Quick Links
Upcoming Events
CareersNYSAIS Inaugural Teaching & Learning Conference
Monday, November 10, 2025
Nichols School, Buffalo, NY
Workshop Descriptions
Grade:
Block:
Block 1 (10:30 am – 11:30 am)
Active Strategies to Rethink, Replay, & Review
In this interactive session, educators will participate in a variety of dynamic, engaging review activities that are able to be adapted to any subject area and a wide variety of grade levels.
In this interactive session, educators will participate in a variety of dynamic, engaging review activities that are able to be adapted to any subject area and a wide variety of grade levels. Participants will learn how to turn ordinary content into game-based learning experiences that promote participation, reinforce key concepts, and support diverse learners.
Featured strategies include Capture the Flag, where students compete to capture content mastery; Lucky Ducky, a game of chance questions and unpredictable scoring; and Battle Board, where students battle for territory by demonstrating their understanding of the material.
Participants will explore how to adapt these strategies and others to review vocabulary, complete math problems, prep for a test or review at the end of a unit. Emphasis will be placed on promoting collaboration and student motivation. Attendees will leave with ready-to-use templates and classroom management tips for game-based review. Discover how review time can become the most anticipated part of your instructional routine!
Jen Cannon, The Gow School
Advancing Content Literacy: Strategies to Strengthen Reading and Thinking Across Disciplines
Students encounter complex texts across all subject areas, not just in English Language Arts, and must think critically, analyze deeply, and engage with texts through the lens of each discipline.
Students encounter complex texts across all subject areas, not just in English Language Arts, and must think critically, analyze deeply, and engage with texts through the lens of each discipline. This workshop will equip educators with practical strategies to strengthen students’ comprehension and reasoning, analytical reading, and disciplinary literacy skills. These skills can be integrated into classroom instruction to help students process challenging texts, think more deeply, and engage more independently with academic content.
Alison Leveque, The Windward Institute at The Windward School
Artificial Intelligence, Hands-On Activities
In this workshop, I will share some of the most resonant activities, illuminating the ways artificial intelligence has been realized over history:
For the last 8 years, I have taught a hands-on course in Artificial Intelligence. In the last years, I have expanded to address the new AI (ChatGPT and the like).
In this workshop, I will share some of the most resonant activities, illuminating the ways artificial intelligence has been realized over history:
– its mechanical beginnings
– the basis of how computers “think”
– modern interactive large learning models.
Harlan Gilbert, Green Meadow Waldorf School
Assessment & Reflection as a Teaching Tool
Assessments are evaluative, but they can also be instructional and motivating!
Assessments are evaluative, but they can also be instructional and motivating! Teachers often use formative assessments as a way to guide teaching, and summative assessments as a way to evaluate learning, but harder to incorporate in these feedback loops are student self-reflection. In this workshop, we will walk through some assessment tools and workflows that can lessen student assessment anxiety, clarify outcomes/expectations, and provide students with a routine to help make learning explicit and self-motivated. By synthesizing the work and experience of many educators, this workshop will introduce a method for helping students accurately self-assess, and see their growth. We will specifically explore the use of mastery grading, descriptive feedback, individual reflection, and assessment differentiation.
Caitlin Littlefield, The Park School of Buffalo
Beyond ‘Good Enough’: Rethinking Curriculum with Goals, Data & Feedback
Over the past decade, student interests, demographics, and learning needs have shifted significantly—requiring our curriculum to evolve in response.
Over the past decade, student interests, demographics, and learning needs have shifted significantly—requiring our curriculum to evolve in response. In this workshop, I will share how I drew on my experience as a literacy coach to reimagine an annual historical fiction book club unit. By identifying key teaching objectives, analyzing data collected over several years, and incorporating feedback from colleagues across grade levels and disciplines, I made both immediate and long-term changes that better served teachers’ instructional goals and enhanced students’ learning experiences.
Curriculum change is never instant—it requires intention, collaboration, and time. I will discuss both the challenges and opportunities I encountered during the process of rebuilding this unit, offering a practical lens into what sustainable curriculum reform can look like in K–8 settings.
Participants will explore a realistic timeline for implementing curricular changes and engage in hands-on work using a structured reflection and feedback protocol. With coaching support and collaborative input, attendees will leave with actionable next steps to revise a unit of their own—and a deeper understanding of how to offer and receive feedback that supports thoughtful, responsive curriculum design.
Sarah Goldstein, The Dalton School
Building Thinking Classrooms for Math and Science Learning
How do we cultivate deep thinking, collaboration, and mastery across subjects? In this session, two educators share how they have brought Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) pedagogy to life in both math and science lessons.
How do we cultivate deep thinking, collaboration, and mastery across subjects? In this session, two educators share how they have brought Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) pedagogy to life in both math and science lessons. During the workshop, participants will explore math and science thinking tasks, thin slicing problems, collaboration, and student reflection. With random groups of three, visible dry erase boards and rich tasks, explore ways to create classroom environments that prioritize curiosity, productive struggle, and reflection. By integrating BTC strategies into both math and science, learning environments are created where students think deeply, work collaboratively, and engage with content in authentic and lasting ways. The presenters will share specific examples from their K, 4th, and 5th grade science and math classrooms, as well as from their after school 4th – 6th grade math club. Come join this session to learn about helpful ways to build classroom community around math and science explorations, support students in developing greater confidence, build expertise with differentiation, and create helpful routines that support student independence. Whether you are new to BTC or already experimenting, this session offers inspiring, practical ideas you can use immediately in your classroom.
Julie Broderick, The School at Columbia University
Chicken soup for the diversity practitioner’s soul
This session aims to provide diversity practitioners (regardless of title) ways to consider approaching equity and inclusion work at their institutions while simultaneously offering intervention strategies, best practices, and encouragement.
This session aims to provide diversity practitioners (regardless of title) ways to consider approaching equity and inclusion work at their institutions while simultaneously offering intervention strategies, best practices, and encouragement. This session is for educators who do the work or are looking to be more involved in equity work in order to help their institutions evolve into a place in which all members feel as if they can thrive in.
