2016 Conference on Learning & EXPO

October 26 - 27, 2016 Roosevelt University, Schaumburg Campus

Schaumburg, IL

Wednesday, October 26 • Keynote — 8:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. Mike Schmoker

“Teaching and Leading with Focus”

Mike Schmoker revisits concepts presented in his best selling book Focus. In his recent book, Leading with Focus, Schmoker relates his original concepts to the latest research and findings in the learning field. He still believes that the three essential elements of good schooling are:

• Coherent curriculum • Authentic literacy

• Soundly-structured lessons Despite their unrivalled power for improving performance in any school, these elements continue to be misunderstood – and grossly under-implemented.  For this reason, these simple, familiar elements should be our first and highest priority. After hearing Mike at the ASCD Annual Conference in March 2016, Bill Dodds, Executive Director of IL ASCD said, "Mike doesn't tell us what we like to hear but he will tell us what we need to hear!"  

Lunch Networks   Illinois Consortium For 21st Century Schools. Grab your lunch and join Consortium leaders and Illinois educators for a networking session via guided discussion among participants about advancing 21st Century Deeper Learning in Illinois. Bring your ideas and questions. Room: 314

Session D 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. D1 – Monitoring Student Learning with SLOs Participants will discuss methods and tools for monitoring student growth using Type 2 and Type 3 assessments in an SLO process. Presenter: Jennie Winters • Room: Alumni Hall 155

Illinois  Consortium  for  21st  Century  Schools

D2 – Culturally Responsive Pedagogy The U.S. has the most diverse learners of any country in the world, yet we lack diversity standards to include in our measure of effective teaching. In this session, we discuss a strategic framework for addressing diversity and culture in the learning environment. We ask: What is in one’s cultural bag and how does it affect successful learning? Attendees will interact with presenters to improve their understanding of what contributes to culturally responsive pedagogy. Strategies will be shared to develop a diversity plan including diversity practices, assessment, and feedback. Presenters: Diane Gillaspie and Paul Faber • Room: 615

D3 – Taking A Failing Elementary School to Success: A PreK-8 Exemplar Impacting All Students With Deeper Learning Results (2 hour session) What can happen in an elementary school filled with English Language Learners from impoverished families where multiple fix-it-up attempts have failed? Learn how Katherine Smith Elementary School in San Jose, California was transformed from the lowest performing school in its district to a top performer and a national model. Examine the what, the why, and the how this Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) Exemplar rejected traditional quick fixes by using a whole school project-based learning approach focused on deeper learning outcomes.Here the story first hand from the principal who rallied teachers to abandon low-level recall instruction and to adopt approaches that engaged students with high expectation, deeper learning methods and curriculum often considered the domain of affluent students. Presenter: Aaron Brengard • Room: 624

D4 – Making the Most of the Elementary School Principal/Assistant Principal Partnership In the course of a busy school day when you feel like many plates are spinning and there are fires that need to be put out, a strong partnership between the principal and assistant principal ensures that students, staff and families are well-supported and that the school remains on a healthy path of continuous improvement. Please join us to learn more about our strategies for strong communication, shared instructional and organizational leadership, and promoting a positive school culture. Presenters: Akemi Sessler and Stefanie Beane • Room: 378

D5 – Science is a Verb, Not a Noun Dr. Gaska will show you how to read and use the standards, and share a practical unit and lesson planning model that will help you create lessons that will turn your students on to learning. Presenter: Craig Gaska • Room: 376

D6 – Using Qualitative Data to Make Instructional Decisions Today’s educators are inundated with numerical forms of data; however, every teacher will tell you that individual students are more than just a number. Each child comes with his or her own “story” as a learner, and teachers are the collectors of those stories. While assessment scores can be significant, this session will provide insight as to how the child's “story” can be just as powerful as the quantitative data in making instructional decisions for student learning. Presenters: Scott Estes and Jessica Heybach • Room: 372

