1:30pm–3:00pm
SESSION A: Community Engagement/Development in Student-Centered Education
SESSION B: Project-Based/Mastery-Based Curriculum in Student-Centered Education
SESSION C: Social and Emotional Development in Student-Centered Education
SESSION D: Context in Student-Centered Education
SESSION E: Technology and Student-Centered Education
SESSION A: Community Engagement/Development and Student-Centered Education
Methods for building community support around the importance of reaching each and every student.
1:30pm–2:15pm
Building and Sustaining Meaningful Learning Communities
Meg Robbins, Lead Coach, Ozma House Educational Consulting, Inc.
What does your school or district need to create a faculty climate of professional motivation, collaboration and optimism that leads to success for students? Professional Learning Community (PLC) should be just that. Too often the concept of PLC has been hijacked by a very short-sighted top-down emphasis on specific data. Teacher response: “Oh yeah, they make us do that,” accompanied by groans about yet another protocol. Real PLCs are teacher-driven, student-focused and incorporate practitioners’ real questions about real challenges and dilemmas in their own practice. Effective PLCs create their own culture of How did we ever live without this! They bridge the gap often driven between teachers by high stakes testing outcomes—who can and who can’t. Real PLCs are about all of us learning together to benefit all of our children. This hands-on workshop is an opportunity to introduce or rethink, Why PLC?
Participants in this session will have an opportunity to:
● participate in a small group text-based discussion protocol to explore honest questions and concerns about school culture
● explore and identify a larger view of what effective PLC might look like in their own settings
● create an action plan to bring those views back to implementation
2:15pm–3:00pm
Building Understanding, Support, and Demand for Student-Centered Learning in Your Community
Gary Chapin, QPA Senior Associate, Center for Collaborative Education
Michael Brownstein, QPA Senior Associate, Center for Collaborative Education
What do you do when the parents bring pitchforks to a meeting?
The shift towards student-centered learning is more than a change in the techniques of education; it is a change in the culture of education. As such it requires more than acceptance, agreement, or even “buy in” from parents, school boards, teachers, students, and community. This workshop will use stories from the field and provide tools to help districts build understanding and support for student-centered learning in all stakeholders; and will challenge participants to bring their districts to a point where stakeholders demand student-centered learning as the next necessary step for their kids.
In this session, participants will:
● explore examples of how districts and schools have implemented cultural change to create student-centered systems
● identify school related models and ideas for change
● outline how stories, models and ideas could inform the direction of the change process in their respective districts and schools
SESSION B: Project/Mastery-Based Curriculum and Student-Centered Education
Methods for rethinking the way students are being reached – moving away from ‘one-size fits all’ or ‘traditional’ models.
1:30pm–3:00pm
Makerspace Mashup: Hands-on Exploration of STEAM-based Activities
Sue Cusack, Assistant Professor and Co-Leader, Lesley University
Ann Larkin, Co-Project Leader, Lesley University
Jacy Edelman, Technology Specialist, Lesley University
Kreg Hanning, Technology Specialist, Lesley University
Kathy Walsh-Malone, Instructional Technology Specialist, Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School
Amanda Kilton, Art Teacher, Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School
Kate Murphy, Kindergarten Teacher, Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School
Karla Anderson, 4th Grade Teacher, Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School
Students need to be able to think critically, problem-solve and collaborate in order to succeed in the 21st Century. Makerspaces provide the opportunity, creative time and space for students to learn these skills by allowing them to navigate through various stages of design thinking. As educators, it is important to be able to support and examine the natural connections that can be made between maker activities and students navigating through critical thinking, negotiating ambiguity, and fostering a deeper understanding perseverance.
In this session, participants will:
● engage in a series hands-on, project-based, STEAM-based challenges and activities that are aligned to Next Generation standards
● discuss the collaborative development process of a Makerspace Mashup with classroom educators, a technology integration specialist, arts teacher and consultant
● explore methods to support a student’s desire to make meaningful contributions towards personally relevant issues, ideas, people and interests
SESSION C: Social and Emotional Development in Student-Centered Education
Best-practices for supporting a students social and emotional development.
