2025 Keynote Speakers
Marlee Bunch, Ed.D.
Margarita Machado-Casas, Ph.D.
2025 Breakout Sessions
Marlee Bunch, Ed.D.: The Magnitude of Us and the un/HUSH framework
Dr. Marlee Bunch’s two-day professional development workshop introduces educators to The Magnitude of Us and the un/HUSH framework as tools for strengthening inclusive and culturally responsive teaching. The first session focuses on the framework’s foundations, exploring how educators can deepen pedagogy, assess texts and curriculum, and reflect on positionality through interactive activities and group discussions. The second session builds on these concepts by emphasizing practical application, guiding participants in developing strategies and collaborative lesson plans that foster community, support inclusive learning environments, and can be implemented immediately in their classrooms.
Lynn Burdick, PH.D., Safe and Connected Classrooms for Teachers and Students
Dr. Lynn Burdick’s two-day workshop focuses on helping educators create safe, connected classrooms by understanding the effects of trauma and chronic stress on both teachers and students. The first session builds a shared understanding of trauma and emphasizes teacher self-awareness and self-regulation as foundations for supportive learning environments, highlighting the importance of strong relationships, predictable structures, and responsive approaches to challenging behaviors. The second session explores how to respond effectively when students feel dysregulated, promoting strengths-based strategies that teach emotional regulation rather than relying on punitive discipline. Participants reflect on successes, consider both teacher and student vulnerability, and leave with practical approaches for fostering resilience, connection, and compassion in the classroom.
Margarita Machado-Casas, Ph.D., Supporting Multilingual Learners
Dr. Margarita Machado-Casas’s two-day workshop focuses on helping educators better support multilingual learners (MLLs) by understanding their diverse experiences and strengthening inclusive instructional practices. The first session explores the varied social, economic, and educational backgrounds that shape MLL students’ learning and emphasizes strategies for building meaningful classroom connections while tailoring instruction to individual language and cultural needs. The second session highlights practical teaching approaches that enhance both language development and academic success, including interpreting WIDA proficiency levels, applying appropriate linguistic accommodations, and using methods such as Total Physical Response, Sheltered Instruction, and translanguaging to support learning across subject areas.
Chase Orton, Building Thinking Classroom in Mathematics
Chase Orton’s two-day workshop focuses on creating mathematics classrooms that actively promote student thinking, engagement, and responsibility for learning. Drawing on Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms research, the first session explores strategies for establishing a culture of thinking through practices such as rich thinking tasks, visibly random student groups, and the use of vertical whiteboards to increase participation and disrupt traditional classroom norms. The second session builds on this foundation by examining how teachers can leverage these practices to deepen student understanding, structure effective lessons, and help students develop ownership of their learning through reflection, navigation tools, and clear awareness of their progress and goals.
Yamiley Jean-Simone, Embarking on a Co-Teaching Journey
Dr. Yamiley Jean-Simone’s two-day workshop explores the power of effective co-teaching as a collaborative approach to improving teaching practices and student outcomes. Designed for educators at any stage of their co-teaching journey, the workshop provides practical strategies, reflective exercises, and structured guidance to strengthen communication, shared responsibility, and instructional collaboration between teaching partners. Participants will learn how to coordinate effectively with co-teachers, apply different co-teaching models, address daily classroom challenges, and implement strategies that support diverse learners—including meeting IEP goals—while aligning collaborative practices with broader school goals to create more inclusive and responsive learning environments.
2024 Keynote Speakers
Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ph.D.
Chase Orton
Jimmy Moss, M.D.
2024 Breakout Sessions
Chase Orton: Moving Toward a Thinking Classroom: Math
In this workshop, we will explore the 14 pedagogic practices in the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) framework. On Wednesday, we will dive into the instructional moves that will empower you to build a culture of authentic learning where students see themselves as capable mathematical thinkers and problem solvers. On Thursday, we will learn how to design and prepare lessons for a thinking classroom that align with our standards and course content. We will also discuss how we can overcome the common barriers we face as we implement the BTC framework in our classrooms. This workshop is designed to meet your professional learning needs no matter where you are on your BTC journey moving toward a thinking classroom.
Erin McNeil, Ed.D.: Building a Thinking Classroom Across Multiple Content Areas and Specialties
Get ready to dive into the world of transformative teaching methods with an exploration of Peter Liljedahl’s “Building Thinking Classrooms”. In this workshop, we will learn about types of tasks that engage students, how to form successful collaborative groups, and consider where students work in the classroom. We will also work collaboratively to craft engaging tasks that align with standards and your specific course content. This workshop is designed to help educators build a thinking classroom from the ground up across all content areas involving reading, writing, and critical thinking.
Lynn Burdick, Ph.D.: Strategies to Create Safe Classrooms for Learning
We will explore the impacts of trauma and toxic stress that we are seeing in children and adults in the school environment. We will identify the challenges of the school environment, what we can influence, how we can prevent and respond to the impacts of trauma, and how we as educators can help ourselves as we navigate our own trauma and toxic stress while supporting our students. We will explore the importance of empathy, relationships, self-regulation, and creating a safe learning environment for ourselves and our students, as well as strategies we can use to apply these practices in our spaces. Most importantly, we will create a circle of professionals with similar concerns, needs, and goals. We will leverage our collective knowledge as we learn and reflect on our efforts to create safe classrooms for learning.
2023 Keynote Speakers
Alfred W. Tatum, Ph.D.
Chase Orton
Patrick Briggs
2023 Breakout Sessions
Sara K. Ahmed: Being the Change: Leveraging Identity and Co-Constructing Social Comprehension in our Schools
Drawing from Sara’s books, Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension and Upstanders: How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry ( co-authored with Harvey “Smokey” Daniels), participants will spend time unpacking social comprehension principles: exploring personal identities, listening actively, being candid, becoming better informed, finding humanity in ourselves, and facing crisis together. Sara will lead participants through workshop-style exercises that build and can be taken back into the classroom or school professional development meetings. Sara will focus specifically on social identities and how they impact how we see our students and reframing for asset-based language to use in schools.
Together, we will practice how the social comprehension strategies work in harmony with reading comprehension skills such as, determining importance, inference, and making connections. From book blurbs to book clubs, and leveraging our literature mentors, there are lots of opportunities for the intersection of literacy skills and strategies, social-emotional learning, and social comprehension. Participants will notice and note through activities that show exactly how to use an inquiry mindset to bolster how students can read like readers, read like writers, and build proximity to comprehend their place in the world.
We will also discuss and practice social conversations: how being candid as we notice and reflect on our beliefs, biases, and perspectives help us consider how we respond to our respective worlds– the classroom, playing field, social media, news, and our dinner tables. Please come prepared to consider your own identities, your students’ identities, and how social comprehension directly impacts all that we do as educators and human beings. Overall, come prepared for nonclosure as more questions than answers will carve this new path.
Meghan Siwecki and Terren Wilson: Building Rigor through Equitable AVID Strategies
Through these sessions, you will be exposed to research based AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) strategies. You can expect to collaborate with other educators while engaging in strategies you can implement in your own classroom. The cornerstones of AVID include Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading, and you will be exposed to strategies such as Give One, Get One, Focused Note Taking, Marking the Text, Socratic Seminar, and more.
Chase Orton: Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics
Based on Peter Liljedahl’s research, these sessions are a starting point to begin exploring accessible and pragmatic teaching practices for building mathematics classrooms that promote student thinking and engagement. During our time together, we will engage with some tasks as math learners and reflect together as math teachers about our learning experience. By the end of the sessions, you’ll be equipped with specific actions that you can use in your math class to cultivate student thinking and a culture of empathy and compassion.