What’s Working? is a free, virtual event for teachers, school, district, and state education leaders, and partner organizations focused on how to help students engage successfully with grade-level standards and content in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UPCOMING EVENT
Virtual Summit
January 21, 2022
Learn strategies to implement high quality materials and tutoring for acceleration
Explore new and existing resources to support diverse learners
Develop solutions to challenges with experts, practitioners, and peers
Keynote
"Struggle-opoly"
Lacey Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer at UnboundEd
America’s students experienced a seismic interruption in their education. Lacey Robinson shares how we can reimagine teaching and learning to ensure ALL students are prepared for life post-pandemic by providing instruction that is GLEAM™ (Grade-Level, Engaging, Affirming, and Meaningful). She challenges us as school system leaders and classroom practitioners to update the operating systems we all use in the form of mindsets, skills and behaviors in service of students’ academic, ethnic, racial, and linguistic identities.
Opening remarks by Ethan Mitnick, President of SchoolKit.
Sessions
Round 1
12:00-12:45 pm EST
Taking the Next Step in Becoming a Culturally Responsive Educator
Presenter: CenterPoint Education Solutions
Recommended For: District leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: This session offers educators tools to reflect on their existing practices along with strategies for facilitating difficult classroom conversations.
Develop Your Lens: The Role of Instructional Vision and Local Priorities in Considering New Instructional Materials
Presenter: EdReports
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: Participants will learn the importance of understanding local context and the role it plays in considering adoption of new instructional materials. We will discuss the importance of establishing an instructional vision, identifying local priorities, and determining how these help to narrow the scope of what materials may work for your district.
Identifying High Quality Instructional Materials for Multilingual Learner Equity
Presenter: The English Learners Success Forum
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: In this session, we will look at the qualities that make high quality instructional materials supportive of multilingual learners, and how state, district and school leaders can improve their selection of HQIM to better serve diverse student needs.
Accelerating Learning, One Student at a Time
Presenter: Massachusetts DESE, Saugus Public Schools, and TNTP
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, technical assistance providers
Session Overview: This session will highlight how a partnership between TNTP and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education have enabled the Saugus Public Schools to live out their vision for student acceleration and achievement.
Accelerating Learning through High Dosage Tutoring
Presenter: The Tennessee Department of Education
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders
Session Overview: The Tennessee Department of Education will highlight their experiences in launching statewide tutoring opportunities, and will share their district support strategy, free resources and training opportunities, and structures for tracking statewide student engagement and progress.
Leveraging ESSER Funds to "Build Toward" a Reimagined Teaching Job
Presenter: Education Resource Strategies
If we hope to emerge from the pandemic with stronger and more resilient education systems, we must make the teaching job more rewarding, collaborative and sustainable. In this workshop, we’ll share how some systems are beginning to reimagine the teaching job and how ESSER funding creates a unique moment to implement a “do now, build toward” approach to making teaching a more attractive and sustainable profession.
Round 2
12:50-1:35 pm EST
From Diagnosis to Intervention: Planning with Intention
Presenter: Caddo Parish Public Schools
Recommended For: District leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: To address learning gaps caused or exacerbated by the pandemic, Caddo Public Schools launched “Caddo Accelerate,” an initiative focused on improving leaders’ and teachers’ ability to properly “diagnose” students’ learning needs using high-quality assessments and curricular resources to address learning gaps. This session will provide an overview of the initiative, a detailed timeline, sample sequence of learning for teachers and leaders, and anchor tools and resources.
Leading Early Literacy Instruction
Presenter: Instruction Partners
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: The education field has never known more about the way children learn to read, yet only a fraction of schools apply the science of reading to their early literacy instructional program. Now more than ever, we need to ground ourselves in what we know works for all students — and do it intentionally and with fidelity across school systems — if we want to positively impact the literacy and long-term outcomes of our young learners.
Early literacy experts from Instruction Partners will share a set of five essential practices for building an effective early literacy system, along with resources for observing, coaching, and reflecting on the current state of K–2 literacy instruction. The practices invite leaders and teachers to reimagine how they center early literacy instruction to accelerate students’ development of foundational reading skills, both in the short term by offering creative solutions to address COVID-related unfinished learning, and in the long term by codifying the practices that help leaders build a system in which all students can read proficiently by Grade 3.
A Program for a New Vision of High School Literacy
Presenter: Odell Education
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: Odell CEO Judson Odell will discuss Odell Education’s new High School Literacy Program. Participants will learn about materials and approaches they can integrate into their instructional practice.
Accelerating Math Learning at the Intersection between Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices and High Quality Instructional Materials
Presenter: Teaching Lab
Recommended For: State education leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: In this session, educators will learn how to accelerate student learning in math through curriculum based professional learning that centers culturally responsive teaching practices and equitable math instruction. Educators will engage in an experiential and learn how to use high-quality instructional materials in a way that affirms students’ math identities, challenge spaces of marginality, and go deep with mathematics. Educators will also reflect on how they can support implementation of curriculum based professional learning and apply these practices that accelerate learning in math in alignment with their local contexts.
