{"success":true,"data":[{"ID":797,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1509594248,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Buzz Off! Burying the Buzzword to Rebuild Instruction","Handle":"buzz_off-burying_the_buzzword_to_rebuild_instruction","ShortDescription":"This conversation will explore what happens at the point of instruction, and how technology can empower teachers to elevate learning.","Description":"Innovation! Project-based! Blended learning! Formative assessment! Exit ticket! Flipped classroom!\r\n\r\nAll educators have heard these terms, and innumerable others. But what do they mean? What do they look like? What do they do to instruction? Where does tech come into play?\r\n\r\nToo often education--that is, instruction and learning--gets obscured by jargon, buzzwords, checklists, or some new mandate or movement. Technology, which should open worlds and transform classrooms, becomes a burden or, worse, a babysitter. In order for instruction to mean something for our teachers and learners, we need to bury the buzzword.\r\n\r\nThis conversation will explore what happens at the point of instruction, and how technology can empower teachers to elevate learning. This conversation will not posit an educational utopia of limitless resources; instead, we will draw on real-life instructional scenarios--and real-life teacher disinclinations or fears--and explore how common or easily-accessed technological tools can transform and personalize the educational experience for both teacher and student. \r\n\r\nIn discussing best practices for technology-infused instruction, we will also be exploring the ways in which empowered instruction establishes a self-sustaining culture of growth.","Link":[],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"A brief contextualization and introduction of an essential question will pave the way for a workshop in which educators will explore a number of transformative tech resources. Then groups of educators will collaborate on (re)building a class session using new tools. Along the way they will reflect on and share their personal responses and reactions.","Presenter":["Daniel DioGuardi"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Educate LLC"],"PresenterEmail":["daniel@educatellc.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":12,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":793,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1509588874,"CreatorID":141,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"EduGen Dialogues","Handle":"edugen_dialogues","ShortDescription":"Gender, in all forms, plays a significant role in how education does or doesn\u2019t work for many, both for students and adults. This session will explore our identified and unidentified biases. We will identify issues in education impacted by gender and work to develop plans to address these issues individually, at the school level, and beyond.","Description":"We know, both through our own personal experiences as well as through educational research, that gender impacts the educational environment. This is true for students in the ways that girls speak up less frequently in classrooms, girls are less likely to hold leadership positions, and boys and girls in school are often recognized positively for very different traits and skills. LGBTQI+ students also face challenges in school related to gender. As educators it is critical that we interrogate our own beliefs, conscious or not, as well as our actions in regards to our students in light of their gender. \r\n\r\nGender is also an issue for educational professionals personally. Education is a heavily female-dominated profession that is overwhelmingly led by men. What does this mean for those in the profession? What does it mean for students? What issues are faced by LGBTQI+ educators?\r\n\r\nDiscussions of intersectionality are likely (hopefully) to arise and will be encouraged. No issue stands alone and issues surrounding gender are impacted by race, class, language, and more.","Link":["http:\/\/jenorr.com","http:\/\/http:\/\/doyle-scienceteach.blogspot.com\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"The conversation will begin with the role playing described above. That will be followed by discussion of the role playing and its impact on the group. Special notice will be taken of ways in which members of the group respond with different thoughts and feelings to the same ideas\/experiences and the discussion will be linked to larger gender issues in education. From there small groups will tackle gender issues noted during the conversation. Each group will tackle several \u2018whats\u2019 around issues interesting to them, defining the issues and then why they believe these issues are important. Finally, the groups will come back together to share their thinking and to brainstorm some possible actions individuals, groups, schools, or districts could take.","Presenter":["Jennifer Orr","Michael Doyle"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Lynbrook Elementary","Bloomfield High School"],"PresenterEmail":["jenorr@gmail.com","doyle.bhs@gmail.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":10,"SubmitterID":141,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":746,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1509470472,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Flip the System: Designing a Sustainable System of Professional Learning in Times of Austerity","Handle":"flip_the_system--designing_a_sustainable_system_of_professional_learning_in_times_of_austerity","ShortDescription":"While nearly everyone agrees that job-embedded and practitioner-led professional learning is the way to go, systems still seem stuck in \"top-down\" \"rollout\" \"delivery-driven\" models. Help the Boston Public Schools and Boston Teachers Union design a system that really puts the needs of educators and students first.","Description":"The Boston Teachers Union and Boston Public Schools are working together to create a sustainable system of professional learning that meets the needs of educators and students in their contexts. While systems that include intensive coaching are ideal and often the first thing educators say they need, systems are unable or unwilling to commit the resources necessary to provide sufficient coaching to all educators.  