Alexus Bertrand, Trinity School
Counting Beyond Ten: Global Number Systems and the Power of Place Value
A deep and flexible understanding of place value is foundational to a student’s success in mathematics.
A deep and flexible understanding of place value is foundational to a student’s success in mathematics. In this interactive workshop, participants will engage in hands-on exploration of various number systems to help students think critically and creatively about number bases beyond the familiar base-10.
Description: We will begin by exploring a fictional number system to challenge assumptions and introduce the concept that base-10 is just one of many possible ways to represent numbers. From there, we will investigate both historical and contemporary number systems from around the world including, but not limited to, the Babylonian system used over 4,000 years ago and the Kaktovik numeral system developed in Alaska by 5th graders.
Throughout the session, we will examine how mathematical understanding is shaped by cultural context and explore the role of ethnomathematics in deepening students’ appreciation of math as a tool for communication. This unit, which I have successfully taught for many years, is rich in cross-curricular connections and can be adapted for both math and history instruction.
Kelsey Konopka, The Dalton School
Creating Custom AI Tools to Support Narrative Assessment: A Practical Workshop for Teachers and Administrators
Writing meaningful, strengths-based narratives requires sustained focus, deep reflection, and a significant investment of time from educators.
Writing meaningful, strengths-based narratives requires sustained focus, deep reflection, and a significant investment of time from educators. The session addresses these challenges by introducing participants to the process of designing custom GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) to support authentic, pedagogically aligned narrative assessments. We will explore how educators can create GPTs that reflect their professional voice, values, and assessment practices—ensuring student narratives remain personalized, constructive, and grounded in real classroom learning.
Participants will learn how to craft clear, detailed GPT instructions that align with their educational philosophy and tone, examine how rubrics, exemplars, and phrase banks can be woven into prompts, and analyze sample GPTs that generate warm, student-centered language while preserving the teacher’s intent and insight. The use of a custom AI tool will inspire you to be a more observant and reflective teacher. The session will also explore how a well-designed GPT can streamline the drafting process, freeing up time for teachers to reflect more deeply and incorporate quotes and observational notes that support and align with checklist scores. Attendees will have the opportunity to experiment with a sample narrative GPT.
Attendees will be guided through key considerations and structures that they can later adapt to their own context. Whether they are already experimenting with AI or just beginning to explore its potential, attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to responsibly and creatively use custom GPTs to enhance the narrative writing process and support student growth.
Lisbeth Uribe, The School at Columbia University
Equitable Assessment in Science: Strategies to Support All Learners and Skills
How can we assess science learning in ways that are inclusive, rigorous, and responsive to diverse learners? This session explores how to design equitable assessments that support 3D teaching and learning by incorporating a variety of formats—lab reports, hands-on models, student-choice projects, in-class essays, science writing, multiple-choice questions, and FRQs that reinforce close reading skills.
How can we assess science learning in ways that are inclusive, rigorous, and responsive to diverse learners? This session explores how to design equitable assessments that support 3D teaching and learning by incorporating a variety of formats—lab reports, hands-on models, student-choice projects, in-class essays, science writing, multiple-choice questions, and FRQs that reinforce close reading skills. Participants will examine how these formats align with science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts while promoting voice, access, and authentic engagement. You’ll explore how varied assessments expose students to the broad skill set needed to thrive in science—modeling, analysis, argumentation, communication, and writing—and how to ensure all students have multiple pathways to demonstrate understanding. Participants will also reflect on student work and adapt their own assessments using equity-focused strategies.
Jen Doran, Rye Country Day School
Exploring Shapes and Angles with Code
Geometry often comes alive when students can visualize and create. In this interactive session, participants will discover how Python’s turtle module can be used to teach key geometric concepts such as angle relationships, polygon properties, and more.
Geometry often comes alive when students can visualize and create. In this interactive session, participants will discover how Python’s turtle module can be used to teach key geometric concepts such as angle relationships, polygon properties, and more. By coding visual representations of shapes and movements, students gain a concrete and dynamic understanding of abstract ideas – while simultaneously developing coding literacy and problem-solving skills.
Participants will explore ready-to-use classroom activities where students write simple Python code to draw geometric figures and investigate mathematical relationships. We will discuss how these programming tasks support the Standards for Mathematical Practice, reinforce spatial reasoning, and align with both middle and high school geometry curricula. No prior experience with Python is necessary – just a willingness to experiment and explore
.
The session will include a brief tutorial on Python’s turtle module, a walkthrough of example lessons, and hands-on time to modify or create your own classroom-ready coding activities. Resources for browser-based platforms (like trinket.io and 101computing.net) will be shared so implementation is easy and cost-free.
By merging computer science with mathematics instruction, educators can offer students a fresh, engaging way to explore geometry, while building transferable skills for the digital age.
Eric Bray, The Gow School
From Numbers to Narrative: Using CTP Data to Deepen Teaching and Learning
In many independent schools, CTP assessment and the resulting data can feel like a formality—reviewed briefly, reported outwardly, then filed away. But for others, it’s becoming a key tool for identifying trends, strengthening curriculum, and supporting students more effectively.
In many independent schools, CTP assessment and the resulting data can feel like a formality—reviewed briefly, reported outwardly, then filed away. But for others, it’s becoming a key tool for identifying trends, strengthening curriculum, and supporting students more effectively.
Wherever you fall on that spectrum, this workshop offers a chance to deepen your relationship with CTP data—not as an external mandate, but as a powerful lens into student learning.
Together, we’ll explore how to move beyond surface-level scores and into the story the data is telling. Participants will learn how to interpret CTP reports with clarity and purpose, connect results with internal assessments and observations, and apply those insights to guide curriculum planning and instructional choices. We’ll also discuss strategies for sharing data effectively with administrators, families, and colleagues to foster shared understanding and informed decision-making. We will share real-life examples of how one school is utilizing these strategies to make an impact on student learning.
While we’ll acknowledge the healthy skepticism some educators feel toward standardized testing, our focus is on making CTP data relevant, usable, and empowering—especially within the values-driven context of independent schools.
