STLinATL

Often as educators, we fall into the trap of teaching our content in isolation and powering through it to meet external deadlines. These pressures often cause us to miss critical opportunities to infuse engaging activities, add depth of knowledge to our lessons and create"bigger" real world connections for our students. Our 4th Grade team utilized an overarching Zombie theme to bring in the fun for their students while covering all of the needed learning outcomes. Best of all, no one ever lost a day of instructional time. Let us show you how grade level projects and activities can be constructed without an immense amount of time or cost.

This presentation will seek to deepen educators' understanding of anxiety, including the prevalence, physiology, and presentation of anxiety in the classroom.  We will explore triggering events and identify signs of anxiety in students.  We will largely focus on classroom specific interventions for teachers to utilize when collaborating with students with anxiety.     Here is a link to the presentation draft: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k1Hblx9HsNySSrIDxugJf75-6VliGVVnKMBVGC4X0Sc/edit?usp=sharing  

Participants will learn three lessons from the SEE Learning curriculum. Participants will learn about the resiliency zone graph, Help Now strategies, and resourcing. Participants will see how these lessons have been incorporated into a high school classroom, and there will be opportunities to brainstorm how these lessons could be incorporated into other settings.

The overall theme of my talk is how we as educators and coaches need to focus on being mentors first and foremost before focusing on the scoreboard. However, with the proper focus on building champions first, coaches can create success both on and off the playing field for their student-athletes. This is why my key phrase to coaching my athlete is this "We are not champions because we win, we win because we are Champions".   In addition to explaining how my philosophy has created great success in my coaching experience I will also explain the need for fun and team building exercises to help grow your team and create enthusiasm, which is a key ingredient for success in all walks of life.   The concrete takeaways for my participants would be to help them have a road map to success but to also help the participants set goals for themselves, their team, and their student-athletes.      

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of task tracks, list makers, planners and post-it notes on your desk? Feel like you’re forgetting something? The Bullet Journal may address your needs!    The Bullet Journal philosophy is revolutionizing life for those of us seeking organization. Consolidate all your tasks- personal and professional- into one place. By using a future log, daily and weekly spreads, sections for notes, random lists, and anything else you want to track, I’ll show you how you can streamline your work!     Bring a blank notebook to get started or just come learn.  

Have you ever seen a baby begin to crawl, or heard a child mutter their first words. Humans are innately curious beings and their natural motivations for learning are instinctive. In this interactive session we will discuss incorporation of a mixed informal learning environment that taps into our innate motivations for learning and creativity. Learning absolutely can be and should be a naturally rewarding experience. During part one of the session, teachers will take part in a demonstration EXPERIENCE that models the informal learning process incorporated into a formal classroom setting.  

Safety experts agree the single most important step toward ensuring your personal safety is making the conscious decision to refuse to be a victim. You stand a better chance of preventing criminal attack if you develop and practice a safety plan before you need it.      The presentation teaches easy to understand methods you can use to increase your awareness and prevent criminal confrontation.  In thirty minutes, you will learn and practice tools you need to develop your own personal safety strategy, including information about:    •        The Psychology of the Criminal Mind  •        Home & Phone Security  •        Automobile & Travel Security   •        Personal & Technological Security  •        Self Defense Devices and Training Options  

Perhaps the most misused word in education is collaboration. What do we mean when we tell students they will be collaborating? More importantly, what do students do when we tell them they will be collaborating? Even more importantly, how are we modeling the benefits of collaboration to our students? Attend this interactive session to experience the benefits of collaboration (increased student engagement, improved learning, and facilitation of collective goals), explore the importance of collaboration in the higher education setting (reduced student isolation, diversity of learning), and consider ways to set students up for authentic collaboration (trust, norms, and significant work). The purpose of this session is twofold: to build knowledge regarding the importance, benefits, and outcomes of student collaboration; to increase the opportunity for incorporating student collaboration in current courses. The session presenters will facilitate interactive opportunities to build knowledge through experiencing the importance, benefits, and characteristics of authentic collaboration, such as discussion protocols, brainstorming, and providing peer feedback. Participants will engage in a self-assessment regarding their current use of student collaboration and, after considering opportunities for collaboration within current courses, create a goal for future collaborative student learning opportunities. Participants will leave with a heightened awareness of the importance of and the need for collaboration, practical strategies for incorporating student collaboration, and a plan for setting students up for authentic collaboration.

"It's not what you know, but who you know." This networking adage rightly points out what many of us have learned to be true, that it is often not the breadth of our knowledge as much as the breadth of our contact list that ultimately leads to success in landing the career/position we desire.    Yet, I believe this phrase can be reinterpreted to describe the teaching profession. Many of us can identify that one teacher or coach that had the greatest impact on us as students. Often, it was not as much the content knowledge they offered that changed our lives, as it was the fact that they made the effort to develop a positive relationship with their students.     It is my opinion that content knowledge makes a good teacher. Content knowledge combined with developing purposeful relationships with students, makes a great teacher.    In this presentation I will highlight relevant research and offer personal anecdotes supporting the claim that developing positive rapport with students not only improves the classroom/learning environment, but can accelerate academic performance, allow for more productive relationships, and improve the quality of life for the teacher!

