Featured/Spotlight/Breakouts

Classroom Makeover: Hack, Prototype and Design

In this session, we’ll explore simple but meaningful techniques and strategies for re-thinking and re-designing learning spaces. We’ll examine a variety of affordable “hacks” that can help you create more effective spaces for student learning that can be applied to any physical space in school. Leave the session with a set of strategies for dramatically improving learning spaces tomorrow, over a month, and within a year.

Towards the Design of Contemporary Library Spaces

As the intellectual heart of a school, how the library supports student learning is simply mission-critical With this as a grounding construct, we explore the changing nature of what a library is, what it means for learning, and how this translates into the effective design of library spaces. We consider the library as a spatial ecology, giving attendees the opportunity to consider how a physical and digital library can work together to provide an always-on, connective experience that will resonate with today's students. Finally, our exploration of "library" presents the design process as a methodology that librarians can use to continually align and evolve the programs and spaces of the library to create meaningful capacities for student learners Join in for an enriching conversation about the intersection of library, space, and design. (Note: this presentation focuses on the design process required to design/redesign space)

Designing the Next Generation Library

As the intellectual heart of a school, how the library supports student learning is simply mission-critical. With this as a grounding construct, we’ll explore the changing nature of what a library is, what it means for learning, and how this translates into the effective design of library spaces. Learn about the opportunities for rethinking library programs and how physical and digital spaces can work together to support a next generation library learning experience. Join in for an enriching conversation about the intersection of library, space, and design! (Note: this presentation focuses programatic shifts in libraries and the development of a spatial ecology that supports them)

Creating Inspiring Spaces: Physical Space for Learning

The interaction between students and dedicated and committed educators represents the fundamental essence of why school matters. These interactions occur on a daily basis in the physical spaces of schools spaces that were designed for an education of a different era. In this session, we'll examine how all spaces in a school can be a location of learning, and how the physical spaces of schools can be rethought. See examples of physical spaces that represent the very best in flexible and agile design, learn practical strategies for using physical space in new says, and see how the spaces of school can be improved and employed to support more student choice and agency. Leave the session with the start of a new mindset for how physical spaces of school can serve teaching and learning.

Designing Digital Spaces for Learning

The opportunity to enlarge how and where students learn is here. The growth and explosion of digital tools and resources, as well as access to personal devices, now enable new opportunities to learn in highly flexible and agile digital learning environments. In this session, we'll explore the opportunity of digital spaces for learning and how they support a connected learning experience. We'll unpack how to create digital spaces, the characteristics of successful spaces, and how they work in concert with physical spaces to create a dynamic learning environment for students.

Classroom Redesign: Creating 21st Century Learning Spaces

Connective technologies, mobile devices, and new global learning opportunities are reshaping how, what and where people learn. Conversely, traditional brick and mortar schools are composed of decades-old classrooms designed to support a different type of learning from a different age. So, do our current schools, to maintain relevance and effectiveness, need to rethink how their spaces are used to support learning in a connected world? The answer is yes. In this session, we'll explore exemplars of physical space design and strategies for rethinking how "classrooms" can be rethought to support a more contemporary learning experience.

Collaboration in the Age of Google

Teachers have always helped students develop collaborative skills f2f, but in 2016 and beyond, developing those same skills in the new context of digital environments demands consideration. Collaboration in the Age of Google suggests that collaboration is always on, always evolving, and always accessible. This session explores the technologies that support the development of collaborative skills in an increasingly digital world. We'll apply time-honored cooperative learning principles to these new environments, examine the affordances that these technologies bring, and look at how they can be leveraged to support the development of collaborative skills within a new context.

Developing the Design Mind: An Introduction to Design Thinking

This presentation engages participants in understanding and employing the design thinking process, and helps them to begin developing a design mind, one that sees problems and issues always as a design opportunity. We’ll begin by building a model of design thinking through fun and engaging activities that will set the stage of a design provocation focusing on personalized learning. Embedded in this process will be strategies to help participants vision design thinking as a 21st Century pedagogy, and one that deeply engages students in developing solutions to human needs. Additionally, other components that support the process, such as developing the types of learning spaces that support such design thinking, will be addressed. Come learn about a process that supports creativity and innovative thought and practice that can be used to address the unique opportunities of a 21st Century education.

Standing Room Only: How to Create Unforgettable Presentation Media

From sitting on a stool telling a story to using the most capable presentation tool, being able to communicate effectively has never been so important. This session provides participants with ten strategies for helping students develop compelling presentation media that will help them convey their ideas and passions. Using this framework, participants will have an opportunity to evaluate presentation media for effectiveness. Leave the session with an understanding of how biology, learning theory, and visual literacy design principles can reshape how you and your students present their ideas to the world.

Moonshot Thinking: Establishing a Mindset of Innovation

In this session, explore the classroom, school and organizational landscape of innovative thought and practice. We'll examine six factors that must be present in an educator's practice, or an organization's beliefs/practice that are essential for creating the conditions for audacious thinking and that promote the development of the dispositions that are required to take educational moonshots. Participants will leave with a guiding framework of practical, yet essential, steps to follow that can help them take the steps to becoming more innovative, and in turn, create the conditions for taking educational moonshots.

Developing STEM and STEAM Programs

Everyone is chasing STEM and STEAM programs. In this session, participants will have a chance to ramp up their understanding of the design of STEM and STEM programs. We’ll examine existing exemplar programs and discuss the possible iterations of what these programs can be, how they impact student learning and how they can help students become career ready. These are still emergent programs in schools and this presentation will help schools sort out the guiding questions of developing and implementing programs.

Creating a Makerspace and a Culture of Making

In this session, participants will have the opportunity to explore the design elements required to create a makerspace from the ground up while learning how the space can support the development of a maker disposition in a school. This presentation will address the questions that must be asked when creating a makerspace, the design elements associated with creating such a space, and the organizational behaviors required to create the conditions for a making culture. Examples of effective maker programs and spaces will be shared. Leave the session with a roadmap for establishing making as a truly engaging component of learning in your school.

Communicating with Contemporary Digital Media

The ability to communicate through the media channels of the Internet is staggering. This presentation explores the most capable tools, the most effective strategies, and the teaching and learning implications of having students create and communicate what they know and who they are to a global audience by using the enormous potential of the Internet and the very devices they use daily.