You’ll leave with practical tools, a refreshed perspective, and greater confidence in using assessment results to support what you already do best: know your students, teach with purpose, and continually reflect on practice.
Nikki Solyom & Kelly Bornmann, Collegiate School / Educational Records Bureau (ERB)
From Performative to Transformative: Designing Service That Connects Inner Growth with Outer Impact
The Harley Hospice Program is a one-of-a-kind elective in which Grade 12 students at The Harley School engage deeply with questions of death and dying, exploring the philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of grief and mortality.
The Harley Hospice Program is a one-of-a-kind elective in which Grade 12 students at The Harley School engage deeply with questions of death and dying, exploring the philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of grief and mortality. Alongside this academic inquiry, students are trained in the physical and psycho-social skills required to care for individuals at the end of life. Over the course of the school year, the students volunteer with hospice patients and their families, forging profound connections and confronting life’s most essential questions with courage and compassion.
Now in its third decade, the program has earned both regional and national recognition, including features in two award-winning documentary films and various publications. Perhaps most significantly, it has emerged as a powerful model for how experiential service learning, when accompanied by a rigorous curriculum, can cultivate authentic and enduring social-emotional growth in adolescents.
This workshop will introduce participants to the core curricular elements of the Harley Hospice Program while offering a transferable framework for designing other service learning opportunities. Educators will leave feeling inspired to craft their own service learning courses that foster compelling social-emotional outcomes and leave a lasting impact on students’ understanding of themselves, others, and the world around them.
Sybil Prince, The Harley School
Helping Others To Help Ourselves: Encouraging An “Act of Service” When Children Are Emotionally Dysregulated
In my five years of teaching elementary and preschool children in independent progressive schools, I’ve encountered a small group of students in each classroom who struggle with emotional regulation when experiencing intense emotions and require significant attention from teachers. Research-informed regulation approaches to support these students often prove insufficient in supporting the students to regulate without 1:1 adult attention.
In my five years of teaching elementary and preschool children in independent progressive schools, I’ve encountered a small group of students in each classroom who struggle with emotional regulation when experiencing intense emotions and require significant attention from teachers. Research-informed regulation approaches to support these students often prove insufficient in supporting the students to regulate without 1:1 adult attention. So, drawing on past experiences facilitating preteen community service learning in neighborhood-based contexts, I explored an additional approach to support students in regaining their agency and connection with their community.
After a developmentally appropriate amount of time providing a first response to their emotional needs, I’d identify a helping task (or, “act of service”) – anything that served a real need in the class community, from helping a peer with academic work to caring for a class pet – that aligned with the child’s strengths and invite their assistance. When they accepted, which was the majority of the time, and completed the task, I noticed a change that felt remarkable: the child was visibly less upset and could deploy their attention in a way that allowed them to be present with their class community’s activities.
This “act of service” approach has become an integral part of my work building meaningful relationships with students who experience intense emotions on daily or weekly bases. Through this workshop, I’ll offer my experiences applying this approach and facilitate conversation about others’ experiences with it in order to prompt exploration of its conceptual and practical significance.
Maya Wong, Calhoun School
Honoring, Incorporating, and Learning from Indigenous Voices, History, and Culture in the Classroom
Presented in the spirit of allyship, community, and friendship, this workshop seeks to offer a sharing of learning experiences and stories, as well as an invitation to discuss strategies and practices committed to honoring Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous history and cultures in classrooms across content areas.
Presented in the spirit of allyship, community, and friendship, this workshop seeks to offer a sharing of learning experiences and stories, as well as an invitation to discuss strategies and practices committed to honoring Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous history and cultures in classrooms across content areas. This workshop will address difficult history such as residential schools; cultural stereotypes and ways to dismantle and disempower them; cultural appropriation and representation; as well as contemporary challenges. Rooted in respectful practices which honor the complex, vibrant, beautiful, and resilient stories and cultures, this workshop will also bring light to learned teachings and practices which offer ways to differentiate instruction and honor all learners. Please note, this workshop is by no means intended to be a comprehensive overview of Indigenous history and culture, rather a point of beginning or a continuation on the path of truth and reconciliation. In our workshop, we will engage in practices which offer strategies and practices to incorporate in the classroom; navigate contemporary challenges and strides; as well as offer invitations to discuss difficult history and facts. The offering and presentation of this workshop will be differentiated to meet the needs, questions, experiences, and truths of participants.
Emma Eddy, Nichols School
How do I Figure Out What They Actually Know? Using Oral Presentations as Assessments
In this workshop, I will present the highly effective research/oral presentation projects I have used in social studies courses at Avenues. The projects encourage independent work while allowing me to accurately assess their skills and knowledge–even in the age of AI.
In this workshop, I will present the highly effective research/oral presentation projects I have used in social studies courses at Avenues. The projects encourage independent work while allowing me to accurately assess their skills and knowledge–even in the age of AI. I will show samples of student work as well as share comments from students about the research projects. I will also provide examples of checklists and rubrics I have used to help guide students succeed.
David Allyn, Avenues
In Other People’s Shoes: Developing Historical Empathy in Virtual Reality
Historical fiction powerfully weaves together past and present, allowing us to see history through someone else’s eyes and to reflect on what people in distant times may have thought, felt, and what motivated their actions.
Historical fiction powerfully weaves together past and present, allowing us to see history through someone else’s eyes and to reflect on what people in distant times may have thought, felt, and what motivated their actions. Inspired by Eduardo Galeano’s short story “La trama del tiempo”, juniors and seniors in this mixed-level Spanish class used primary sources to research the experiences of children evacuated from Spain during the Civil War (1936–1939), many of whom never returned home or saw their families again. As part of this multi-layered project, students demonstrated their Spanish skills through written artifacts and presentations, and also learned basic coding skills to recreate in virtual reality the imagined return of one of these child survivors as an adult. Learning and mastery was evident in students’ virtual reality narratives, final presentations, and portfolios. The collaboration between the World Languages and Technology departments gave students access to expertise in both fields and brought history vividly into the present.