D7 – Entrepreneurial School Leadership – A Recipe for Increasing Student Achievement and Transforming School Culture A former superintendent — turned toffee maker and stand-up comic — has shaken up his schools by combining the leadership lessons he’s learned as an entrepreneur and former marketing manager at GE. Dr. Ray Lauk teaches the proven leadership behaviors that are not usually practiced in schools, but have the power to transform a school culture, raise student achievement, and get results.  A career superintendent in Illinois and overseas schools, he offers a new way of approaching school leadership that is unconventional, but highly effective and achieves remarkable results. This engaging session is based on his book, FUEL for Learning and utilizes his background in improv and stand-up comedy. Presenter: Dr. Ray Lauk • Room: 314

D8 – Using Visible Learning Evidence to Determine your Current Impact on Learning This interactive session will focus on demonstrating how schools and districts can develop a plan to monitor the levels of learning taking place in all classrooms: both of the students and the adults in your school or system. The presenters will highlight several aspects of Professor John Hattie’s Visible Learning research both from a large scale as well as a practitioner’s perspective. Finally, the session will focus on how to improve the quality and effectiveness of feedback by improving the clarity for success for both students and teachers in your school or system. Presenter: Dave Nagel and Terry Mootz • Room: 713

D9 – So, What Is Mindfulness Anyway? And How Can It Help My Classroom? Explore the basics and research based benefits of mindfulness practices for you and your students. Experience mindfulness practices directly through some of the five core areas: physical awareness, focus and attention, noticing thoughts, emotional regulation and compassion. In addition, learn strategies for integrating mindfulness practices throughout the school day. Presenter: Lena Kushnir • Room: 707

Session E 2:15 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. E1 – Dynamic PLC Teams that Synergize to Ignite Powerful Learning for Student Success Highly effective teams synergize by shifting their focus to improve student learning. This session will create aligned mindsets for collaborative inquiry and utilize the “4 Disciplines of Execution” to set predictive measures for success. The key is for students and staff to work together to improve learning while owning their outcomes and celebrating their successes. Participants will learn how to identify lead measures. Creating student ownership of learning and setting SMART goals while providing a criteria of success moves the needle and sets the launch pad for their achievement. Presenters: Kathleen Miller, Ed.D and Jorge Garza, Franklin Covey • Room: Alumni Hall 155

E2 – Equity Encompassed Through the Whole Child Initiative As we dive deeper into achievement and assessment data, when are we focusing on the child as a human being with social and emotional needs?  Unfortunately, we simply aren't as much as we should.  The Whole Child Initiative allows us to focus on these needs of our students.  During our session, we will share connections to current practices in our educational systems and the Whole Child theories.  We will discuss Restorative Practices, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Danielson/Teacher Evaluation, Common Core, and the Social/Emotional Learning Standards.  You will walk away with steps to take immediately in your classroom/school. Presenter: Megan Fuciarelli • Room: 615

E4 – Supporting Transgender and Gender Expansive students The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance provides advocacy and education around supporting LGBTQ+ youth throughout the state of Illinois. In this workshop we will take a brief look at the May 13th Title IX “Dear Colleague” letter and the guidance from the DOE and DOJ around supporting transgender students. Participants will learn more about the supports the Alliance can provide and have an opportunity to understand how select districts in Illinois are effectively implementing affirming practices and procedures.   Presenter: AJ Jennings • Room: 378

E5 – Creativity and Innovation in Education This presentation will inspire teachers and administrators to change the way students are learning and applying information inside and outside the classroom. Teachers will leave refreshed and excited about what they can do in their classrooms using student creativity and innovation rather than traditional assessment methods. The session is an interactive program where participants will learn through inquiry based methods which they will use in their classrooms later. Presenter: Jason Fox • Room: 376

E6 – Making Collaboration Time Work for Teachers This session will focus on logistics and facilitation techniques for collaborative teacher meetings. Presenter: Dana Murphy • Room: 372