Likewise, as district level departments work hard to protect their shrinking budgets, they often feel pressure to roll out system-wide programming that can demonstrate \"results.\"  In this conversation we will learn about the early rumblings of a \"system-flip,\" where the needs are determined by educators in the field and district administrators play networking and collaborating functions to help those on the ground continuously innovate to solve the challenges in their contexts. The workshop will present several elements of the emerging design and ask participants to share their ideas, build out a model system, recommend successful existing models, and raise questions or concerns that need to be addressed.","Link":["https:\/\/btu.org\/whats-working\/professional-learning-conference\/innovative-educators\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"We will likely use a modified charrette protocol. I will present the context as well as some of the existing design elements of the system and have participants create ideas and share conversation around what it might look like in practice.","Presenter":["Paul Tritter & Shakera Ford Walker"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Boston Teachers Union"],"PresenterEmail":["ptritter@btu.org","swalker@bostonpublicschools.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":13,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":"I may have a colleague co-present should I be accepted, but not sure yet.","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":742,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1509394288,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"How Do We Encourage Student Centered Lessons in HS?","Handle":"how_do_we_encourage_student_centered_lessons_in_hs","ShortDescription":"The term \"student centered instruction\" has been bandied about quite a bit in the past few years. What does that look like at the High School level? Let's brainstorm ways to adjust the learning experiences in our High School classrooms to meet the needs of students and teacher alike.","Description":"The term \"student centered instruction\" has been bandied about quite a bit in the past few years. What does that look like at the High School level? In conversations with other High School teachers I have experienced both resistance to the concept, as well as confusion about how to make it happen. What do we do if students do not come to us with the skills they need to be self directed learners? How do we make sure that they are prepared for college? How do we handle others in our department who are not interested? Where do we get resources? How do we find the time? All of these questions and more need to be discussed.  Let's brainstorm ways to adjust the learning experiences in our High School classrooms to meet the needs of students and teacher alike.","Link":["http:\/\/www.duncanpatti.wikispaces.com"],"Audience":["High School"],"Practice":"I would love to create a collaborative Google Site with ideas and lessons. Depending on the other members of the conversation, maybe we could use Padlet of a Google Doc to post ideas initially.  It would be awesome if conversation members were diverse enough to tackle different disciplines. I would propose that we start with a conversation about the meaning of \"student centered\" because I think that there may be some confusion there.  I would also ask people to share ways that they may have already been creating student centered experiences. I think that during this type of conversation, there may be the opportunity to have a \"gripe session\" so I will encourage us to get that out of the way right in the beginning and help others see that instead of dwelling on why it can not\/should not work, we should focus on possible solutions.","Presenter":["Patti Duncan"],"PresenterAffiliation":["EdCamp NEPA; Discovery Education"],"PresenterEmail":["duncanpatti@gmail.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":2,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":"I have led similar conversations in my capacity at both EdCamp NEPA and Discovery.  I taught HS Chemistry and Physics for 15 years before I went to work for Discovery and have done a lot of work with teachers around transforming classrooms, not just about integrating technology but also about the necessary shift in pedagogy. This session is NOT about DE. (PS... I no longer work for them)","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":729,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1508961632,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Keeping Kids Curious: The Art and Science of Making","Handle":"keeping_kids_curious--the_art_and_science_of_making","ShortDescription":"STEAM is about more than just adding engineering and technology to our science, math, and art curriculum. Curiosity about the world\u2014answering questions and solving problems\u2014is the essence of learning. Let\u2019s talk about the science of curiosity and share strategies for using makerspaces to reignite curiosity in your students.","Description":"Makerspaces are an exploding trend in education, but most of the conversation has been around injection of STEM content and activities through hands-on building. We believe that an important avenue for exploration is activating and fostering curiosity in our students. Makerspaces offer opportunities to give students learning experiences that tap into new interests and passions.