This workshop will explore how immersive storytelling can cultivate historical understanding and empathy while supporting high-level academic goals. Following the presentation, participants will have the opportunity to work in small groups and brainstorm strategies to develop cross-curricular units that integrate technology—particularly Virtual Reality—and historical or fictional narrative to promote student engagement through meaningful, affective learning experiences.
Inés Gómez-Ochoa & Jonathan Olivera, The Chapin School
Language Storytelling with AI Magic
This language classroom project includes a group of intermediate to upper-level language
students and the instructor. Students are directed to create their own children’s story book in the target language using their own creativity and language abilities.
This language classroom project includes a group of intermediate to upper-level language
students and the instructor. Students are directed to create their own children’s story book in the target language using their own creativity and language abilities. Students come up with three possible ideas and draft their own storybook. They will then use different online platforms, in this case Canva was used, in addition to AI image generators to attach images to their stories. This activity took place mainly on campus and in the classroom in order to avoid the use of language plagiarism from home. This activity was completed over the duration of a quarter in Upper School. Although this activity was used in a language classroom for the purpose of language learning, it is possible to adapt it to other disciplines.
Vanesa Mos, Staten Island Academy
More Than Instruction: Integrating SEL into the Middle School Classroom
This session explores practical, meaningful ways to embed Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) into the daily routines of a middle school classroom, though it could easily be adapted to any grade level.
This session explores practical, meaningful ways to embed Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) into the daily routines of a middle school classroom, though it could easily be adapted to any grade level. Participants will learn how simple practices such as daily check-ins, student reflection, group collaboration, and mindfulness can build stronger classroom relationships, improve student engagement, and support emotional well-being.
The presentation will highlight specific strategies to help students navigate middle school challenges, including:
– Creative daily check-ins that encourage self-awareness and peer connection
– Structured reflection practices that promote metacognition and academic ownership
– Intentional group work that fosters communication and empathy.
– The use of mindfulness, emotion recognition, and anxiety management.
Attendees will leave with ready-to-use routines, reflection prompts, and assessment tools that integrate SEL naturally into academic instruction, without sacrificing content. Though I am a science teacher, I have found these practices to be effective in any discipline. This session offers flexible, grounded practices that support the whole child and enhance classroom culture.
Katherine Cooke, Elmwood Franklin School
Problem Solving Routines for Neurodiverse K-8 Math Classrooms
As math teachers, we’ve all been there… a student or an entire class is struggling with a word problem, and we swoop in to help them but inadvertently do the thinking for them.
As math teachers, we’ve all been there… a student or an entire class is struggling with a word problem, and we swoop in to help them but inadvertently do the thinking for them. We want all students to have the chance to solve rich problems with minimal support, but removing scaffolds can be intimidating: how will students handle disequilibrium if they already grapple with factors such as low frustration tolerance, significant distractibility, math anxiety, or a learning disability?
In this session, we will explore and practice problem solving routines that promote tinkering, strategic thinking, predicting, and flexible thinking while also supporting students who just want to know how to get to the answer. We will create engaging, multi-step problems and then practice introducing them in a way that allows students time to process and visualize without any additional verbal cueing. We will reflect on problem solving with neurodiverse students in mind and then try out some games and puzzles that can teach problem solving in a different way.
Libby Miles, Stephen Gaynor School
Reframing Assessments in a Post-Covid Digital Mathematics Classroom
After decades of asking the same math questions – those we already know the answers to – it is time to switch things up. Rather than information given right back to us, we want to see how well students use and apply information; how they recognize patterns in logic; how they extrapolate; and how they explain what they know.
After decades of asking the same math questions – those we already know the answers to – it is time to switch things up. Rather than information given right back to us, we want to see how well students use and apply information; how they recognize patterns in logic; how they extrapolate; and how they explain what they know. How can we still teach the same facts and processes, expect our students to learn them well, but never be sure if their answers are coming from themselves or from an electronic tool? Using calculators, especially dynamic ones, gives a tool that can often answer those decades-old questions (e.g. what is the vertex of the quadratic…). But using that same tool to ask students why those answers are meaningful, or what a student might have done incorrectly to achieve that answer, or what someone might do with that answer, brings meaning and growth to the mathematical learning of our classes. I will bring multiple examples of alternative ways to ask questions that assess student learning while also bringing maths learning up to the levels of our technology, while seeking input and collaboration to help us identify what we really want our students to know from a lesson – then working to formulate problems that test this all-important focus.
Claudia O’Keefe, Nichols School
Space & Behavioral Communication: How Design Influences Communication
Actualizing the physical learning space to assist with behaviors can be a pivotal (and sometimes downplayed) part of a successful learning ecosystem
Actualizing the physical learning space to assist with behaviors can be a pivotal (and sometimes downplayed) part of a successful learning ecosystem. Considering all behavior is communication, and all communication is behavior (Dr. Becky Bailey, Conscious Discipline) – it’s imperative to consider how the design of a learning space is attributing positively or negatively to community communication. In recognizing the validity of Behavioral Communication and its variances (Ogden, 1982) and by integrating 7 layers of communication capabilities as spatial measurement criteria – we can better determine the overall success and support of a learning space regarding community behavior. Utilizing Dr. Stanley Greenspans’ DIRFloortime FEDC Levels as criteria for learning space design, we can quantitatively and qualitatively gauge the success of a space regarding communication objectives. In a recent Case Study with Immaculate Conception Catholic Regional School in Cranston, RI – this criterion was implemented through spatial observation and learner/facilitator feedback. A steering committee of stakeholders observed the communication capabilities of 18 spaces throughout their PreK – 8th building. Beginning with baseline data and implementing an action plan, facilitators, school leadership, and families noticed a difference in the learners’ approach to specific educational environments. This session will emphasize connections between physical space and behavioral communication which must be adopted to learning space design to create truly inclusive needs-based environments.
Hannah Tejeda,
Speed Dating: In and Beyond the Languages Classroom
Rotational, face-to-face student interaction has incredible benefits for all students of all learning styles.
I had the opportunity to present a Speed Dating workshop at the NYSAIS Languages conference in January 2025, at Mohonk Mountain House. I’d like to present speed dating beyond the languages classroom (still including languages) for the attendees of our Nichols-hosted conference. Part of the reason is, there were few WNY IS teachers at Mohonk. Rotational, face-to-face student interaction has incredible benefits for all students of all learning styles. I will begin with a description of Speed Dating, have round one of SD in discipline A, introduce more material, have round two of SD in discipline B, and finish off with a summary.
Ronald Montesano, Nichols School
Strengthening the Student Mind: Building Executive Function for Academic Success
We all know students who are bright but scattered—who forget their homework, lose focus during lessons, fail to follow directions or meet deadlines, or fall apart when routines change. Often, these struggles tie back to executive functioning: the brain’s ability to plan, organize, manage time, and regulate behavior.
We all know students who are bright but scattered—who forget their homework, lose focus during lessons, fail to follow directions or meet deadlines, or fall apart when routines change. Often, these struggles tie back to executive functioning: the brain’s ability to plan, organize, manage time, and regulate behavior. These skills don’t come naturally to many students, and may take years to fully develop. Fortunately, we can spur development and teach skills and strategies to better support students.
This session is designed for educators who want a better understanding of executive function and practical strategies to support it. We’ll break down what executive functioning looks like in real classrooms and talk through how challenges in areas like working memory, flexible thinking, and impulse control show up day-to-day.
Together, we’ll look at how to spot the difference between a student who won’t do something and one who can’t—and why that distinction matters. The workshop will include easy-to-implement tools, classroom routines, and student-centered strategies that help students stay on top of tasks, manage frustration, and build the confidence to work independently.
Whether you’re teaching or advising, you’ll leave with ideas that can make a real difference.
Nicoletta Aliberto, Nichols School
Student-Focused Assessment: Shifting Assessment Away from Grades
When grades are the goal in a course, students do whatever they can to earn the most points. From rushing through an assignment, to copying off a friend, to asking ChatGPT to think for them or plugging their work into Google Translate, high stakes grading culture increases the odds that students take shortcuts in their learning. How often do we stop to consider if our grading practices align with our learning goals for students?
When grades are the goal in a course, students do whatever they can to earn the most points. From rushing through an assignment, to copying off a friend, to asking ChatGPT to think for them or plugging their work into Google Translate, high stakes grading culture increases the odds that students take shortcuts in their learning. How often do we stop to consider if our grading practices align with our learning goals for students? If our habit of using grades as both carrot and stick genuinely supports deep, enriching learning?
Research has consistently found that students disregard constructive feedback when paired with a grade and using extrinsic motivators like grades ultimately destroys intrinsic motivation to learn. For decades, we’ve known that how we assess students with grades undermines the independent learning we want to foster in our classrooms, so why do we keep using the systems we grew up in? If we want students to become independent, lifelong learners, then we need to redesign assessment structures and systems that align with our learning goals for students, foster student independence, and cultivate intrinsic motivation. In this workshop, we’ll share ways we have altered our assessment practices to de-emphasize grades (while still having to assign grades for marking periods) in ways that foster intrinsic motivation and push students to take back ownership of their learning.
Erin Berg & Tanya Farnung-Morrison, The Harley School
Utilizing Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning As Assessment
This session will focus on using creative ideas and project-based learning as a means to assess standards and skills during a unit. We argue that project-based learning can be a useful tool in assessing learning outcomes, and boosts student engagement through creativity and ownership.
This session will focus on using creative ideas and project-based learning as a means to assess standards and skills during a unit. We argue that project-based learning can be a useful tool in assessing learning outcomes, and boosts student engagement through creativity and ownership. Special emphasis will be given to how collaboration, either across disciplines or grade levels, can provide unique ways for students to engage with, and retain, material. This also allows for creative elements to be intentionally integrated into a unit, and creates opportunities for teachers to take inspiration from myriad factors, or alter the project as needed to meet their end goals. Attendees will hear about examples of successful collaborative project-based learning and its use as assessing student learning, and will have the opportunity to workshop ideas with other grade levels or disciplines. We hope to show that collaboration and project-based learning can have a positive impact on teaching, and are helpful tools within the classroom.
Amber Anderson, The Park School of Buffalo
Vision Boarding: A Brain-Engaged, Hands-On Practice to Spark Classroom Passion and Purpose
In this dynamic, hands-on session, educators will experience vision boarding as a powerful practice to inspire passion, clarity, and purpose—for themselves and their students. A vision board is a visual representation of aspirations and values, created by arranging images, words, and symbols that reflect a desired future.
In this dynamic, hands-on session, educators will experience vision boarding as a powerful practice to inspire passion, clarity, and purpose—for themselves and their students. A vision board is a visual representation of aspirations and values, created by arranging images, words, and symbols that reflect a desired future. Backed by neuroscience, vision boards activate the brain’s reticular activating system (RAS), helping us focus on goals and notice aligned opportunities. They also engage the prefrontal cortex, enhancing intention-setting and long-term planning.
Participants will explore how vision boarding supports student agency, fosters classroom community, and strengthens educator well-being. Through guided reflection and a customizable Google Slides template, each attendee will create a personal vision board focused on a theme of their choice—whether professional identity, classroom culture, or student empowerment.
This session is ideal for educators seeking meaningful, brain-based strategies to deepen connection, motivation, and purpose in their school communities. No design experience required—just a willingness to imagine what’s possible. Attendees will leave with a finished digital vision board, a reusable template for classroom use, and concrete ideas for bringing this engaging and neuroscience-informed practice into advisory, goal-setting, or community-building activities with students.
Stacy McCoy Prime, Northwood School
Weaving Indigenous & Environmental Knowledge into K-12 classrooms
What do you know about the land your feet are on? How do we care for this land?
Study abroad, and you’re typically required to learn the history, politics, culture, and language of the country you intend to visit. This history goes back to 3000-2000 BC for Stonehenge and even further. Yet US history often erroneously starts in 1620.
What do you know about the land your feet are on? How do we care for this land?
Study abroad, and you’re typically required to learn the history, politics, culture, and language of the country you intend to visit. This history goes back to 3000-2000 BC for Stonehenge and even further. Yet US history often erroneously starts in 1620.
Indigenous people of Turtle Island say we’ve been here “since time immemorial”. Fossilized footprints in New Mexico date back 21,000-23,000 years. Universities and institutions contain points, pottery shards, and our ancestors’ bodies, yet Indigenous history is erased from curriculum, signage…life.
If you are living on and benefitting from this soil, then Native American history is your history. Students are engaged in this topic because you can respond to their varied interests. Precolonial history lends itself to exploring: the environment, growing, storing, preparing food, technology, politics, arts, crafts, trade, and culture. As you apply multifaceted differentiation students naturally achieve a higher level of mastery and therefore, higher self-esteem.
Opportunities are endless when incorporating Indigenous studies into your curriculum. Students love learning from other students and this topic is ideal for an independent school to share and collaborate between divisions creating positive impacts on community and SEL.
Studying the Haudenosaunee, students will learn about the Nations united in Peace, longer than any other, and the world’s oldest functioning Democracy, which is the basis for the Constitution. Tenets of the Haudenosaunee: Gratitude, honoring Earth, equality, and cooperation are essential lessons for all, especially now.
Trish Corcoran, The Harley School
Block 2 (11:40 am – 12:30 pm)
Adapting Curriculum to Meet the Moment
The Democracy In Action course for Juniors at LREI examines the principles, institutions, and challenges of democracies around the world. We start with: what is democracy? Can any country become a democracy? Why do some democracies succeed while others break down?
The Democracy In Action course for Juniors at LREI examines the principles, institutions, and challenges of democracies around the world. We start with: what is democracy? Can any country become a democracy? Why do some democracies succeed while others break down? And after this foundational work we examine historical case studies that illustrate contemporary challenges such as populism, polarization, and the impact of social media and misinformation. This year, as our students raised new and insistent questions about the state of U.S. democracy in the midst of their emerging understanding and knowledge of its structures and functions, our History faculty was pressed to make significant shifts in materials, class formats, assignments, and overall goals for the course. The team worked together, week by week, to “design into” the experience of the U.S. government in the spring of 2025. We believe that this case study could be valuable to any team of teachers working to respond to both the needs of their students and to the prescient needs of the moment.
Allison Isbell, Charlene Cruz-Cerdas, & Thomas Murphy, LREI
Beyond the Test: Virtual Galleries and Creative Assessments
Are you and your students tired of regurgitative assessments? Look no further! Watch your students’ subject knowledge come alive as they display their learning in a virtual gallery with WeVideo and Delightex (CoSpaces). With these video and 3D creation tools, students can creatively demonstrate their independent research in unique ways while tapping into their artistic side.
Are you and your students tired of regurgitative assessments? Look no further! Watch your students’ subject knowledge come alive as they display their learning in a virtual gallery with WeVideo and Delightex (CoSpaces). With these video and 3D creation tools, students can creatively demonstrate their independent research in unique ways while tapping into their artistic side. Using FlintK-12’s AI software, students can check their progress and ask for immediate feedback 24/7 from a virtual tutor that you design and monitor. Join an Educational technologist and Content instructor as they combine forces to spice up the mundane assessment of skills to excite even the most reluctant of students. These tools have teacher dashboards to follow your students, whether working in a group or individually, along each step of their journeys instead of just viewing the finished products.
Tools such as these can make the process fun which highlights the whole experience over the final grade, mimicking a real world experience. In addition, virtual gallery projects add practical professional skills to your students’ learning outcomes. In the workforce, we aren’t handed written exams, rather we are tested through drawn out projects and planning with several iterations of a final project before we “finish.” Students will learn how to plan and execute a complex project that requires sustained focus, creativity, subject-area expertise, and multi-element integration.
If your school does not have access to these tools, don’t worry— we have suggestions for free alternatives!
So, if you want your students to create history museums, build science labs, make math challenges, and more, put this workshop on your schedule. We cannot wait to show you some real projects that our own students completed this year!
Ashley Tibollo, Nichols School
Data Science as Strategy: A New Model for Research-Based Math Education
What if your math class felt more like a research lab? In this workshop, I’ll share a high school data science course that reframes math as a tool for investigating real life.
What if your math class felt more like a research lab? In this workshop, I’ll share a high school data science course that reframes math as a tool for investigating real life. Built around four major projects—the Quantified Self Journal (students track and analyze personal data to understand variability and trends), the GOAT Project (students use statistical comparisons to argue who is the greatest in a chosen field), the Prediction Tournament (students generate and test forecasts to explore probability and calibration), and the Power Project (students identify a real-world problem and propose a data-driven solution with social or economic impact)—the course helps students learn statistical reasoning by doing it: measuring themselves, arguing about greatness, testing their own predictions, and proposing data-driven solutions to real-world problems.
Each project centers on core statistical concepts such as data visualization, correlation and regression, randomness, and hypothesis testing. The course is grounded in research-based practices like project-based learning, collective teacher efficacy, and naive empiricism. Students not only analyze data but also learn to ask better questions, spot cognitive bias, and develop a working understanding of uncertainty.
We’ll explore key frameworks, sample student work, and classroom structures that support mastery, engagement, and emotional buy-in. Participants will collaborate to adapt these projects to their own settings, grade levels, and curricular goals.
Whether you are already teaching statistics or just want to make math more meaningful, this session will help you design a course where students see themselves as researchers of the world and of themselves.
Nicholas Kurian, Grace Church School
Digital Video, Literary Analysis, and Composition
Designed for high school English educators, “Digital Video, Literary Analysis, and Composition” explores the strategic integration of visual composition into the English classroom as a potential tool for developing knowledge about literary devices and reinforcing composition skills.
Designed for high school English educators, “Digital Video, Literary Analysis, and Composition” explores the strategic integration of visual composition into the English classroom as a potential tool for developing knowledge about literary devices and reinforcing composition skills. With a focus on poetry, “Digital Video” considers how visual media can deepen literary analysis while engaging a linguistically diverse student body. The workshop provides a structured implementation of methods which progressively builds upon students’ visual literacy skills, practical assessment frameworks which align with core English curriculum standards and skills, and several examples showcasing student work. Furthermore, the workshop considers how video can support diverse learners, with a specific focus on ELL students, to best engage with and respond to English texts, especially when written responses may prove challenging. The workshop emphasizes practical pedagogical methods that may find an immediate place in the English classroom through its reinforcement of literary analysis and written and visual composition while building relevant digital literacy skills for their future.
Matthew Durkin, Buffalo Seminary
Diving into the Delight and Challenge of Differentiated Instruction in Middle and Upper School Classrooms
The diverse needs, talents, stories, experiences, and interests of our students offer numerous opportunities and responsibilities for teachers to be intentionally creative and strategic in methodology and practice. Differentiated Instruction allows students to learn in a supportive, engaging, safe, and appropriately challenging and motivating environment to best meet their needs and goals.
The diverse needs, talents, stories, experiences, and interests of our students offer numerous opportunities and responsibilities for teachers to be intentionally creative and strategic in methodology and practice. Differentiated Instruction allows students to learn in a supportive, engaging, safe, and appropriately challenging and motivating environment to best meet their needs and goals. Differentiated Instruction is one instructional practice and philosophy that helps to work towards, if not ensure equity and inclusion for all students in the classroom. In this workshop, participants will learn or revisit the foundations of Differentiated Instruction principles and practices (differentiating the content, process, product, as well as lessons/units differentiated by readiness, learning profile, and interest); engage in discussion with colleagues related to their own practices; and will then have the opportunity to work and collaborate in differentiated groups on their own lessons and unit plans. Participants will leave with a sample lesson plan, lesson plan template, and with a new or revitalized understanding and inspiration to dive into the particular delight and challenge of Differentiated Instruction.
Emma Eddy, Nichols School
Expanding the Canon: Integrating Chinese American Literature into the High School American Literature Curriculum
While many colleges/universities offer a wide range of literary studies (Asian Studies, African American Studies, Indigenous Literature, etc.), most high school English departments do not have this luxury, typically offering one year for all of American Literature.
While many colleges/universities offer a wide range of literary studies (Asian Studies, African American Studies, Indigenous Literature, etc.), most high school English departments do not have this luxury, typically offering one year for all of American Literature. Furthermore, high school novel selections typically involve considerations for: their accessibility to students, the amount of background context and historical knowledge necessary for discussion, parental/guardian acceptance, and an appropriate focus on the necessary grade level skills for development. Given these practices, how do high school English teachers provide students with diverse representation while maintaining the essence of what it means to teach a course in American Literature? How does Chinese American Literature fit within the high school American Literature curriculum? Why have Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, and Amy Tan been such prominent authors representing Chinese American literature? How do more recent Chinese American novels compare stylistically and representationally to those of Kingston, Jen, and Tan? This presentation will provide initial answers to these questions while affirming the importance of further diversifying literature curricula.
Joseph Smith, Staten Island Academy
Exploring Creativity through Music Research and Performance
All people are inherently creative and educators frequently seek to build creativity into the classroom through assignments, projects and discussion. Oftentimes, however, educators struggle to define what creativity is and how to encourage students to lean into creative thinking. Is creativity something that can be taught? How is creativity assessed?
All people are inherently creative and educators frequently seek to build creativity into the classroom through assignments, projects and discussion. Oftentimes, however, educators struggle to define what creativity is and how to encourage students to lean into creative thinking. Is creativity something that can be taught? How is creativity assessed? This session explores how educators can guide students through deeper examinations of their individual creative practices and build a more robust understanding of the ways in which they are creative. Using a senior-level Music Capstone course as a case study, concepts can be easily adapted to a range of creative practices, including fine and performing arts, interdisciplinary projects and other fields of study. A process of reflection, inquiry and action will be outlined to help students understand how they are creative, what creativity entails, and how to build a self-reflexive and better informed practice. This session will also explore how creative practices developed in arts classrooms can be transferred to other subject areas, encouraging both student and educator to develop systematized approaches to building and growing creativity.
Bill Solomon, Dalton
Honors for All: Supporting Diverse Learners on the Path to Senior Thesis Completion
Many students, including those with dyslexia, approach the end of their high school years with variable abilities in important research and communication skills (e.g. reading, written expression, executive functions, working memory, and processing speed)
Many students, including those with dyslexia, approach the end of their high school years with variable abilities in important research and communication skills (e.g. reading, written expression, executive functions, working memory, and processing speed). Consequently, they may not be considered candidates for completing, or have the self-confidence to embark on, a written Senior Honors Thesis. However, such students also frequently possess strengths in conceptual reasoning, problem-solving, “thinking outside the box”, and creativity that promote thoughtful research questions, interesting topics of study, and a desire to “dig deeper”. Individualized and differentiated instruction may allow opportunities for success not otherwise afforded to them.
During this workshop, an elective course at The Gow School that centers on completion of a Senior Honors Thesis will be demonstrated. While the course emphasizes the humanities and social sciences, it may be adapted to a variety of subject areas. Students’ finished theses consist of written research papers in APA Style with corresponding PowerPoint presentations to faculty and students. Scaffolding to teach them how to maximize use of their strengths by accommodating areas of weakness include daily individualized interaction, focus on executive function skills, and specific writing feedback.
Workshop participants will be encouraged to engage in hands-on activities, including the use of organizational software (MS OneNote, NoodleTools) and online resources (JSTOR, Google Scholar), creation of calendars with different levels of due dates (whole-to-parts and parts-to-whole multisensory time management), and application of structured rubrics for organization and feedback. Sample student papers and PowerPoint presentations will be shared.