E7 – How to Work Less, Produce More and Still Get the Job Done in a Sensible School Week School administrators today are laboring 60+ hours per week, and yet they struggle to do their most important work – coaching teachers to improve instruction. Many are at the breaking point because of the complex scope, hours and stress of their jobs.  The Breakthrough Coach has helped thousands of educational leaders get into classrooms to support teachers so that students receive quality instruction. At the same time, these leaders have been able to dramatically reduce their workloads by 15-20 hours every week. Presenters: Jill Pancoast, VP, The Breakthrough Coach and Efren Toledo, Principal, O.A. Thorp Scholastic Academy, Chicago Public Schools • Room: 314

E8 – Social Media: A Strategic Approach Shift your thinking on how to use various social media platforms in a more strategic fashion. We will cover: Facebook pages, Twitter, google+, Pinterest for Business, LinkedIn Groups and Companies, Instagram in the classroom, and YouTube. We’ll demystify hashtags and best practices on using these platforms, how to grow your following, paid advertising, events, meet ups, twitter chats, automated posts, how to streamline workflow and manage time on social media so it doesn’t take over your life, while still being effective. Presenter: Kathryn McKay-Phillips • Room: 713

E9 – Leaders in the Classroom This presentation provided by The Illinois Center for School Improvement provides participants with evidence-based resources that support effective teacher and student leadership. Participants will know what leadership in the classroom is, understand specific practices of teacher and student leaders, and consider the application of those practices in their own setting. Presenters: LaKeisha Young and Valerie Butron • Room: 707

Thursday, October 27 Session F 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

F1 – Let Them do the Work! Creating Independent, Creative and Thoughtful Students Using standards to drive a student-led classroom may seem like an oxymoron. However, there are many research-based instructional practices that fit a standards-driven curriculum or program and are well-suited for all learners in becoming independent. When teachers help students understand and apply the qualities of good learners, students begin to take responsibility for their learning, increasing their drive, motivation and achievement. This fully interactive workshop will use John Hattie’s research on effective influences on achievement as the anchor for modeling fun, yet rigorous strategies that are student-led and driven by appropriate grade level standards. There will be a focus on 8 learner qualities and the research behind how their use in the classroom will improve student independence, creativity, motivation and achievement. Presenter: Steve Oertle • Room: Alumni Hall 155

F2 – Whole Child in Poverty Educators need to craft various strategies to teach students living in poverty. Students in poverty learn more efficiently when they are taught using academic language standards in conjunction with the content standards. Academic language instruction is used to include all students in a culturally inclusive learning environment. This presentation will include some effective strategies used to instruct students living in poverty in an ELL setting. Some examples include; building background knowledge through peer teaching, dialogue circles, sentence stems for modeling language, cultural word walls, language anchor charts, and modeling through readalouds. Presenter: Brenda Mendoza • Room: 615

F3 – Transforming a 21st Century Secondary School From Failure to Success: A High School Exemplar Impacting All Students (2 hour session) What can happen when a traditional high school fails to raise test scores for poor and minority students in spite of fix-it attempts? Learn how Manor New Tech High School transformed learning in one of the lowest performing school districts in its state to a top performer. Examine the what, the why and the how this national P21 Exemplar rejected traditional quick fixes by using a whole school project-based learning approach focused on deeper learning of rigorous STEM curriculum that is being replicated nationwide. Presenter: Steve Zipkis • Room: 624

2016 Conference on Learning & EXPO

October 26 - 27, 2016 Roosevelt University, Schaumburg Campus

Schaumburg, IL

Illinois  Consortium  for  21st  Century  Schools

F4 – Impactful Professional Development: Strategies to Lead and Empower  This session will explore professional learning strategies which engage, inspire and build community within your school or district. We will encourage participants to experience activities as their staff members would during professional development opportunities. Whether it be a department meeting or a full Institute Day, these approaches will infuse reflection, fun and involvement into learning. Presenter:  Kim Darche • Room: 378

F5 – Engaging the Mindsets of Creative Problem Solvers via High-Impact Learning Strategies This interactive session offers insights into engaging the mindsets of creative problem solvers by way of proven high-impact learning strategies. Building on the work of John Hattie, we will dive into mindset dispositions, creative problem-solving, and more. Exemplars of cross curriculum problem-based teaching practices and process framework will be shared. Presenter: Doris Wells-Papanek • Room: 376

F6 – Teacher Mentoring Participants will be introduced to the value of a quality, multi-year, Induction and Mentoring Program. Adult learning theory, new teacher characteristics, mentor roles, and a framework for an Induction and Mentoring program will be reviewed. Presenter: Dee Ann Schnautz • Room: 372

F7 – Storytelling for School Leaders Effective communicators are great storytellers! School leaders need to use stories in their presentations, speeches, and messaging in order to better connect with their audiences.  Whether you are presenting to the Board of Education, parents, teachers, legislators, business people, Rotary Club, or any other group, you will be a much more powerful speaker, and you will make a greater impact when you use stories.  Stories give meaning to our work. Stories illustrate the significance and importance of our schools. Learn how to be a better storyteller, communicator, and leader. Presenter: Dr. Ray Lauk • Room: 314

F8 – Struggling Learners: Four Causes and Five Cures Increased rigor in new standards has also increased challenges for struggling learners and teachers. Come to this session to learn how to motivate struggling learners to become engaged, empowered, and ready to achieve high standards. Experience four scenarios that facilitate a deeper understanding of why students fail or underachieve. Become familiar with five evidence-based strategies that will ignite student success without watering down content material and lowering standards. Presenter: Bobb Darnell • Room: 713

F9 – Personalize Learning - A Journey of Professional Challenge and Triumph In this session presenters will share their journey from conception to launch of a school personalized learning initiative. Experiences from physical designing of learning areas to gaining the support of the school community and everything in between will be told through the lens of the school principal and two teachers working in the trenches. Presenter: Joey Halperin • Room: 707

Session G 9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

G1 – Tips for Creating a Balanced Assessment System that Supports Personalized Learning Teachers can adjust their instructional approach and vary the learning experiences for their students when they have a solid understanding of the different types and purposes of data they have available to them. Come learn how a balanced assessment system can guide how educators use different types of data in order to respond to the unique and diverse needs of students. Presenter: Tricia Kurtt • Room: Alumni Hall 155

G2 – The Top 15 Evidence Based Behavior Interventions That Can Increase Academic Success This lively and practical session provides a whole array of evidence based interventions that can increase academic achievement. Many of the interventions will be modeled throughout the session and participants will take home strategies they can use right away in a classroom. Presenter: Beverley Johns • Room: 615

G4 – Freshman First Days at Elk Grove High School: Collaborative School Improvement in Action This session will focus on the development of EGHS’s “Freshmen First Days,” a first-of-its-type program created to orient our students to the norms and expectations of a challenging high school. Focusing on both the development process and the “finished” product, the session will provide school leaders with important lessons that will help them facilitate the development of collaborative norms among staff members as well as offer a “shovel-ready” orientation plan for incoming students. The session is designed to offer the best of both worlds--an example of big-picture leadership strategy in action PLUS a usable product to be shared back in one’s home school. Presenter: Paul Kelly • Room: 378

G5 – Diagnostic Instruction – Developing School and Classroom Leadership to Improve Learning RtI, and now MTSS, brings schools and districts the opportunity to focus on core instruction and support growth in learning for all students. Teachers and grade level teams are required to use data within the decision-making process. Unfortunately, too often these decisions follow a simple problem-solution path. Teachers examine data, sort students, and look for solutions students falling into the lowest quartile. Teachers frequently seek out a solution that is programmatic, in other words an “intervention in a box.” Presenter: Charlene Cobb • Room: 376

