Conference Sessions

Strands

Thursday, February 8

Preconference 1:00–4:30 PM

Friday, February 9

Session A 9:30–10:45 AM

Session AB 9:30 AM–12:15 PM

Session B 11:00 AM–12:15 PM

Session C 2:15–3:30 PM

Saturday, February 10

Session D 8:00–9:15 AM

Session DE 8:00–10:45 AM

Session E 9:30–10:45 AM

Support for Teaching and Learning

A3

Rebels with Applause: Brain-Compatible Approaches for Motivating Reluctant Learning
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC

What does the current understanding of the brain suggest about our ”rebel” students, who seem to have the hardest time paying attention and getting work done? This lively interactive session will provide K–12 teachers with dozens of practical ”brain-based“ strategies they can use to help get students of varying abilities and learning styles involved and motivated, and help them retain more.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

AB4

Framework for Instructional Coaching
David Holden, Instructional Coach, Consultant, Co-Founder, Mar Vista HS/American Alliance for Innovative Schools, Sweetwater Union HSD

This session is for teachers and administrators who want either to begin an instructional coaching program or to re-examine their current program. Attendees will learn the practical nuts and bolts regarding an effective instructional coaching program. Some topics to be discussed are:

The skills, knowledge, and personal qualities required to be an effective coach
Working with resistant teachers
Time management

Attendees will receive handouts and create plans to implement/redesign a coaching program.

Implementation Level 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

AB5

Set-up for Success: 9th Grade Transition, Special Education Inclusion, and Interdisciplinary Teams
Jacqueline Daly Brown, Special Education Teacher; Patricia Zalesky, Assistant Principal, Papillion-La Vista South High School, Papillion-La Vista Public Schools

This session will provide the audience with a myriad of ideas to assist ninth grade students in becoming successful high school students. An intense pyramid of interventions will be provided to assist professionals in meeting the needs of individual students, including Special Education students. Participants will receive handouts that provide the groundwork for developing their own pyramid of interventions for their classroom, team, or school.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

A6

SLC Structures and Strategies
Brooke Harms, President, Strategic Technology & Research; Alan Blanchard, President, Blanchard Educational Services & Technologies

Come and understand the differences among the various SLC structures and strategies and what must be integrated in order to create an effective SLC. Learn how to create your school’s structural chart which you can share with colleagues, inviting discussion on the various structures and strategies available to the school. Audience for this session should be those schools that just received the grant and have not yet implemented structural changes, schools that are curious about SLC and what it constitutes, and finally, schools that need a refresher on structures/strategies and how they work.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

AB7

Using PLCs to Build Collaboration and Personalization within SLCs—Are You Driving a 60s Model School Design?
Corine Sayler, Assistant Principal, Davis High School, Davis School District

This active and fast-moving presentation is intended for those interested in using the currently endorsed Professional Learning Communities to further collaborations and identity. The presentation uses the actual experiences involved in a large, very traditional high school’s restructuring into SLCs and the development of a schoolwide vision for personalization. Structures within the SLC that provide teacher leadership and ownership are given as examples. Activities include a PowerPoint presentation, examples of structures that can be put into place, and several activities designed to give participants a model they can take back to work with at their schools. References from current publications used in our restructuring are provided. The goal is to help all recognize their model of leadership or practices and the benefits of newer models.

Implementation Level 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

B3

When Consequences Don’t Work
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC

Consequences are often a last resort that don’t resort to much! In this lively, interactive session, learn seven key strategies that teachers often use to succeed with difficult students. In addition to addressing key assumptions that foster teacher success, the focus will be on what to avoid, what to do, and how to do it.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

B6

Reaching and Teaching Every Student
Joseph Pauley, Adjunct Professor, Judith Pauley, Lecturer, Cal State San Marcos

Research shows that a teachers’ ability to communicate with and motivate every student may be the determining factor in overall student success. The concepts of Process Communication provide teachers with a tool that enables them to individualize the way they communicate with and motivate every student. Participants in this session will learn how to motivate and communicate with each student in a group setting. The concepts are scientifically based, have held up under more than 35 years of scientific inquiry, and have helped thousands of teachers modify the way they teach.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

C3

Conscious Classroom Management
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC

Why is it that good classroom management is often invisible? How can we understand, internalize, and use these invisible skills with our students? This lively, fun, and interactive session gives K–12 teachers a framework for seeing and practicing the often invisible skills of effective classroom management and organization. Participants will leave with a refreshed outlook and with ideas they can use the next day for classroom management, lesson planning, and stress reduction.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

C4

Ninth Grade Programs and Practices to Promote, Support, and Create Greater Academic Success
Lisa Knuppel, SLC Coordinator; Evonne Conlay, English & Seminar Teacher, Costa Mesa High School, Newport Mesa USD

This session will offer participants a brief overview of research and data supporting a high level of attention and allocation of educational resources to students in the ninth grade, along with a brief history of the successful programs and practices offered in the first- and second-year implementation of SLC funding at Costa Mesa High School dedicated to ninth grade students. Throughout the session, participants will collaboratively create a profile of the ninth grade student, reflect together on the dynamics of the ninth grade school year and the learning experiences it provides at their school sites, and review a variety of ninth grade programs and practices that they might choose to implement to promote, support, and create greater academic success for their freshmen.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

