This engaging and practical session equips educators with seven powerful, research-informed steps to transform any classroom into a language-rich, interactive learning environment. Participants will explore strategies that intentionally promote student talk, academic vocabulary development, and meaningful interaction—especially beneficial for multilingual learners and diverse classrooms. Throughout the session, teachers will experience modeled activities, collaborative discussions, and reflective opportunities that demonstrate how to increase student engagement while strengthening language development across content areas. The focus will be on simple, high-impact techniques that can be implemented immediately, regardless of grade level or subject.
Discover the power of games! Dive into different ways to engage students in cooperation and collaborating skills as well as critical thinking through tabletop games. We will have an opportunity to play and interact with different tabletop games for elementary, middle, and high school students covering history and civics/government. Time will also be given for discussion and sharing best practices!
Ready to move beyond posting vocabulary and hoping students use it? This session will show you how to transform your word wall into a dynamic learning tool that sparks discussion, builds connections, and deepens understanding. Through hands-on experiences, you’ll explore interactive strategies like silent debates, concept connections, and perspective-based discussions—that push students to think critically and engage with content in meaningful ways. You’ll walk away with practical, ready-to-use strategies, differentiated approaches for K–12 classrooms, and tools to increase student talk and use of evidence.
In this focused workshop, teachers will learn high‑impact strategies to organize a Canvas course for clarity and share in a sandbox with colleagues, sync grades with Skyward, integrate Google Drive and Google Sheets (calendar) resources, and streamline family communication using Canvas Announcements and ParentSquare. The session combines brief demos with guided hands‑on time so participants leave with a ready module, embedded Google resources, announcement workflows, and a plan to verify grade syncing and parent communication.
Come hone your craft! Van Gogh's most famous work, Starry Night, sets the scene of how to break down individual components, utilize the end in sight, and make the invisible become visible through the use of exemplars in your classroom. Teachers will not just walk away from the session a master teacher but a master artist as well!