G6 – Teaching Science and English Language Arts Together – The True Way to Integrate and Differentiate the Curriculum in Order to Excite Children Incorporate science into English language arts (ELA), as a way to keep children involved in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)! Aligning with the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, educators and administrators learn the importance of integrating science and ELA to increase academic rigor and student success. By experiencing the connection between science and ELA, students gain the literary skills and conceptual understandings needed to read complicated fiction and non-fiction texts. Using novels, informational texts, poetry, short stories, fairy tales, and folk tales, you’ll see how to easily create their own lessons which effectively integrate science and English language arts. Moreover, participants engage in two hands-on model lessons to understand how integrating science and ELA maximizes instructional time as well as enhances students’ abilities to analyze, interpret, and comprehend how ELA and science applies in their daily lives through real-world experiences. Presenter: Tara Kristoff • Room: 372

G7 – Give Me a Break: Integrating Activity into the Classroom Are you looking for strategies to improve student focus, supplement class instruction, and boost test scores? Research has shown that students who engage in short sessions of physical activity during the school day focus better, remain on task, and score higher on tests. This session offers instructional tips for incorporating physical activity and integrating brain breaks into the classroom. Participants will learn how to energize their classrooms. Presenter: Tammy Schiek • Room: 314

G8 – Classroom Management Teachers lose an average of 5 - 9 hours a week with minor misbehaviors. Imagine how much more could be accomplished with those hours available. Learn how to manage your classroom in a way that eliminates gimmicks, reduces teacher stress, and works for students. It can be done. In this jam-packed session, teachers will learn time-tested, research-based strategies and techniques and have more time to teach. Presenter: Susan Hammack • Room: 713

G9 – Expo Topic – The Visual Edge for Standards Based Instruction This workshop explains how to use The Visual Edge: Graphic Organizers for Standards Based Learning, a book of visual instructional tools — to teach each English, History, and Science Common Core standard more effectively and efficiently. It helps educators and schools take charge of: current instructional quantity, time, and rigor challenges and student results. The concept behind the book is using visual learning through a precise visual instructional tool that fits each standard. By using this strategy and book in classrooms, schools and teachers can begin in short order to engage all students in lessons that ensure their skill development and empower success on assessments. The Visual Edge for Standards Based Instruction includes an explanation of the blended visual learning with Common Core concept, its benefits, and examples of its use from the book. Presenter: Sargy Letuchy • Room: 707

Session H 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. H1 – Give Students Control? We Did. Here's What Happened. The Open Program explicitly teaches sophomore students the four tenets of independence, creative problem solving, collaboration, and cross-curricular knowledge. Afterwards, students are given control over their own learning, completing a self-designed community-based project while mastering Algebra and English standards individually. Presenter: Aaron Sitze • Room: Alumni Hall 155

H2 – Student Growth and Example Type III Assessments for Learners with Low Incidence Disabilities Participants will identify strengths, gaps, and strategies for developing quality accessible student growth measures for learners with disabilities that require the most intensive academic supports. PERA Joint Committee reminders for decision making (such as identifying exclusionary rules for student mobility/attendance), the various Type III assessments created by classroom teachers, and the program/content area system for analysis will be explained. Lastly, various successes, speed bumps to avoid, and opportunities for improvement will be shared. Presenter: Andrea Dinaro • Room: 615

H3 – The Proof is in the Pudding: Project Based Learning for All Discover PBL as an all school transformation with MindQuest21’s approach. See how local schools have adopted the enriched model that connects personalized socio-emotional learning, college and career readiness, maker studios, and technology to create whole school changeover to PBL that includes all students. Learn about national exemplar models in the Chicago area built on the cost-effective Mindquest21 approach. Presenters: Jim Bellanca and Deborah Esparza • Room: 624

H4 – Building Principles for Building Principals Learn how to take the newly created Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (formerly the ISSLC Standards) and walk through a process that shows administrators how to prioritize and better conceptualize the standards so that they can be put into practice in their professional roles. Presenters: Dr. Josh Reitz • Room: 378