C5

What Teachers Need More of: ”Time to Teach!”
Donald Hollins, Teacher/Advisor/Department Chair, Sunset High School (alternative public high school)

Time has been called the coin of learning. Yet every teacher knows the frustration of losing valuable instruction time to matters of discipline, just as every student has known the frustration of losing valuable learning time to matters of discipline. For some teachers and for some students, the amount of lost time is very great. Time to Teach is a group of strategies proven to restore that lost time to teachers and students in a way that is simple, fair, and mutually respectful. Raise scores and reduce frustration. Take specific strategies back to your classroom that will work immediately. Drop the multiple warnings and repeated requests and adopt methods that work, because they show you not only care, you care enough to be consistent.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

C6

Crossroads: A Ninth Grade Transition Course Featuring The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
Mary Holden, Resource Teacher; David Holden, Instructional Coach; Consultants & Co-Founders, Mar Vista HS/American Alliance for Innovative Schools, Sweetwater Union HSD

At Mar Vista High School, Crossroads is an award-winning, yearlong transition course for ninth graders. Its basic purpose is to help students do better in school and provide them with direction, decision-making skills, and purpose. It could be described as an introduction to high school and beyond. The class is focused on Sean Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. During this session, you will learn about the importance of having a freshman transition course, how we designed and implemented Crossroads, and the outcome of having such a course.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

C7

Center for Creative Arts
Pete Murchison, Principal; Victoria Vincench, Teacher; Kristina Palos, Teacher, Lakewood High School, Fremont USD

Create a program that gives an underserved group of students an identity. Learn how to construct structures that support collaboration. The Center for Creative Arts at Irvington High School is a school-within-a-school that integrates the arts into core academic classes and makes art the focal point of the CCA student’s life at Irvington. The CCA works, and can serve as an example for how to structure any SLC. All audience members will receive a CD-ROM of ideas outlined in the presentation.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

D3

Building Student Strengths: Leveraging Cultural Literacy to Increase Academic Performance
Lucinda Kramer, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, National University

All students possess the knowledge and skills to participate competently in their specific cultural context. Often cultural literacy is addressed in education only in relation to how it might impede a student’s academic progress. The “other side” of cultural literacy is how it can be leveraged to increase a student’s ability to acquire new learning and participate more competently in the classroom. Specific instructional strategies for identifying and leveraging a student’s cultural literacy will be shared.

Implementation Level 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

DE4

Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives: Motivating Students for Higher Academic Achievement
Mindy Bingham, Author, Academic Innovations

Making a successful transition from middle school to high school is critical to a student’s lifelong success. Mindy Bingham, author of the award-winning Career Choices, explores how schools across the country integrate comprehensive guidance into the eighth and ninth grade without sacrificing achievement, academic rigor, or content standards. She’ll discuss and distribute the NEW Course Standards for Freshman Transition Classes from George Washington University—an invaluable planning resource for your high school redesign efforts.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

D5

From Good to Great to Excellent
Mehran Akhtarkhavari, Principal, and Team from Rialto High School, Rialto USD

Rialto High School is in its third year of implementation of the SLC model. Rialto has transformed its overcrowded urban campus of over 3,500 multiethnic students into four smaller learning academies. This session will concentrate on the structure and organization of SLCs with an emphasis on the career pathways in the Blue and Silver academies, which house both juniors and seniors. Learn how Rialto High School brought purpose and a sense of belonging to many disenfranchised students. There will be time for questions, and handouts will be provided.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning

DE6

Successful Practices of Professional Learning Teams and Small Learning Communities
Erin McGary-Hamilton, Program Advisor, Recreating Secondary Schools, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory; Lee Mongrue, Staff Developer/Teacher, Hoover High/City Heights Ed. Collaborative, San Diego USD/CSU San Diego

Is your SLC or school implementing Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) and in need of effective tools to help staff learn together? Come hear concrete examples from a school practitioner on how their PLTs are supporting professional development & SLC transformation. In this session participants will:

Utilize effective tools for PLTs
Learn from and interact with a PD Coordinator who assists staff to improve instructional practices
Learn about how to promote & sustain teams and develop leadership capacity

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

DE7

Support for Teaching and Learning: Creating a Critical Friends Group
Sean Delgado, Teacher, Chino High School, Chino Valley USD; Cuahutemoc Arroyo, Categorical Program Coordinator, LAUSD Categorical Programs, Los Angeles USD

One essential component in the success of an SLC is the ability of a team of educators to collaborate and plan for learning and instruction. In this session, participants will learn how to use protocols to look at student work as a way of improving instruction and developing collegiality. After learning of the purpose and protocols within Critical Friends Groups, participants will engage in a mock protocol to look at authentic student work. Participants will then debrief about the process and leave with a variety of different protocols to use for Critical Friends Groups at their own site.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

E5

Make It In”RIGOR”ating
Kim Cavanagh, Carolyn Bainer, Consultants, Xemplar Consulting

Why use rigor in the classroom or at your site? Healthy challenges with a realistic level of frustration not only produce creative thinkers and problem solvers, but prepare your students for the real world. Participants will leave this session with a clear understanding of what rigor consists of while engaging in fun, in”rigor”ating adventures. We’ll examine student work to determine how to take it up a notch and make it more challenging. We’ll explore various methods to make the standards-based curriculum provide the rigor that 21st-century students need to prepare themselves for today’s workforce.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning