Presentation Abstracts

Fostering Student Grit and Growth-Mindset

Recent research has identified attitudes and tendencies that can help us predict student success. They are called grit and growth mindset. This session will define the terms, offer many applications, and discuss what teachers can do to make their students grittier and develop mindsets that welcome challenge and promote a can-do attitude.

Differentiated Instruction

Teachers engage students with a broad range of interests, backgrounds and capacity. How can a teacher appropriately meet the needs of all of his/her students? This session presents a wide range of concrete strategies that will help you meet your students’ needs and vary learning process.

Authentic Assessment / Differentiating the Product

This session will introduce educators to authentic, alternative assessments, a key element of the differentiated instruction model. These assessments teach students how to apply their skills, including analytical skills, to tasks and projects. The learning process is valued as much if not more than the finished product itself.

Formative Assessment: Using Assessment to Enhance Student Learning

This workshop focuses on using assessment formatively, as a tool for learning rather than strictly a measure of learning. Participants will learn the importance of assessing student work regularly throughout the learning process and many easy, practical ways to do so. Emphasis is placed on checking for understanding to ensure that the goal of student leaning is properly achieved.

Rubrics: Redefining Assessment

Rubrics are a wonderful assessment tool, providing students with meaningful, specific feedback about their knowledge and performance. This session will describe what rubrics are, the benefits of using them, and how to create and employ them in the classroom setting. We will also explore ways in which the rubric can actually enhance instruction, providing students with a valuable guide and critic as they formulate and produce their work.

Cooperative Learning

Become familiar with practical strategies for integrating cooperative learning into your classrooms. Appropriate groupings, roles and applications will be discussed.

Active Learning Techniques

Research shows that students learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process. This session will introduce participants to a wide range of active learning techniques that will increase student participation, deepen learning, and enhance retention. 

Multiple Intelligences: Teaching to Our Students’ Strengths

Learn more about the 8 identified intelligences that people possess and ways that we can use this information to structure our classes to meet every student’s needs. Teachers will also learn how their own personal intelligences impact the way in which they present classroom material.

Strategies for Promoting Student Success

This two-part workshop shows teachers nine strategic ways in which they can enhance their students’ comfort level and overall preparedness for class.

The Essential Elements of Instruction

In this workshop, we will learn the eight essential components of every class lesson, based on the research of Madeline Hunter. These include identifying and articulating the learning objective, checking for understanding and providing closure. We will also discuss horizontal learning, a technique that reduces strain on working memory, increasing student clarity and retention.

Brain-based learning – How to Teach So that Your Students Will Learn

Use our increased knowledge of the brain and its functions to guide class preparation and structure, while enhancing student learning and retention. Items to be addressed include: Basic brain structure and functionality, various student learning styles or intelligences, strategies to maximize classroom effectiveness.  

Fostering Positive & Productive Relationships with Your Students

In this workshop, we will explore the importance of affective education and its role in the overall academic experience of children. Educators will learn how to achieve credibility with their students, and receive concrete applications to enhancing the teacher – student relationship.

The Art of Oral Testing: Developing Essential Textual Skills With a Focus on Student Involvement

Oral tests encourage students to develop or enhance many of the essential textual skills that are so often overlooked by the traditional, question-based test. Included in this list is the ability to read accurately, punctuate correctly, and explain the content clearly. It is these proficiencies that the students will ultimately need in order to ensure a sense of achievability in and, by extension, a lifelong connection to study.

In this session, an innovative and refreshing testing approach will be introduced, one which places the student in direct control of the testing process. Key benefits will be highlighted, including the ability to guarantee meaningful achievements for every student, regardless of academic ability.