\r\n\r\nWe will begin by presenting and discussing some of the science of curiosity, specifically as it relates to student learning. We'll then use the Success Analysis Protocol to generate and process strategies and best practices brought to the session by the participants. We will explicitly consider how the strategies and practices may promote or suppress curiosity and how to maximize our ability to keep kids curious.","Link":["http:\/\/www.cheltenham.org","http:\/\/www.geraldaungst.com\/CuriosityEducon"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"We will use a version of the Success Analysis Protocol from the NSRF to process and analyze the ideas shared by the group. We will collect the best ideas and our reflections in a public Google Doc.","Presenter":["Gerald Aungst","Brian Reilly"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Cheltenham School District"],"PresenterEmail":["gaungst@cheltenham.org","breilly@cheltenham.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":3,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":753,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1509546077,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Symmetrical Learning: Creating Rich Experiences for All Learners","Handle":"symmetrical_learning--creating_rich_experiences_for_all_learners","ShortDescription":"Sometimes the learning opportunities we ask teachers to offer to students are not the same ones we offer teachers. We share our journey in using Instructional Rounds to create an opportunity for all learners (principals, teachers, students) to engage in a discovery process, and we invite you to consider the symmetry in your own learning model.","Description":"At The Urban Assembly, a network of 21 public schools across New York City, we have embarked upon a journey to ensure that everyone in our community - administrators, teachers and students - have access to rich learning experiences. We know that the best learning involves exploration and access to resources of time and collaboration. \r\n\r\nIn this conversation, we will share our use of Instructional Rounds as an organizing framework to create a symmetrical approach to learning and the impact it has had so far. Specifically, we will share the practice of Instructional Rounds that Urban Assembly Principals engage in, and how one school leader at The Urban Assembly Maker Academy has adopted the practice for school wide and teacher inquiry. As one of the guiding principles of Educon suggests, we strive to create educative experiences that are inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all learners. From there, we will invite participants to consider their own structures for learning, and ask the question: \u201cHow symmetrical are these learning experiences?\u201d","Link":["https:\/\/urbanassembly.org\/","http:\/\/www.uamaker.nyc\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"The structure of the presentation will be a focus on sharing the practices in the format of a Presentation of Learning (POL) a structure we use to share our learning. From there, we will use discussion protocols to guide the group towards deeper learning, including a text protocol to discuss relevant research, a time for the participants to reflect on their own practices, and a modified consultancy protocol to provide feedback on next steps.","Presenter":["Alexis Goldberg","Luke Bauer","Pete Wood"],"PresenterAffiliation":["The Urban Assembly","The Urban Assembly Maker Academy"],"PresenterEmail":["agoldberg@urbanassembly.org","luke.bauer@uamaker.nyc","pete.wood@uamaker.nyc"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":7,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":"We have had an intensive period of learning about symmetry in learning models through our use of the Instructional Rounds model. We are excited to share this with others, receive feedback on our own work, and invite others to consider symmetry in their own school communities.","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7},{"ID":722,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1507127747,"CreatorID":4735,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"The Evolving Role of the 21C Educator","Handle":"the_evolving_role_of_the_21c_educator","ShortDescription":"How has our role as educators evolved as more student-centered and personalized learning models emerged? What is the indispensable expertise and value teachers continue to bring to the classrooms and how do we keep these at the forefront of practices? Is higher education and the current model of PD building capacity in these areas?","Description":"This conversation will focus on defining what the role of educator has looked like past, present, and future. The goal is to \r\n\r\n- Tease out what has been the central value of the teacher-student interaction through different eras of changing paradigms in education\r\n- Create a clearer confidence in what is irreplaceable\r\n- Brainstorm ways to leverage innovation to allow for more teacher-student interaction and maximize the impact of that interaction \r\n\r\nThe conversation is important in the face of fear of futurists' predictions regarding automation of education, and in the current fear of personalized learning when the misinterpretation of that model puts technology over pedagogy and rapport.","Link":["http:\/\/www.blinaction.com","http:\/\/www.teachontheedge.com","http:\/\/linc.education"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"Create an online share space using a tool like Padlet for organizing contributions and ensuring all voices are heard.\r\nTransition between online sharing and offline conversations in both small and whole group.","Presenter":["Tiffany Wycoff"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Blended Learning in Action; Learning Innovation Catalyst"],"PresenterEmail":["tiffanyfwycoff@gmail.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":98,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":4735,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":7}],"conditions":{"Status":"Accepted","ConferenceID":7,"ScheduleSlotID":98},"total":7,"limit":false,"offset":false}