H5 – Debates and Argument Writing in the Middle School Classroom This session will include what argument writing looks like in the middle school classroom from start to finish. It includes Common Core aligned standards and outlines how to teach argument writing to middle school students specifically. We will explore how to set up different styles of classroom debates as a pre-writing strategy with the entire purpose being full-classroom engagement. Use of informational text as a means to support student ideas will also be discussed. Finally, the use of effective counterarguments and closings will be included as well. Presenter: Lisa Sanders and Rachel Prichard • Room: 376

H6 – What’s SAMR Got to Do With It? What’s your big picture as it relates to using technology in your classroom? Do you strive to empower students to become 21st century learners that can more easily navigate and actively participate in today’s information superhighway? Unless you’ve been sleeping in a cave, the 4 C’s, Communication, Creativity, Collaboration and Critical Thinking are on every teacher’s mind. Here are some thoughts on how to integrate interactive technology to enhance and transform learning. Presenter: Cathy Grochowski • Room: Tucker Family Board Room

H7 – I-Reading from an iPad: Its Impact on Brain Development, Reading for Learning, and Curriculum Development Educators expect 1:1 instruction will transform learning. However, its impact on reading and learning is controversial, based on anecdotal evidence and research on the differences in brain development, eye movements, behavior, learning outcomes, and strategies for reading textbooks, articles, novels, and standardized test passages. However, readers can become multi-textual learners. Presenter: Dorothy Mikuska • Room: 314

H8 – Injecting New Life Into Your PLC and Winning Together Take a virtual trip through your PLC's team norms and group processes to reveal if your PLC is really ready to succeed. Examine how high-performing teams efficiently examine student work, establish improvement goals, and take decisive actions. See how winning PLCs reflect about, recognize, and celebrate progress. Learn about five ways to re-energize your group when it gets stuck. Discover ways to have your students become part of your PLC improvement efforts. Identify ways to solve common and uncommon group process problems. Presenter: Bobb Darnell • Room: 713

H9 – Creating Meaningful Home-School Connections: Family Empowerment and Capacity Building This session focuses on a family engagement process that I have utilized successfully for the last 7 years and can be replicated. This process increases parents’ knowledge and expectations about the American educational system. It also empowers parents by building their capacity to be collaborative contributors in their child’s education. Presenter: Virginia Valdez • Room: 707

Lunch Networks Illinois Consortium For 21st Century Schools. Grab your lunch and join Consortium leaders and Illinois educators for a networking session via guided discussion among participants about advancing 21st Century Deeper Learning in Illinois. Bring your ideas and questions. Room: 314

Session I 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. I1 – Books vs. Technology, Exploring the Physicality of Books and the Use of Technology Tools There is much to be said about the use of technology in today’s classroom. In this “let’s dig deeper” session, we will explore the virtues of both the physicality of  picture books (literary and informational) and the use of technology and devices that support reading and the ideals of performance based tasks.  A plethora of books and websites will be shared that discuss the attributes of both sides of this proverbial coin. Presenter: Laura Beltchenko • Room: Alumni Hall 155

I2 – I-Five Alive Using the arts, as well as literacy to connect with the five whole child tenets I-Five Alive, a new Whole Child Motivational Profile, adds innovative possibilities to ASCD’s Whole Child Approach. Besides deepening engagement, heightened collaboration among school community members are encouraged. We invite you to learn about our refreshing design on how literacy and artful learning can amplify the Whole Child Approach.We hope to inspire you to try any of our “sparks” and modify them to meet your needs. Presenters: Robin O’Connor and Linda Lucke • Room: 615 

I3 – Opening New Doors for New Futures: Personalized Assessment Often standardized tests and Individual Education Plans (IEPs) fail to provide teachers with the optimal goals and strategies for special needs students. Discover a new model for assessing and teaching students with special needs via practical application of Dynamic Assessment (DA). By examining Reuven Feuerstein’s Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) and teaching methods of Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) via video examples, educators will learn how personalized learning plans with IEP goals are are achieved through the use of thinking strategies. Participants will learn the “what,” “why,” and “how” for use of Dynamic Assessment to create more meaningful, personalized outcomes.  Presenter: Kate Kidric-Bellanca • Room: 625

