Building Learning Communities

What does it mean to be the lead learner in your school(s)?
What concrete actions can a school leader take that directly improve student learning outcomes?
Risk and effort, rather than revealing inadequacies, are the key ingredients for growth. How does a school leader concretely model that?
This practical hands-on workshop will walk school & district leaders through many different ways they can throw a global spotlight on the excellent teaching & learning happening in their schools. We will also showcase & practice lightweight ways you can share your own professional growth as the lead learner in your school in ways that lead to improved student learning.
The belief that cherished ideas can be developed creates a passion for learning. What cherished ideas do we have about learning that we want to develop in our schools?

Before you come to the conference, take a picture of “people learning” in your school. No faces: hands only or an over the shoulder shot or faces that cannot be discerned. Bring that picture with you. The magic begins with you. ;-)

Bring your own laptop and/or tablet with you.

How can leaders maximize student engagement and academic achievement? How can leaders encourage teachers and students to collaborate with peers and professionals around the world?

The goal of this session is to provide you with maximum capacity for effective leadership in the 21st Century. This session will outline essential skills for leaders and offer practical guidelines and creative solutions for building accountability into the planning process. Articulating vision and managing change will be emphasized, along with the following:
• Alignment of curriculum to standards
• Designing more rigorous, demanding and globally connected assignments
• Building capacity for family and community involvement
• Addressing issues related to equity
• Developing critical thinking skills
• Designing staff development programs
• Defining new roles for students

MA and Iowa have been linked through the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council in both states and despite the differences there are many similar challenges: how to work with K-12, Higher Education, Business and Industry and Legislators. Reinventing unnecessarily wastes valuable and scarce intellectual and other resources.
Come and learn about: Leadership, Planning, Models for STEM Development

* Student Self-Assessment
* Preparing Teachers to give a Range of Quality Feedback
* Professional Development leading to Successful Systemic Change
* Leader as Role Mode

It's our goal as educators to have students take ownership for their learning, so let them have GOAL CONTROL, control of their own academic and learning goals. See how elementary classroom teachers are using Student Academic Logs (SALs) to monitor student progress, have students monitor their own progress, and conduct student conferences. You will see videos of teachers conferencing with students where students analyze their own data, determining their strengths first and weaknesses second, and ultimately setting their own goals as they move forward. You will see a variety of ways teachers allow students to track their thresholds with reading levels and test scores, motivating learners to stay on top of their goals. You will also learn how elementary students are engaged in higher levels of thinking as they retake assessments in groups, create and answer test questions for skills that were the weakest for their class and even take control of the test review by deciding the questions the teacher will review with the class.

Technology integration in schools is finally seeing a shift from resource acquisition to a focus on educational outcomes and skill development. However, these gradual changes are a far cry from the digital revolution that is occurring outside of the education system. Leading complex change is increasingly difficult in the twenty-first century and it may often feel like an overwhelming or impossible task. This workshop will explore the application of supportive theory, research, and practice in leading/managing technological change at a school level. Effectively leading change in the modern, digital educational system requires openness and flexibility, considerations for the distribution of leadership, and the effective management of resistance. More importantly, it begins with a foundation that supports student engagement, collaboration, active learning, and exploration. Technology by itself is not an initiative.

Using the Influencer framework, professional learning experiences can be planned so implementation occurs. During the session, the framework will be shared, and you will have opportunity to think through a plan for successful implementation of learning.

Face it. Some of your teachers simply have no desire to be on Twitter—even if you explain all the resources that can be found there. I get it! However as an administrator, technology coordinator or curriculum coach, you still have a responsibility to help your staff continue their learning and to keep them informed about the latest news and resources in their fields. In this session, learn how you can take the relevant articles and resources you find on Twitter (and in other places), and easily create customized, digestible, electronic learning magazines for free using Flipboard. These can easily be shared with teachers, parents or other specific groups.

Global STEM Classroom ™ and how to start a global collaboration program in your school (STEM, STEAM and more) - all "how to's", "do's" and "don’ts “and all "nuts and bolts", based on our experience running the Global STEM Classroom ™ programs with US, UK, France, Russia, Mexico, Netherlands and Ukraine

Educators bear a vital responsibility and face countless challenges, yet they often receive inadequate support to improve their skills and their students’ learning. Too often, their professional development options tend to be limited, ineffective, inaccessible, inefficient and irrelevant. Stemming from the teacher quality movement and the latest research on adult learning, a powerful new approach has emerged, Blended (online/onsite), job-embedded professional development.

Evidence analysis should influence instruction, but what teacher has the time to analyze stacks of graded papers? Presenters will describe research-based strategies for informative assessment; strategies for efficient data collection; and an implementation model how they are trying to close the gap between feedback given and feedback used.

Most schools and districts have lots of data about their schools and their students but it is “siloed” in separate places and not easily available to help answer the “what-if” questions that drive the discovery of root cause issues of instructional and operational concerns. School staff has limited time to gather and review data. For PreK – 12 school data to be used effectively, it needs to be timely, easy to use, easy to understand (visual) and detailed.

This session will demonstrate how to harness the power of these disparate data sets – student information systems, cloud based assessments, student and teacher attendance, teacher and student schedules, discipline records, report cards, ethnicity, special education and RTI interventions, and many other available electronic data sets. District, building, and classroom leaders need to utilize 21st century teaching and learning tools that aggregate their formative assessment data and empower them with the ability to inform ongoing instructional planning that improves student achievement. Teachers and principals need to quickly assess trends across grade levels, within classrooms, and for individual students to enhance the focus on needed interventions for student success. Summative assessment results are useful for accountability and long term planning but are not as valuable as the data from formative assessments gathered throughout the process of teaching. Proactive school and classroom leaders utilize regularly updated 360° profiles of their schools, classrooms, and their individual students, to target plans for instruction, set goals for growth, and to decide what resources are needed for the next stage of instruction. Come learn how to sort, filter, analyze, and compare your school and district data with easy to use visualizations that maximize the precious time available in your school’s professional learning communities.