Have you been hearing all the buzz about Total Participation Techniques and Building Thinking Classrooms? Are you interested in seeing what these are all about and getting a feel for what it means to have a thinking classroom with total participation? This session is intended for teachers who are interested in 'dipping their toes' into these sessions before committing to further exploration.
This session focuses on the cognitive processes involved in sensemaking, exploring how individuals and teams interpret ambiguous information, construct coherent narratives, and develop shared understanding. Participants will learn practical frameworks and techniques to enhance their students' capacity to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, and generate actionable insights from complex situations, ultimately fostering more effective problem-solving and strategic thinking.
Instructional Specialist, Fulton City School District
I have been a 7th grade middle school science teacher for 25 years teaching life science. Most recently, I have served as an instructional coach for the Fulton City School District assisting, the math, science, world language, and ENL teachers. I am passionate about good instruction... Read More →
Ready to build a more engaging classroom? This dynamic session explores how to strategically use LEGO® bricks to foster purposeful play and develop essential skills in your kindergarten and first-grade students. We'll move beyond free building to uncover how intentional LEGO® activities can directly support literacy, math, science, and social-emotional learning.
Participants will walk away with skills to integrate LEGO® bricks into reading, skills and SEL learning experiences in K & 1 classrooms.
Empower students to become confident readers with evidence-based strategies from Lindsay Kemeny’s "7 Mighty Moves". This interactive session provides educators with seven classroom-tested strategies, grounded in the Science of Reading, to build strong literacy foundations in K–3 classrooms.
Participants will walk away with practical, actionable strategies to implement the 7 Mighty Moves in their classrooms, along with tools to enhance students’ decoding, fluency, comprehension, and long-term literacy success.
Equip yourself with practical, relationship-centered strategies for preventing and responding to escalated behaviors. This session includes role-play, scripts, and reflection tools to create a safe and supportive classroom environment, helping students regulate their emotions and behavior.
Participants will walk away with a toolkit for de-escalating challenging behaviors, including specific techniques, scripts, and strategies to create a calm and supportive classroom environment.
Unlock the power of play to transform your math classroom! This dynamic professional development session will equip you with practical strategies and ready-to-use math games that seamlessly integrate into your daily routines. Move beyond rote memorization and empower your students to develop crucial 21st-century skills through engaging gameplay.
In this interactive session, you will:
* Play fun math games that help students solve problems, think logically, and work together. * See why games are great for learning: They make math interesting and help students understand it better. * Find easy ways to use games in your daily lessons – for warm-ups, quick activities, and more. * Choose the right games for your students and what they need to learn. * Get kids working together and talking about math through games. * Take away simple game ideas you can use right away.
This session is perfect for elementary and secondary math teachers, special education teachers, curriculum specialists, and anyone looking to inject excitement and deeper learning into their math instruction.
Join us and discover how to "level up" your math class, one game at a time!
What's next? You completed one or both of the study groups on Building Thinking Classrooms and Total Participation, now what? This session is for those colleagues who are ready to collaborate and extend their knowledge while embedding these strategies into their classroom.
How do you get the learning to stick? What evidence-based practices help students retain knowledge AND apply critical thinking skills? This full day workshop explores cognitive science research on how our brain learns, processes, and stores information. The research will be connected to instructional practices that are can be integrated into any classroom and subject area.
Participants will leave with an instructional playbook that increases teacher effectiveness and student learning.
Explore how you can use Gemini and SchoolAI to support your professional responsibilities. Learn how to build lesson plans, give you strategies for improving teaching, develop project based learning lessons, and uncover new ideas for differentiation. AI is not just for your professional role, but learn how to put AI in kids hands with our new district license to SchoolAI.
Participants will walk away with actionable and practical ways to integrate AI into their classroom planning and instruction. They will also be able to use AI with fundamental literacy and knowledge of potential concerns and biases.
Uncover dynamic, student-centered approaches to spark curiosity, increase participation, and sustain attention. Explore strategies like academic games, collaborative structures, and tech-enhanced learning that engage students in meaningful ways.
Participants will walk away with strategies and tools to increase student engagement, including specific activities and technology integrations that make learning more interactive and participatory.
