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Our one-day Pre-Conference Institutes will be held on Friday, March 13, 2020, in Los Angeles, California. They will run 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Discounted combination registration rates are available for all one-day Pre-Conference Institutes with Empower20.
Click the register button under each institute to register for that institute. See the registration information page for pricing and to register for both the conference and an institute.
Presenters: Kristina Doubet and Eric Carbaugh, James Madison University
This institute will equip educators to design, implement, and differentiate authentic performance-based assessments and project-based learning experiences. Aimed at the growing number of educators seeking to engage all students in active and relevant learning, this institute will provide practical design tools, instructional strategies, and examples from across all grade levels and subject areas. Using their forthcoming book (McTighe, Doubet, & Carbaugh, 2020) as a resource, the presenters will facilitate an active institute designed to help students attain deeper learning and transfer and assist teachers in transforming their classrooms into vibrant centers of learning.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will learn to
Materials Fee: N/A
Registration Code: PD20PC004
Discounted combination rates with Empower20 are also available. Learn more
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Presenters: Margaret Searle and Marilyn Swartz, Searle Enterprises, Inc.
Positive psychology says we tend to get more of things to which we pay attention. So why do we spend so much time focusing on student problems? Would we get better results if we spent that time discussing what works and what we need more of? In this session we will walk you through the five best techniques that generate better use of team time and more support for students with academic and mental health needs while building the capacity of staff and parents to meet students' increasingly complex needs.
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Causes and Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems by Margaret Searle
Registration Code: PD20PC005
Presenter: Jessica Sprick, Safe & Civil Schools
For students to be successful in school, they need to actually be in school. For students who have at-risk factors related to academic difficulties, disability, socioeconomic status, experiences of trauma, or other factors, regular attendance is even more crucial to ensure equitable opportunities and access to needed services and interventions. This institute will provide practical solutions that can make a dramatic difference in attendance for all students in your school. Using a multitiered approach, participants will learn proactive and positive ways to prevent the vast majority of absenteeism problems, as well as efficient strategies within a multitiered model for intervening with students with more resistant absenteeism challenges.
Participants will
Materials Fee: $28.00 for School Leader's Guide to Tackling Attendance Challenges by Jessica Sprick and Randy Sprick
Registration Code: PD20PC006
Presenters: Kelisa Wing, Department of Defense Education Activity; Casey Bethel, Georgia Department of Education; Tate Aldrich, El Dorado (Ark.) School District
At Empower19, we discussed disparate systems and using student engagement as a way to dismantle them. This year, we will continue the conversation in order to deepen participants' understanding about the school-to-prison pipeline. We will do this by facing our identity and recognizing the role that identity plays in implicit and explicit bias. We will then trace and connect the role of equity in this work and its importance in giving all students opportunities for success. Finally, we will replace our traditional disciplinary practices with restorative justice so that we can shift from the school-to-prison pipeline to a school-to-success pipeline.
Registration Code: PD20PC007
Presenters: Bena Kallick, Institute for Habits of Mind; Yvette Jackson, National Urban Alliance; Allison Zmuda, Learning Personalized
All students have an innate desire for engagement, challenge, developing strengths, belonging, and feeling valued. Through personalized learning, we create a clear understanding of how to create an inclusive culture in which all students are invited to participate in skill building; experiential learning; and developing the dispositions needed in school, in the workplace, and in life. It is a process in which their cultural frames of reference are infused into the culture of a school by hearing and responding to their voice, co-creating their learning paths, providing opportunities to deepen their learning through rich experiences and providing opportunities for them to discover who they are and who they aspire to be.
Participants will learn how to
Materials Fee: $20.00 for Cultivating Habits of Mind (Quick Reference Guide) by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick and Personalizing Learning in Your Classroom (Quick Reference Guide) by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick
Registration Code: PD20PC008
Presenter: Mike Anderson, Mike Anderson Consulting
All educators have the best intentions when it comes to working with children. We want students to be curious, collaborative, and kind. We want them to be self-motivated and feel and sense of purpose about their school work. We want them to engage in positive behaviors and to do so for the right reasons. Yet we all end up talking with students in ways that don't align with these positive goals. For example, even though we want students to feel ownership of their work, we use language such as "Here's the next thing you're going to do for me," emphasizing teacher ownership. We want to create safe and supportive communities of learners, yet we slide into sarcasm when frustrated. In this active, interactive, and lively institute, you'll dig into the subtle nuances of how what we say (and how we say it) can have such a profound effect on student learning and behavior. You'll also gain many practical strategies and resources that will help you support great student learning and behavior.
