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Local to the D.C. area: 1-703-578-9600
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The information on this page is for Empower18. Check back in September 2018 for information about Empower19, which will be held March 16–18, 2019, in Chicago, Illinois.
About Pre-Conference Institutes | One-Day Institutes | Two-Day Institutes | Three-Day Institutes
Our two-day Pre-Conference Institutes will be held March 22–23, 2018, in Boston, Massachusetts. They will run 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., daily. Specific location information for each institute will be added at a later date.
Presenters: Art Costa, California State University, Sacramento, CA; Bena Kallick, Institute for Habits of Mind, Westport, CT; Allison Zmuda, The Competent Classroom, Virginia Beach, VA
We want every learner, both teacher and student, to engage in rich, creative problems and ideas that require inquiry, analysis, and inventive solutions and creations. Teachers and students need to develop attitudes and dispositions to become more confident and autonomous problem-solvers and thinkers. It is that very subtle concept of being a teacher or lead learner. As teachers incorporate habits of mind into their thinking and behaviors, they say, "I need more practice with…" or "I am so excited by how much I have learned about…" or "I need to go deeper into this material…".
This development is as powerful for teachers as it is for students, who also need to see teachers modeling these dispositions with intention, genuinely looking for feedback, and reworking to continue to improve. Such dispositions must be developed, nurtured, supported, and practiced on a regular basis.
The presenters will focus on how teachers help students take charge of their own thinking and use their executive functions to manage themselves as learners through
Materials Fee: $30.00 for Students at the Center: Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind and Cultivating Habits of Mind (Quick Reference Guide)
Registration Code: PD18PC003
Discounted combination rates with Empower18 are also available. Learn more
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Presenters: Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA; Dominique Smith, Health Sciences High, Santee, CA
Imagine a school with a diverse student body where every student feels safe and valued, and all students—regardless of race, culture, home language, sexual orientation, gender identity, academic history, and individual challenges—have the opportunity to succeed with challenging classes, projects, and activities. In this school, teachers notice and meet students' individual instructional needs and foster a harmonious and supportive environment—and students feel empowered to learn, to grow, and to pursue their dreams.
This is the school all our students need and deserve.
In this session, we will present a new model to clarify the structural and interpersonal components of an equitable and excellent schooling experience, and the Building Equity Audit, a survey-based tool to help school and teacher leaders uncover equity-related issues and organize their efforts to better address
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Building Equity: Policies and Practices to Empower All Learners
Registration Code: PD18PC004
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Presenters: William Parrett, Boise State University Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies, Boise, ID; Kathleen Budge, Boise State University Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies, Boise ID
We know the transformative power of educators, particularly teachers, to improve the life chances of children and youth who live in poverty. We have seen and felt it in many schools. What sets these educators apart from others is attending not only to what and how they teach, but also to who they are (what they believe and value) and why they became educators in the first place. In this session, the authors will share practical advice from their new ASCD book, Disrupting Poverty: Five Powerful Classroom Practices. Lessons learned from nearly 40 successful educators, many of whom have lived in poverty, provide insight into five practices that foster a supportive classroom culture for all students, but especially those who live in poverty. Participants will learn how to confront barriers that can get in the way of their success with students who live in poverty and leave the session inspired and equipped with tips, ideas, and strategies for disrupting poverty's adverse influence on lives and learning.
Materials Fee: $26.00 for Disrupting Poverty: 5 Powerful Classroom Practices
Registration Code: PD18PC005
Presenters: Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele, Millersville University, Millersville, PA
This two-day institute will focus on ways to support student engagement and higher-order thinking skills during classroom instruction. Designed for individuals seeking to improve their practice as well as school teams seeking to collaborate toward making maximum impact, this institute will provide opportunities to examine and experience a change of mindset toward total student engagement. During typical classroom Q&A sessions, only a few students are required to show evidence of active participation and cognitive engagement in the content being presented. The biggest problem with that is that teachers have little evidence regarding student engagement and the depth of cognitive understandings on the part of students. Total Participation Techniques (TPTs) are meant to be an answer to that problem. TPTs are teaching techniques that provide teachers with evidence from every student that they are cognitively engaged with the content being presented. Pérsida and William Himmele, authors of Total Participation Techniques, will share an in-depth overview of the why and the how of TPTs, providing participants with opportunities to strategize toward maximizing the effectiveness of classroom instruction.