The National Initiative to Recruit States, Districts, and Tutoring Providers to Expand High-Impact Tutoring
Presenter: Watershed Advisors
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, technical assistance providers
Session Overview: In this session, participants will learn about a national tutoring initiative that is combining cutting-edge research and on-the-ground implementation of high-impact tutoring programs to improve academic and wellness outcomes for over 150,000 students over the next three years and ultimately make tutoring a sustainable feature of the American education system.
Round 3
1:40-2:25 pm EST
Connecting Schools and Communities to Support Student Success
Presenter: Arkansas Dept. of Education – Division of Elementary/Secondary Education – Arkansas Tutoring Corps
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, technical assistance providers
Session Overview: Participants will learn about a new Arkansas initiative to create a bank of qualified and certified tutors to support student learning.
Unlocking Patterns in Literacy Data for Immediate Next Steps in Instruction
Presenter: CenterPoint Education Solutions
Recommended For: District leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: “If a student can’t read the text, standards mastery doesn’t tell us anything.” In this session, participants will learn how to look at data differently to find patterns for informing instruction.
Take a Bite Out of a Game Sandwich to Engage Students!
Presenter: iCivics
Recommended For: District leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers, parents and caregivers
Session Overview: Participants will learn how the components of an iCivics “game sandwich” impacts students learning by surrounding game play with lessons and discussions to deepen learning.
Leveraging PL Partners to Skillfully Implement High-Quality Instructional Materials
Presenter: Rivet Education
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: Increasing research highlights that today’s new standards and instructional materials require a dramatic shift in teacher practice and a deep expertise on the materials themselves. The session will highlight why and how districts should leverage the expertise of professional learning organizations to help them skillfully implement their new high-quality curriculum.
What's Working in Special Education: Lessons from the Pandemic
Presenter: SPED Strategies
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: Participants will learn about some of the most promising practices that have emerged from across the country to support the needs of students with disabilities in response to the ongoing pandemic and school disruptions. Participants will use case study examples to see how educators can make special education systems more resilient, effective, and equitable in serving students with disabilities.
Round 4
2:30-3:15 pm EST
Level Up Professional Learning
Presenter: Curriculum Matters Professional Learning Network
Recommended For: District leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers
Session Overview: The session will take a look at how two districts (Sumner Co, TN and Aldine ISD, TX) utilized innovative approaches to professional learning and collaboration to build teacher ownership of the district’s HQIM implementation.
A Foundational Reading Skills Course for Tutors
Presenter: SchoolKit
Recommended For: School leaders, classroom teachers, tutors
Session Overview: Training tutors on research-based best practices is critical to our students’ success in early literacy. Join us to learn about how to use SchoolKit’s free Canvas-based course for tutors that is focused on tutoring students on reading foundational skills.
The Phoenix Project: Design Thinking with Teachers to Emerge from the Pandemic More Equitable Than Before
Presenter: Teach Plus
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers, technical assistance providers, parents and caregivers
Session Overview: Participants will hear directly from teachers who will present their vision for transforming the education system, retaining teachers, and helping students thrive. You will also practice design thinking to generate solutions — the same process that generated the blueprint for change outlined in the Phoenix Project report.
Creating Instructional Coherence: Planning Across Core Instruction, Intervention Time, and Tutoring
Presenter: TNTP
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, technical assistance providers
Session Overview: TNTP will share some resources and ideas for state leaders, system leaders, and school leaders to consider regarding how to create instructional coherence across their core instruction, intervention, and tutoring efforts.
Round 5
3:20-4:05 pm EST
How You Select Materials Matters: A Robust Process for Adopting New Materials
Presenter: EdReports
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: Participants will learn about the importance of establishing a robust process for the adoption of new instructional materials, what a framework for the process looks like, and the tools/resources available from EdReports to support the process.
Teachers are the Original Content Creators
Presenter: 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Takeru “TK” Nagayoshi
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers, technical assistance providers
Session Overview:Join 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Takeru “TK” Nagayoshi in this TED-talk style presentation on how teachers are no different than content creators (a la YouTubers), and how we can reimagine the profession by nurturing teachers’ artistry and creative passion. The session will be followed up with an activity or guided discussion on how to support educators through this lens and create an environment to better recruit and retain teachers.
Reading Reimagined: Share Promising Literacy Practices to Impact Research and Development
Presenter: Reading Reimagined
Recommended For: State leaders, district leaders, school leaders, classroom teachers, technical assistance providers, parents and caregivers
Session Overview: Join team members from Reading Reimagined in an engaging discussion around the integration of research and practical application of reading instruction with a specific focus on accelerating foundational reading skills in older students (grades 3-8). Participants will learn more about promising research in this area as well as contribute to the knowledge base by sharing their promising practices from the field to inform future research and future products for students, families and school communities.
Summer 2022: Accelerate, Don't Remediate
Presenter: Zearn
Recommended For: State leaders, school leaders
Session Overview: In this session, Zearn will break down the key differences between learning acceleration and remediation and the research showcasing the impact it has on students, provide best practices to successfully help kids effectively and efficiently accelerate back up to grade-level learning. Zearn will showcase a blueprint for implementing learning acceleration in math and what that could look like in summer 2022.
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