1:30pm–3:00pm
Theory into Practice: Preventive Real-World Strategies for Students with Anxiety
Jessica Minehan, Director of Behavioral Services, ESCA-Newton (Neuropsychology & Education Services for Children and Adolescents)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that one in four thirteen – eighteen year olds has had an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. Without intervention, these children are at risk for poor performance, diminished learning, and social/behavior problems in school. Understanding the role anxiety plays in a student’s behavior is crucial and using preventive strategies are key to successful intervention. Effective behavior plans for these students must avoid the reward and punishmentbased consequences from traditional behavior plans and focus instead on the use of preventive strategies and on explicitly teaching coping skills, self-monitoring, and alternative responses. Participants, including teachers, mental health providers, and special educators, will learn how to create a successful behavior plan for a student with anxiety, including how to identify and accommodate common anxiety provoking school activities and explicitly teach underdeveloped skills leading to anxiety-related behavior. Easy to implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for reducing anxiety, increasing self-regulation, executive functioning, and self-monitoring will be taught.
In this session, participants will:
• Learn effective preventative tools, strategies, and interventions that will promote self regulation, executive functioning, and anxiety management in students
• Describe why traditional behavior plans of reward and consequences often do not work for students with challenges such as anxiety-related and oppositional behavior
• Learn preventative behavior interventions as part of an overall effective behavior program for students with anxiety
SESSION D: Context and Student-Centered Education
Methods for growing one’s understanding of context – history, culture, community, economic opportunity, access, learning style, aspirations, vision, choice and advocacy – to better support the needs of each and every student.
1:30pm–3:00pm
Developing a 21st Century Learning Environment through Blended Learning: A Planning Approach
Michelle L. Puhlick, Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction, Hartford Public School
Deidre Tavera, Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Development, Hartford Public School
David Stoloff, Ph.D., Project Consultant and Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University
Sarah Horkel, Project Coordinator, Hartford Public School
Igniting student engagement, personalizing learning and increasing student achievement seem like lofty dreams to a lot of educators, but it is essential to increasing educational equity and achievement in the 21st Century. By better understanding and exploring an advanced blended learning and planning approach – research, implementation, recommendations, key learnings, challenges and emerging outcomes – educators will find that they can will be better able to support the needs of each student.
In this session, participants will:
● explore a planning strategy – from the district level to the classroom level
● identify the key learning community professionals and roles that are essential in the planning process
● examine the development of classroom-based implementations plans
● discuss and receive models and resources* to utilize in their own districts
*Resources included: Establishing Current State (Internal: Pockets of Innovation, District Survey, Readiness, Interest); Conducting an Innovation Landscape (External: Literature and Research Review, Case Studies, Conferences, Site Visits, Interviews); Developing a Shared Desired State (Vision, Theory of Action, Logic Model, Outcomes); Engaging the Community; Planning and Implementing a Pilot (Action Research Plan, Implementation Plans, Refinement); and Developing Final Report and Recommendations (Key Findings, Outcome Data, Implications, Recommendations).
SESSION E: Technology and Student-Centered Education
Best-practices for identifying and using quality educational technology that reaches every student.
1:30pm–2:15pm
It’s Not What You Think: Enhancing Education by Leveraging Common Technologies Uncommonly
Greg Schwanbeck, Physics Teacher and Instructional Technology Coach, Westwood Public Schools
A good teacher would never stereotype a student. But many teachers stereotype certain technologies, believing them to have no legitimate classroom use. In this session, Greg Schwanbeck will share how he and his colleagues are using often-dismissed technologies to make their courses more engaging, more efficient, and more fun. Greg will show how teachers can “gamify” their classrooms to spark student achievement, energize word problems with YouTube videos, “make smart cool” with QR codes, extend learning beyond the classroom with text messaging, and much more. Teachers and administrators will leave the session with several practical ideas ready for immediate classroom use, with an arsenal of counterexamples to use the next time a colleague moves to quickly dismiss a technology’s educational possibilities, and, most importantly, with minds open to and inspired by the power of leveraging common technologies in uncommon ways.
In this session, participants will:
● identify a collection of practical, student-centered, and ready-to-use practices that technology can be leveraged to make learning more efficient, engaging, and fun
● examine the power of what educational technology can be when thoughtfully and creatively applied
● analyze why keeping an open mind is vital to effectively evaluating technologies for the classroom, and be equipped with an arsenal of counterexamples to use when meeting resistance to efforts to technologically innovative
2:15pm–3:00pm
Flipped Learning and Student-Centered Technology Integration
Tom Driscoll, Educator and Blended Learning Specialist, Putnam Public Schools and Consultant at the Highlander Institute
Flipped Learning proposes using technology to shift direct instruction out of the group learning space, therefore enabling educators to innovate and personalize instruction in increasingly student-centered learning environments. This interactive workshop introduces the basic principles of Flipped Learning and how educators have leveraged technology in these blended learning environments across the nation. Participants will then be guided through the process of creating instructional videos and collaboratively developing interactive lessons that incorporate Flipped Learning concepts.
