Conference Sessions
Strands
Friday, February 20
Session A 9:30 AM–10:45 AM
Session AB 9:30 AM–12:15 PM
Session B 11:00 AM–12:15 PM
Session C 2:15 PM–3:30 PM
Saturday, February 21
Session D 9:30–10:45 AM
Session DE 9:30 AM–12:00 PM
Session E 11:00 AM–12:00 PM
Session C
C2
Performance Assessment in the Age of High-Stakes Testing
Allison Allbee, Performance Assessment Coordinator, June Jordan School for Equity, San Francisco Unified School District, CA; Rachel Vigil, Program Associate, Small Schools for Equity, San Francisco Unified School District, CA
Have you begun to dread the spring testing season? June Jordan School for Equity has a performance assessment system that is designed to ensure real, public accountability for student achievement. With a focus on college prep and social justice, we work to build the skills necessary for college success while arming students with the tools to empower them to achieve their dreams for themselves and their communities. Using scaffolding, inquiry, essential questions, and culturally relevant material, we guide students through the process of developing papers on each of the following anchor tasks: Literacy Analysis, Scientific Research, Mathematical Application, and Original Research. Students then must present and defend a paper and a post-graduation plan to a graduation committee before they are allowed to graduate. Committees include teachers, students, family, and community members. Lessons from the presenters and committees are then integrated into curriculum for the following year.
Participants in this workshop will have an opportunity to investigate our classroom practices of inquiry, scaffolding, and culturally relevant material, and get practical advice on how to implement their own alternative assessment process. Using sociometry exercises, videos of student presentations, and student work, we will delve into the questions: Why do we as educators need assessment systems? What makes an assessment system useful? How does student work inform our practice? We will cover the need for multiple forms of assessment, present an introduction to how performance assessment looks at JJSE, and provide participants with a pallet of instructional strategies to survey.
The goal is for participants new to alternative assessment to leave with an invigorating sense of the potential of performance assessment and with practical steps for implementing an alternative assessment program at their school. For people who are already working with alternative assessments, this will be an opportunity to reflect on their own practice, dialogue about specific complications or questions that have arisen in implementation, and expand the strategies used in their classrooms or schools.
Strand: College and Career Education, NEW SESSION
C3
Transforming Comprehensive High Schools: Lessons Learned about Conditions, Practices, and Equity
LaShawn Routé Chatmon, Executive Director; Chinyelu Martin, Program Director, BayCES, CA
A school's or district's structural conditions (organization of time, people, money, space) are deeply intertwined with its sociocultural conditions, or the way race, class, and culture affect efforts to improve educational outcomes for underserved students. Comprehensive high schools can be utterly transformed through purposefully constructed structural and cultural conditions and practices. In this workshop, we will share key lessons learned about SLC development and its links to educational equity.
Strand: Smaller Learning Communities & Small School System Redesign, NEW SESSION and KEYNOTE
C4
Cornerstone Academy: Building Support for High School Success
Stefanie Mueller, SLC Coordinator, John B. Connally High School, Pflugerville Independent School District, TX
Schools choosing to restructure struggle with making many tough decisions in a minimal amount of time. The presenters in this session will share their own struggles and successes during their first year of SLC implementation at their own high school. With a focus on transitioning students to a more active, involved, and challenging educational setting, the Cornerstone Academy supports freshman students academically, personally, and socially.
Strand: Smaller Learning Communities & Small School System Redesign, NEW SESSION
C5
A Practical Guide to SLC Implementation and Sustainability
Mike Neubig, President, Capture Educational Consulting Services, OH; David Holden, Instructional Coach/Co-Founder AAIS (American Alliance for Innovative Schools, Inc.), Mar Vista High School, Sweetwater Union High School District, CA
This session will provide attendees with practical guidelines for effective SLC implementation and maintenance. Some of the topics to be addressed are getting teachers' buy-in; developing teams; flexible scheduling; analyzing data; inclusion of Special Education and English Learners; meeting protocols; and sustainability. This session is not a prescription for SLC implementation; rather, attendees will receive practical information, tools, and insight that will facilitate SLC implementation and sustainability.
Strands: Smaller Learning Communities & Small School System Redesign
C6
Supporting a Culture of Continuous Improvement by Creating Systems of Accountability
Henry Russell, Deputy Superintendent; Kristel Barr, Principal; Bill Brooks, High School Redesign Coordinator, Independence School District, CA
The effort to improve education through SLC structures coupled with solid, research-based initiatives represents major shifts in thinking for any staff. Undergoing such change requires a staff to embrace a culture of continuous improvement. Participants will learn how Truman High School works to build such a culture and performs multiple checkups on initiatives by using various systems of accountability. These systems do not represent a top-down approach; rather, they distribute accountability to everyone involved in school improvement.
Strands: Smaller Learning Communities & Small School System Redesign, NEW SESSION
C8
Professional Learning Communities: A Key Strategy for Affecting Student Learning and Achievement
Keith Greer, Principal, Coolidge High School, Coolidge Unified School District, AZ
Professional learning communities (PLC) are an effective, cost-efficient way for educators to learn what changes are necessary to improve their classroom practice. This presentation will review how a low-performing large rural high school affected student achievement and staff interaction through a highly focused school-wide PLC.
Strands: Support for Teaching & Learning
C9
Conscious Classroom Management: Bringing Out the Best in Students and Teachers
Grace Dearborn, Educational Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC, CA
Why is it that good classroom management is often invisible? In this lively, fun, interactive session, learn key ways that K-12 teachers can grow from inner apology to inner authority. Receive dozens of practical eye-opening strategies for managing classes effectively. Leave with your tool kit overflowing with stuff you can use.
Strands: Support for Teaching & Learning, NEW SESSION
C10
Why Try? Innovative Interventions that Provide Hope and Motivate Youth to Overcome Poverty, Violence, and Failure
Christian Moore, Founder, the WHYTRY Organization, UT
This presentation provides the audience with tools to help youth answer the question, "Why try in life?" Christian Moore walks the audience through several methods to teach emotional intelligence and life skills such as anger management, problem solving, overcoming peer pressure, and keeping laws and rules. This workshop emphasizes a strength-based approach to helping youth overcome their challenges using multiple intelligence methods that emphasize the youths' learning styles-an approach that will help you teach in ways youth will understand and remember.
Strands: Student Support & Intervention