This institute will provide participants with opportunities to do the following:
Because participants will be experiencing TPTs firsthand, they will be able to readily implement them upon their return to the classrooms. Additionally, the presenters will discuss options for how to share TPTs as a schoolwide approach to increasing students' cognitive engagement through techniques such as self-analysis, peer coaching, and coaching observations of lessons using the TPT Cognitive Engagement Model.
Participants who attend will be able to
Materials Fee: $30.00 for Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner, 2nd ed. and Total Participation Techniques to Engage Students (Quick Reference Guide)
Registration Code: PD18PC006
Presenters: Victoria L. Bernhardt, Education for the Future, Paradise, CA; Bradley J. Geise, Education for the Future, Chico, CA
How well does your school measure the work it does? Most schools respond to this question by saying, "We are doing a really good job." Unfortunately, many of these schools are merely using every way under the sun to analyze their assessment results.
The main thing inherently unsatisfactory with this "data analysis" is that it is very narrow. In effect, we might not be seeing the forest for the trees. Not looking at our processes or the school as an entire system can keep us from being able to adjust what we are doing to get the results we desire. The systems thinkers tell us that about 80 percent of what needs to change to get better results is us! Us, as in the processes, practices, programs, and interventions currently in use that are producing our current results. Measuring and evaluating our system, programs, and processes is the logical next step to seeing the forest and the trees.
Participants will utilize a case study to learn how to
Materials Fee: $23.00 for Measuring What We Do in Schools: How to Know If What We Are Doing Is Making a Difference
Registration Code: PD18PC007
Presenter: Randy Sprick, Safe and Civil Schools, Eugene, OR
A positive climate and a consistent staff are essential to establishing an MTSS (multitiered system of support) for discipline and behavior. In this two-day session, evaluate the strengths and gaps of your current system and develop a continuous improvement plan for moving forward. Learn how to structure for success, directly teach behavior expectations, and motivate staff to be positive and consistent. You will leave with an action plan.
When MTSS is implemented properly, a culture of data-driven decision-making is created that results in a unified school staff that is increasingly able to meet the social/behavioral needs of all students. This session provides a wealth of practical examples of how successful schools are implementing behavior support procedures that reduce misbehavior while increasing student motivation and responsibility. The procedures described will be at the schoolwide, classroom, and individual student levels, and will include procedures for teaching responsible behavior in all school settings. Strategies for increasing the consistency of positive intervention by all staff will be provided.
Schoolwide Universal Prevention: Schoolwide behavior support needs to be more than words on paper or a poster on the wall. Learn how to involve staff, students, and parents in designing a data-driven, continuous improvement process for behavior support that is proactive and preventive. This session will also provide a template that identifies components of an effective schoolwide policy. Participants will evaluate their current policies and practices, and establish a plan to revise those policies and practices to meet the realities of today's schools and the complex needs of all students.
Classroom Universal Prevention: Learn what can be done to organize classrooms and other school settings to reduce discipline problems and prompt responsible behavior from students. Specific strategies covered will include effective use of classroom rules, strategies for teaching students to behave responsibly, effective and ineffective room arrangements, and instructional practices for keeping students engaged. In addition, learn what to look for when you do "walk-throughs" of classrooms. You will learn the three essential student behaviors that indicate whether a teacher is implementing an effective classroom management plan or needs to make some adjustments to his/her plan.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 Behavior Support: At the individual student level, a multi-tiered approach will be presented to ensure that the easiest and least staff-intrusive interventions are tried first, progressing to more complex and staff-intensive interventions only if needed. The first layer of this continuum is early-stage interventions designed and implemented by general education teachers. Next, a menu of Tier 2 interventions will be provided—again, with the goal of trying the easiest and least intrusive intervention implemented with fidelity. Lastly, Tier 3 problem-solving processes will be described, and a simple function-based planning tool will be provided. Participants will evaluate the current array of Tier 2/3 supports in their school, identify gaps in that array, and develop an action plan for closing any gaps that do exist.
Participants will leave with specific strategies they can implement immediately, an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their current school climate, and a plan for increasing staff awareness of the need to work together to intentionally improve climate on an ongoing basis.
Materials Fee: None
Registration Code: PD18PC008
Presenters: Margaret Searle and Marilyn Swartz, Searle Enterprises, Inc., Perrysburg, OH
Why is Brian acting out and refusing to do the work in my class? Why does Rebecca have the attention span of a gnat? What is interfering with Juanita’s ability to find and hand in her assignments? Why can't Edward remember what we did yesterday? These students' lack of growth may be a result of environment, learning delays, or bad habits. It could have been caused by trauma brought on by things like poverty, broken family relationships, or pressures to be perfect. No matter what the cause, the resulting social-emotional issues can be the undoing of a student's ability to learn. It is always challenging to find solutions to these types of problems, but we have found a breakthrough.
Research shows that the development of executive function skills, rather than IQ, is the best predictor of academic success. Executive function is the term neurologists use to describe the brain processes that drive our ability to focus, solve problems, organize ourselves, remember information, and manage our impulses, all of which help us learn efficiently and develop important social-emotional skills.
Based on this research, we have developed a process called "diagnostic conversations" to help teams figure out the root causes of problems through the lens of executive function. As educators, we spend a lot of time responding to symptoms. If we would use that same amount of time drilling down to the root cause before deciding how to respond, our results would be much more satisfying and effective. Knowing the executive function root causes makes identifying the right interventions much easier. In this seminar, we will focus on students' cases who have trouble in the areas of paying attention, remembering, behaving in class, getting their work in on time, organizing materials and ideas, and accurately self-monitoring their own work and behavior.
We often struggle to solve tough student issues alone when the magnitude of the problem calls for the support of a team and a solid framework for making decisions. This two-day institute applies a collaborative problem-solving model to a variety of education issues. This five-step process, which is an application of a Toyota Quality Tool, can be applied at district, building, and classroom levels to solve many types of problems. We will also demonstrate ways to get both the students and their families actively involved in this process.
You will learn to
All educators—K–12 teachers, psychologists, administrators, including gifted providers—can benefit from this problem-solving process which replaces lengthy meetings that simply admire problems with short meetings that solve problems efficiently.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own case studies to practice this process. Come prepared to have fun as you apply the practical skills of holding diagnostic conversations and developing tailor-made intervention plans. We look forward to sharing the process that has helped thousands of teachers at national and international levels transform their tough learning and behavioral issues into successful learning stories.
When you know "the why", "the what" becomes clearer and more effective.
Materials Fee: $22.00 for Causes & Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems
Registration Code: PD18PC009
Presenters: Pete Hall, EducationHall, Coeur d'Alene, ID; Alisa Simeral, ASCD Author/Consultant, Reno, NV
As an instructional leader, your primary responsibility is to ensure high-quality learning experiences in every classroom, for every student, every single day. You also likely know that reflective teachers are effective teachers. So how can you help teachers become self-reflective practitioners whose thoughtful approach translates into real gains in student achievement? How can you transform your schools into cultures of commitment instead of cultures of compliance?
Join best-selling authors Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral as they lead you through an investigation of the building blocks of such a culture. Based on the content of their book Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice, this engaging, interactive session includes video clips, practical strategies, opportunities for deep collaboration, and a site assessment to help you design a plan to move forward immediately. Come with a team and leave energized and inspired to ensure that teachers—and their students—reach their fullest potential.
Materials Fee: $27.00 for Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice: Capacity-Building for Schoolwide Success
Registration Code: PD18PC010
Get Empower18 rates for Empower19 when you register by August 15, 2018!
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Attendees must be 18 years of age or older to attend ASCD Empower19 and the Pre-Conference Institutes.
Thank you, ASCD Empower18 sponsors!
Sponsorship opportunities for 2019 are available.
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August 15, 2018 Last day for Super Early-Bird Registration