I4 – Looking for Greatness... How to spot excellence in a classroom that leverages technology to support all students INCLUDING those with special needs Whether you have the most advanced technology tools or limited resources, there are some basic and highly effective ways to engage all learners. Drawing from Universal Design, Differentiation and Danielson, allow us to point out ways that you can spot greatness and encourage your staff to leverage technology to maximize student growth in all learners. Utilizing technology does not have to be intimidating. In this session, you will learn simple ways to inspire your teachers. Presenters: Lisa Berghoff and Lisa Murphy • Room: 378

I5 – Failing Forward: Engaging 21st Century Learners Through Project Based Learning Project Based Learning engages 21st Century learners with proven research techniques to master key knowledge, understanding, and 21st century skills. Students learn how to apply knowledge in a real world context, solve problems, answer complex questions and produce high quality products for a specific audience in a fail free environment. In each stage of the process, teachers give students autonomy to direct their own learning and perfect each stage of the project using well organized, rigorous and intentional pedagogy. Students can only fail forward in a PBL classroom as they are encouraged to evaluate and ‘re-do’ the product at any point. Student’s active control over the cognitive processes in this setting taps into higher order thinking. Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, learning about learning, has positive results from students at every level. Students learn how to become their own teachers while teachers activate the learning process. Presenter: Sarah Littrell • Room: 376

I6 – I’m Done; Now What Should I Do? This session will remind teachers that the reward for doing great work should not be more work, but rather, different work. Providing choices for capable students will make them invested in their learning and their products. While it is not possible to challenge all students at the appropriate level all day and every day, there are places to begin and strategies to employ that will help educators overcome some of the daily obstacles and begin to consider their options. Websites and resources will be provided as well. Presenter: Randee Susan Blair • Room: 372

I7 – Enhanced Physical Education Programs and 21st Century Learning Skills The skills presented in the Framework for 21st Century Learning can be fostered in physical education settings. Learn about the connections between physical education and 21st century learning skills, what these connections look like in a Physical Education setting and what quality Physical Education instruction should look like.This presentation will also touch on what standards-based assessments can look like in P.E. Presenter: Deb Vogel and Judy Tiggelaar • Room: 314

I8 – Restorative Practices for the New Teacher With the adoption of SB100, Restorative Practices have become a huge focal point in our schools — putting social/emotional learning and the art of relationships at the forefront. Have you been able to prepare your staff for this paradigm shift? With yet another component to learn, our new teachers will feel even more overwhelmed during their first year(s) of teaching. Our new teachers have the highest rate of job-shift within their first two years — mostly due to a lack of support and professional development. Moreover, the highest turnover occurs in our most needy areas (urban settings working with our most under-privileged students). How can we provide relevant training and support to our new teachers — especially those in urban settings? We will talk specifically about the achievement gap, bias impacting our expectations, and the school to prison pipeline. Resources will be offered from Teaching Tolerance as well as US2 — both agencies working to eradicate educational inequities in our current system. Presenter: Megan Fuciarelli • Room: 713

I9 – PERA Perspective In this session a panel of principals will share their stories and field questions about the trials and tribulations of PERA implementation. The principals will speak from their school perspective with the hopes of helping the broader community gain insights and understandings to take back to the field. Presenter: Joey Halperin • Room: 707

Thursday, October 27 Keynote — 2:15 - 3:15 p.m.

Jonathan Fanning

“Creative Leadership” • Lessons from the most creative leaders and companies, especially Walt Disney! • Explore, practice, and apply the 6 qualities of creative leadership to your own unique challenges. • Enhance the creative capacity of your organization. • Learn practical tools and strategies for taking your personal creativity to the next level. • Consistently ask better and bigger questions, as leaders and as an organization. • Borrow best practices on employee engagement from legendary organizations. • Coach, Mentor, Motivate, and Inspire with new strategies. • Creativity is crucial in solving the challenges of tomorrow! • Get unstuck!