Conversations
During each of the six breakout sessions throughout the weekend, a large number of conversations will take place. This site will help you organize your plan for the weekend and provide the relevant information for each conversation. After signing in, search through the conversations below and mark the sessions you are interested in to populate your personal schedule on the right (or below if on your mobile phone).
Develop your own strategies for supporting student movements through a mixture of authentic experiences and practice scenarios across classroom and community. (Additional focus on students of color and high need students)
We know that students learn best when they seek answers to their own questions, but what happens when they aren’t sure what those questions are? How might we empower students not only to follow their passions but to discover them as well? Let's discuss.
What is the legacy of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) and the educators who are most closely associated with it, including but not limited to Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier? This conversation is for those who want to add their voices to the effort to understand CES’s powerful impact.
Teaching in transformative ways requires a robust support network for teachers and a new vision of leadership. At the Workshop School, we call on teachers to shape the school’s mission, curriculum, assessment system, PD, and more. Our model presents challenges as well as exciting opportunities for growth and innovation.
What would it look like to use engineering as a catalyst to change your school’s physical environment and culture? This conversation will be moderated by SLA's resident engineers who have recently rebuilt the SLA engineering program as a centerpiece to school wide tinkering, making, and creative solution-finding.
Over the last few years, awareness of student data privacy and information security within educational technology has grown. While significant improvements have been made, no one feels that the job is done, or that the issue will recede into the background.
This session pulls together four distinct perspectives on best practice and experiences ensuring that good educational technology use is grounded in an awareness of student privacy needs.
This conversation will center on environmental cues in our school cultures that trigger, perpetuate, and rely upon stereotypes of the identities of our culturally and linguistically students. We will dialogue how we can combat stereotypes and negative value messaging by intentionally fostering inclusive cultures for all of our students.
Participants will discuss the online lives of teens and how schools can help students navigate this world. Students from SLA Beeber will be present to give their perspective.
Talk with the new Chief Academic Officer of Philadelphia about the challenges and opportunities facing Philadelphia education. This session is both an opportunity to listen to Mr. Hackney's ideas and give critical feedback as Mr. Hackney begins his tenure as CAO of this city.
Teachers from SLA@Beeber will share their real experiences developing and implementing project-based learning experiences with students. Students will be present to discuss their perspective with these experiences.
In humanities courses, teaching skills with an eye toward student mastery can be a tricky endeavor. What does it mean to measure mastery in reading and writing, when these skills overlap to such a degree that they can’t be isolated from each other? How can the measuring ever be authentic?
Have you ever wondered, "What is going on inside their heads? Why do they put themselves at risk when they understand and know the consequences involved? Why aren't they focused? How can I motivate them?" This conversation will explore brain research to understand how changes in the adolescent brain impact their decisions and what interventions can be taken to help teens develop a healthy mind while and boost their learning.
Language is messy and imperfect, perhaps especially so in education. In this conversation, we'll explore words that are commonly used in educational circles. Where do they come from? What assumptions do we make about their meaning that might not be shared by others? How does their use impact students?
How is a conversation about your education a conversation without you? What are the benefits of having a student led IEP meeting where the students actually ask for what they need and what they want? How will this change compliance and implementation?