Materials Fee: $22.00 for What We Say and How We Say It Matter: Teacher Talk That Improves Student Learning and Behavior by Mike Anderson
Registration Code: PD20PC009
Presenters: Thomas Guskey, University of Kentucky; Susan Brookhart, Brookhart Enterprises, LLC
This institute will explore what we know from established research about effective grading and reporting policies and practices. Keeping in mind the many practical challenges teachers face, we will review the importance of fairness and honesty in grading and describe ways to ensure meaningful communication between teachers, students, and families. Procedures for implementing new reporting structures, including standards-based grading, will be highlighted, together with policies and practices that should be avoided because of their negative consequences for students, teachers, and schools.
Materials Fee: $24.00 for What We Know About Grading: What Works, What Doesn't, and What's Next edited by Thomas R. Guskey and Susan M. Brookhart
Registration Code: PD20PC010
Presenters: Alyssa Gallagher, InProgress Consulting; Kami Thordarson, Campbell (Calif.) Union School District
Are you ready to approach leading your school with more empathy, creativity, and fun? Want to learn how to embrace design thinking, solve wicked problems, and lead more like a designer? Learning how to embrace design thinking will forever change how you lead and how you create solutions to problems in schools. This institute will be a full-day journey of action and exploration into the world of empathy, creativity, and design thinking. You will experience the entire design thinking process as we tackle solving a wicked problem in education together. You'll leave with knowledge, templates, and an action plan for using design thinking in your school or district. This institute is designed for teams who are ready to solve problems grounded in empathy to create sustainable and scalable solutions. Each participant or team will leave with an idea ready to be implemented at the end of the day. Bring a team and build a big idea or come alone and build a spark to be ignited back in your community.
Registration Code: PD20PC011
Presenters: Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele, Millersville University
This one-day institute will focus on ways to support student engagement and higher-order thinking during classroom instruction and supervision. It is designed for individuals seeking to improve their practice as well as school teams seeking to collaborate on increasing student engagement and achievement.
Materials Fee: $34.00 for Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner, 2nd Edition and Total Participation Techniques to Engage Students (Quick Reference Guide), both by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele
Registration Code: PD20PC012
Presenter: Bryan Goodwin, McREL International
If you were to ask 100 doctors to describe how the circulatory system works, you'd likely hear the same detailed answer. Yet if you were to ask 100 teachers how learning works—how new information is processed by the brain and turned into long-term memory—you'd likely hear a variety of vague answers. Consider that for a moment: Something as crucial to teaching as how learning actually works remains a mystery for many teachers and seldom guides efforts to improve student learning. In this hands-on interactive session, you will develop a deeper understanding of the science of learning, including how curiosity fuels deep learning and memory, and how to apply this understanding in your classroom. Learn a simple model for instructional design and classroom shifts—aligned with brain science—you can use to engage and challenge students at all levels, including project-based learning and authentic assessments. Receive practical materials and tools to apply these principles in classrooms to help students maximize learning and unleash their curiosity.
Registration Code: PD20PC013
Presenters: Jill Harrison Berg, Jill Harrison Berg Consulting; Renee McCall, Boston Public Schools
At the center of instructional, social, and relational interactions between teachers and students is trust that can either produce or inhibit achievement. It is the cohesive glue that allows for a shift in the mindsets of teachers and students from merely complying with policies, procedures, and initiatives to fully committing to them with optimism and consistency. Teachers, principals, students, and families all bring specialized expertise and important perspectives to this work. The challenge is creating a culture and structure that empowers all to push for improvement in ways that accelerate their effect and are in sync. To ensure each student is able to succeed, our schools must become learning organizations in which all stakeholders share ownership for making changes needed to close the gap. Together, we will examine research on organizational learning and explore examples of key instructional improvement routines in practice in an urban high school, such as instructional rounds, so that participants will leave this institute able to use provided resources to design and adapt routines for their own context.
Materials Fee: $24.00 for Leading in Sync: Teacher Leaders and Principals Working Together for Student Learning edited by Jill Harrison Berg
Registration Code: PD20PC014
Presenter: Donna Wilson, BrainSmart, Inc.
Combining growth mindsets with effective learning strategies is a proven formula for increasing student achievement. In this interactive institute, you'll experience the exhilaration of learning powerful, proven principles for cultivating growth mindsets and learning skills within all students. You will explore the characteristics of fixed and growth mindsets and take a short assessment to examine your own mindset. The presenter will show participants how to use the Assumptions, Behavior, and Consequences (ABC) model to reflect on the effect of each mindset. Participants will discover seven principles for cultivating growth mindsets in the classroom while also gaining an understanding of how neural plasticity provides a scientific foundation for growth mindsets. In addition, participants will learn 20 strategies to enhance opportunities for all students to experience learning success, including those who face learning challenges. You will leave knowing how to support students to be more optimistic and resilient when learning and to set high expectations and growth goals; create learning environments that support focused energy, active engagement, and positive relationships; craft lessons that allow students to learn by using the brain's multiple pathways; and provide students with feedback that supports high motivation and builds growth mindsets.
Registration Code: PD20PC015
Presenters: Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Curriculum21; Marie Hubley Alcock, Learning Systems Associates; Prakash Nair, Fielding Nair International
How can we design learning spaces to support and engage modern students? Educators worldwide are creating remarkable learning enviroments in schools. Whether you are considing purchasing new forms of furniture, repurposing existing spaces, or creating totally new types of schools, join us for an exciting day of creativity and substance. We will explore a wide array of physical spaces and architecural plans with real examples and stunning photographs of new building designs, blueprints, and furniture design, including makerspaces, new library and media repurposing, and outdoor facilities. Most important, our focus will be on how these spaces are the nest for rich curriculum planning and personalized inquiry. Recognizing the range of budget considerations that exist in our schools, we will propose next steps and actions to assist you in shaping your building- or district-based planning needs.
Participants, part of our innovation design team for the day, will
Materials Fee: $25.00 for Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments by Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Marie Hubley Alcock
Registration Code: PD20PC016
Presenter: Robyn Jackson, Mindsteps, Inc.
One of the biggest challenges school leaders face is giving teachers meaningful feedback they actually welcome and can immediately apply to their practice. Unfortunately, in practice, feedback conversations don't always go that way. In this highly interactive institute, learn the sneaky reasons so much of our feedback fails to have any effect and discover the powerful feedback formula you can use to help teachers not only appreciate your feedback, but actually put it into practice. You'll not only learn these techniques, but you'll actually get to practice them through a powerful process called "microslicing." Plus, take away four Feedback Conversational Frameworks you can use with your own teachers.
School leaders will
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Never Underestimate Your Teachers: Instructional Leadership for Excellence in Every Classroom by Robyn R. Jackson
Registration Code: PD20PC017
Presenter: Martha Kaufeldt, Begin with the Brain
In this institute, participants will explore the neurobiology of stress and childhood trauma and the potential effects on the mind, body, and learning brain. By understanding how the brain responds to perceived threats and excessive pressure, educators can design their classrooms and instruction with the brain in mind. It's not possible to eliminate student stress completely, but we can help students learn to recognize it, avoid it when possible, and manage it when it's unavoidable. Participants will gain dozens of strategies to help them create a trauma-sensitive, brain-friendly environment. These common-sense modifications to classroom management, cooperative group learning, and even classroom arrangement will help all students thrive in school, not just survive their experience. By integrating evidence-based mindfulness practices into the daily agenda, teachers can help students learn stress-reduction and calming techniques. Managing stress is an important life skill!
Materials Fee: $20.00 for The Motivated Brain: Improving Student Attention, Engagement, and Perseverance by Gayle Gregory and Martha Kaufeldt
Registration Code: PD20PC018
Presenter: Monica Neagoy, Education Consultant
No area of mathematics is as mathematically rich, cognitively complicated, and difficult to teach and learn as fractions and ratios. Many teachers admit being anxious about and not proficient in teaching fractions. Despite the national efforts to teach mathematics with understanding, fraction instruction remains notorious for its rules, formulas, and procedures, all arbitrary and devoid of meaning. For many students, the advent of fractions marks the beginning of the end of their love for math. This reality has enormous consequences because fractions are the foundation to a series of skills learned in middle and high school: rates, percentages, proportions, rational numbers, proportional relations, and rational functions. This institute will offers teachers, coaches, and teacher educators the theory and practice behind effective teaching and learning of fractions with understanding.
Materials Fee: $13.00 for Unpacking Fractions: Classroom-Tested Strategies to Build Students' Mathematical Understanding by Monica Neagoy
Registration Code: PD20PC019
Presenters: Debbie Zacarian, Zacarian & Associates; Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz, Education Consultant
Half of the total student population in the United States have experienced or are experiencing one or more types of serious childhood trauma (National Survey of Children's Health). Although much has been written for counselors and therapists about using a therapeutic approach with such students, there are few resources about teaching this population of learners. Further, when we learn that our students have experienced significant adversity, we often perceive them as having deficits that need remedying. Instead of looking at what is "broken" in the lives of these students, participants will explore scientifically based teaching and leadership practices that focus on seeing, acknowledging, and capitalizing on the many assets these students and their families bring with them. Join us for an interactive institute to explore instructional strategies for creating a strengths-based classroom environment, implementing it schoolwide, and expanding it to work with families.
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress by Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz, and Judie Haynes
Registration Code: PD20PC020
Presenters: Kathy Perret, Kathy Perret Consulting; Kenny McKee, Buncombe County (N.C.) Schools
Educators often face internal and external barriers. These persistent challenges differ for each educator. Some grapple with a lack of confidence, a fear of failure, or a sense of overload. Others may find themselves working in toxic cultures or feel a sense of isolation in their school setting. Instructional coaches can effect lasting change; yet, they often feel ill-equipped to support shifts in educators' practices, especially when faced with challenging circumstances. Coaching strategies can be can be personalized for individual teachers depending on their specific barriers and used guide them through the instructional improvement process. This session will empower you with compassionate practices for releasing each teacher's greatest potential.
Registration Code: PD20PC021
Presenters: Pete Hall and Keith Orchard, EducationHall
Childhood trauma has become a prominent factor in education, and this is simultaneously encouraging (because it prompts us to discuss and address a pressing societal need) and frightening (because of the misinformation and confusion surrounding the topic). In this institute, the presenters will explore the elements of a truly #TraumaInvested learning environment. Participants will agree to definitions of key terms; understand how toxic stress affects brain development; and discuss ways to build a culture of safety in classrooms and schools, helping students to be learning-ready and helping staff to be teaching-ready. Together, participants will build an array of strategies to support teachers, administrators, counselors, and other staff in building appropriate interventions to meet students'. This institute will be upbeat, energetic, and collaborative. Roll up your sleeves and join us!
Materials Fee: $33.00 for Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom by Kristin Souers with Pete Hall and Trauma-Invested Practices to Meet Students' Needs (Quick Reference Guide) by Kristin Souers and Peter A. Hall
Registration Code: PD20PC022
Presenters: Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, San Diego State Unversity; Dominique Smith, Health Sciences High
Academic learning may be the explicit focus of schooling, but what teachers say, the values we express, the materials and activities we choose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how our students think, see themselves, interact with content and with others, and assert themselves in the world. Although social and emotional learning (SEL) is most familiar as compartmentalized programs or specific interventions, the truth is that all learning is social and emotional. This institute will make the case for taking a deliberate approach to the "hidden curriculum" already being taught, presenting a five-part model of SEL that's easy to integrate into everyday content instruction.
Materials Fee: $23.00 for All Learning Is Social and Emotional: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for the Classroom and Beyond by Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Dominique Smith
Registration Code: PD20PC023
Presenter: Erik Francis, Maverik Education, LLC
The cognitive rigor of college- and career-ready standards requires students to demonstrate different levels of thinking and communicate depth of knowledge. However, what exactly is depth of knowledge (DOK)? How do Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels designate the depth and extent to which students must practice, transfer, and use their learning? Why is the DOK Wheel inaccurate? Learn how to use Webb's DOK Levels to establish a pathway to proficiency that leads students to demonstrate their learning up to and beyond the DOK Ceiling of Assessment set by the standard.
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Now THAT'S a Good Question! How to Promote Cognitive Rigor Through Classroom Questioning by Erik M. Francis
Registration Code: PD20PC029
Presenter: Jim Knight, Instructional Coaching Group
Many coaches and on-site professional developers are finding themselves in high-stakes, critically important roles. They are leading school reform efforts with little or no professional development to prepare them for successfully performing their tasks. The presenter will share seven factors that need to be in place for coaches to flourish and address several questions: Do our coaches understand the complexities of adult learning? Are we using the Impact Cycle to guide teachers to meet their goals? What is an instructional playbook and how do we create one? What data do coaches need to gather and how can they use video to do so? What essential beliefs and habits must instructional coaches internalize and practice? Do our coaches embody effective leadership qualities, and which tactics do they need to employ? What must a system do to support coaches? Attend this institute to learn the answers to these questions and more.
Registration Code: PD20PC030
Presenters: Susan Hentz and Michelle Vacchio, Susan Hentz & Associates
Co-teaching is the most complex collaborative partnership on the continuum of collaborative practices. In this fast-paced, practical institute, you will experience a co-taught setting while discovering the components and processes for successful implementation. This presenter team will model the co-teaching approaches in a highly engaged classroom. Learn firsthand how to individualize instruction through various groupings to boost the achievement of all learners in the co-taught classroom. You will learn proven strategies for optimizing each teacher's expertise to determine your roles and responsibilities. Learn about the five approaches of co-teaching with timesaving tips and effective communication techniques that enable both students and teachers to get the level of support needed to succeed. The presenters will also share tools and strategies for planning together in order to provide an optimal learning environment for all learners. Take advantage of the best strategies, tips, and techniques for implementing the essential components of this shared teaching model. Attend this exciting, motivational institute to take your co-teaching to the next level.
Materials Fee: $10.00 for Co-Teaching Essentials (Quick Reference Guide) by Susan Hentz
Registration Code: PD20PC032