience: Middle Teacher, High School Teacher, Middle School Counselor, High School Counselor, Middle School Administrators, High School Administrators, Superintendent, District Office Leaders
Leaders are inundated with a constant stream of information about new initiatives, new networks, new programs, new organizations to connect with, new ideas about the school experience – the list is endless. Leadership in education is complex and more important than ever. Leaders must narrow the focus and lead for radical change to dramatically impact the school experience for children.
Audience: Elementary, Middle, and High School Administrators, Superintendents, and District Office
Special Services at Sweetwater Union High School District offers student and parent outreach meetings regarding topics such as self-advocacy, communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making as students develop independence and gain a sense of agency. The most well-attended and successful meetings include a student panel with firsthand experience in a specific topic, such as employment or college. In addition, parent panels have provided guidance to others going through challenging phases with their own students. Participants will see a video, hear a panel, and receive specific steps on how to incorporate peer panels as an effective outreach to build relationships with their surrounding community and to influence positive change.
Audience: High School Administrators, District Office Leaders