Adding a content-area course to your language trip can increase enrollment and enrich student learning. The presenters developed a trip to Germany in which students also earn credit in environmental science. Discussion will include how to create an interdisciplinary course within a language trip that complements both culture and course content.    The trip is led by the language teacher, while the course is taught concurrently by a science teacher. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and the opportunity to earn course credit, the trip attracts more students. Presenters will show participants how to: select a relevant course, choose sites in the target country to optimize immersive learning on site, prepare material for on-the-road instruction, and successfully advertise the trip to students.     Outcomes:  1. Participants can design a trip to the target country that allows students to earn credit in a discipline other than the language.   2. Participants can design a trip itinerary that lends itself to interdisciplinary collaboration with a content-area course.   3. Participants can identify a potential interdisciplinary partner at their institution.   4. Participants can craft a pitch to recruit students for an interdisciplinary trip.  

Want to get some preplanning our of the way? Want to have all your homework posted online before the school year starts? Come make your calendar that will not only give you a planner for the entire semester, it will also allow you to post all your homework to PowerSchool Learning in about 5 min. You can also learn how to upload your plans into Google Calendar if you prefer a digital version. Each participant should bring a laptop or computer with a full version of Microsoft Excel. We will allow you time to actually use the excel calendar and enter your specific information. We will walk you through the process of posting homework and setting up homework calendars for your classes, etc.  Come see why teachers are saying that this spreadsheet "has honestly been a lifesaver!"

Do you believe teaching social-emotional content is as important as teaching academic content? Do you want to connect with your students and families in meaningful ways? Are you interested in creating joyful classroom communities that foster opportunities for student choice? Join us for some discussion and ideas to help you create a joyful classroom experience.      

Learn to create an app, toolkit, or dashboard for your classroom or school using nothing but a Google Sheet, a little bit of HTML/CSS and your imagination.  Attendees will be introduced to Awesome-Table and Glide as ways to visualize and interact with spreadsheet data in the form of custom built web apps...without a single line of code!

We want all students to have an excellent education, but the path to equity can be nebulous and unclear. We will explore the opportunity to use curriculum as one concrete method to promote equity for your students. Please come to this session ready to discuss and brainstorm together!         In this session, teachers will:    - Explore the definition of equity  - Determine how curriculum can serve as a bridge between disciplines, grade levels, classes, and teaching styles  - Explore the balance between teacher autonomy and creating a consistent student learning experience

Join the librarians of Woodward Academy as we delve into all of the resources the library has to offer to enrich the curriculum, to support class projects, and to engage learners. We will cover best practices for teaching information literacy skills in today's educational environment. In addition, we will review age appropriate citation guides for different grade levels and our latest scope and sequence for library skills K-12 and how these have been adapted based on the new AASL standards and what that means for teachers and students.  

Inspired by the words of Emily Style and Rudine Sims Bishop, Elizabeth and John will lead teachers through a workshop in which they will examine a lesson plan they have already created and re-imagine it to include topics and primary sources that will serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding doors for their students. Links to free primary sources and other content resources will be given. This workshop is imagined as one in which teachers can work together to revise lesson plans in order to make them more inclusive for all of their students.

As a faculty collaborator and Ed Tech Coordinator, my success relies on how wide-spread and deep my relationships go with people on campus. Trust, empowerment, and respect are necessary elements in working with faculty when supporting them through a creative process. How can an inviting culture facilitate wonder, collaboration, inquiry, and community?     In this session, I will share strategies to create a collaborative culture and get your ed tech person working with your teachers!   *Create conditions that allow students to thrive and be creative  *Create a community in which faculty collaborate cross-departmentally   *Build relationships with departments that are long lasting and involve   *Empower faculty to try new approaches and strategies in a low-risk and supportive environment  *Take projects from ideas to fruition: what this process looks like  

Participants will learn about the benefits to students when social and emotional skills are explicitly taught in the classrooms. We will explore the RULER tool developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and learn associated techniques to implement this in classrooms. Case studies from Horizons Atlanta classrooms where RULER has been implemented show changes in classroom dynamics such as less bullying and aggressive behavior, better relationships, and enhanced academic performance. Participants will leave with a working knowledge of the RULER components Charter and Mood Meter as well as resource materials for their classrooms.  

Today, more than ever, students are being encouraged to learn how to program. We now know that computational thinking is a skill that will benefit students in every aspect of education. Millions of students are now learning how to code, but there is still a lot of work to do to make it truly a new literacy. There has been a wide variety of research to show that tangible programming is one of the best ways to teach young students this valuable skill. By putting toys that students are already used to using in their hands (for example blocks and legos), they are more likely to think freely and learn the skill faster. In this session, we will explore a variety of tools that foster tangible programming. Come learn how these hands on tools can teach even your youngest students how to program!      

Description/ Goals/ Takeaways:  Attendees will learn how to use game show techniques including those used in Family Feud, King of the Hill, High Q, and Jeopardy in preparing and preparing for class assessments.  The goal of the session is to reverse the classroom.  In lieu of the teacher and/or department creating the objective assessment, the individual students, as part of their own review, create the content of their own assessment.  The attendee will facilitate the students using their acquired knowledge to create the game questions used in the game show and that will also later be used in their actual assessment.