Mari Jo Renick, PhD, The Gow School
How We Weep and Laugh At the Same Thing
In this session, I will sketch a plan for a unit I intend to include in English 10, a course designed to help students explore correspondences between what they read and how they live. I will focus on how neuroscience and ethology cross paths with fiction in addressing the question of why empathy matters.
In this session, I will sketch a plan for a unit I intend to include in English 10, a course designed to help students explore correspondences between what they read and how they live. I will focus on how neuroscience and ethology cross paths with fiction in addressing the question of why empathy matters. Over the past few decades, brain imaging has confirmed what poets intuited–that no person is an island unto themself and that we experience prolonged isolation as a source of pain. We’re not alone. Though associated with being humane, empathy is not exclusively human; it is, rather, an evolutionary boon shared by a range of other animals, primates most strikingly. One chimpanzee comforts another even though the pain is isolated to the first. Birds soothe distressed members of the flock. A walk in the woods affirms speculative neuroscience: empathy is natural and good for us. Then why does it so often go unheeded? This is a question, dealing as it does in ambiguity and ambivalence, best suited for literature. The unit culminates with two poems about the “human position” of suffering by W.H.Auden: “Musee des Beaux Arts” and “Surgical Ward,” followed by an analysis of the plays produced by Bryan Doerries’ “Theater Outside the Wire,” which uses ancient tragedy as a means of reaching those isolated by the effects of PTSD. Our final work is Wole Soyinka’s “The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite.”
David O’Brien, The Harley School
Radishes, Randomization, and Real-World Research: Transforming Statistics Education
This session will showcase a statistics project where students designed and conducted their own radish experiments, providing practical ideas for teachers interested in bringing authentic research into their statistics classrooms.
This session will showcase a statistics project where students designed and conducted their own radish experiments, providing practical ideas for teachers interested in bringing authentic research into their statistics classrooms. Participants will learn how students were guided to define and select outcome variables, consider experimental details, design experiments, and develop thoughtful analysis plans. Students engaged deeply with advanced methodological distinctions, critically examining the difference between random allocation to treatment groups—a fundamental principle underpinning experimental validity—and randomization as a procedural mechanism, which is vital for mitigating confounding variables and ensuring internal validity throughout the experimental process. This project fostered high levels of student engagement, with course concepts applied organically and assessments emerging naturally from students’ investigative work. The collaborative nature of the project built class cohesion and added a sense of fun, transforming the classroom into a vibrant community of researchers. Session attendees will leave with inspiration and strategies for integrating similar real-world experimentation into their own teaching practice.
Corinne Perkins, The Harley School
Rethinking the Honors Program: Creating a More Rigorous, More Inclusive Structure
In this session, we will provide an overview of our tenth-grade Honors English program and the process we used to reimagine it.
In this session, we will provide an overview of our tenth-grade Honors English program and the process we used to reimagine it. When embarking on this project, our goals were to encourage passion, engagement, and creativity in our honors students, while also providing more equitable access to an honors “class.” Ultimately, we wanted to reach students who might not fit the conventional honors mold while creating a curriculum that could be more rigorous and academically focused by removing a stand-alone honors class. We will describe the process of designing the program, its implementation, and its effects, and will complete an activity that we use in the program to help students brainstorm their final honors project. This program offers ways to help students take responsibility for their education in a way that speaks to their own interests, and we’ll have samples of student work that demonstrate this deeper and more complex engagement with their chosen texts. Finally, this session will provide time for participants to ask questions and discuss how this could work at their school.
Alison Wright, Buffalo Seminary
Structuring Deliberative Discussion for Student Engagement
Class discussions are an integral part of many history courses. However, many students equate discussion with debate and struggle to participate meaningfully for a variety of reasons including social anxiety, fear of making the “wrong” argument, or lack of connection with the topic.
Class discussions are an integral part of many history courses. However, many students equate discussion with debate and struggle to participate meaningfully for a variety of reasons including social anxiety, fear of making the “wrong” argument, or lack of connection with the topic. Other students may attempt to participate but simply echo their peers rather than developing their own ideas. This workshop will offer participants tools to scaffold and structure discussions that draw students in through the use of authentic historical decision points and collaborative, rather than competitive, discussion goals. Participants will engage in a mini-discussion in which they work together to explore the costs and benefits of many possible choices, using primary sources to support their arguments. This will include pre- and post-discussion individual reflection as well as small and large group discussion. Large group discussion will be held synchronously online using the Kialo discussion platform. Ultimately, participants will be asked to make recommendations for how the historical entities involved should move forward, using the reasoning of the entire group to inform the decision-making process. This discussion approach is adapted from the deliberative discussions described in Engagement in Teaching History: Theory and Practices for Middle and Secondary Teachers by Frederick Drake and Lynn Nelson as well as the University of Delaware Center for Teaching and the Assessment of Learning resource titled “Teaching Through Discussion” available here: https://ctal.udel.edu/resources-2/discussion/
Jessica Silverstein, Buffalo Seminary
Teaching High School History in the Wake of Covid and the Era of AI and Limited Attention Spans
Teaching high school history has never been more challenging. We are now teaching students who missed out on important skills in key years of schooling during the Covid pandemic – including practicing how to read, learning how to “be students,” and dealing with high expectations and requirements.
Teaching high school history has never been more challenging. We are now teaching students who missed out on important skills in key years of schooling during the Covid pandemic – including practicing how to read, learning how to “be students,” and dealing with high expectations and requirements. Compounding this is the reality of shorter attention spans and the emergence of AI, which brings the dual reality of students tempted to take shortcuts and also the need for teachers to teach effective and responsible use of the technology. Given all of this, it is important for teachers to adjust their approach to help bridge the gap between where students are and where we want them to be. This will include more explicit teaching of reading synthesis skills, deliberate and thoughtful incorporation of AI into parts of our curriculum, and the use of more public speaking assessments (including paper defenses).
Lindsay Peterson, Millbrook School
Block 3 (12:40 pm – 1:30 pm)
A Framework for Sensemaking: Using Models to Support Learning in Any Subject
In this interactive workshop, participants will experience the modeling process as learners—beginning with a compelling phenomenon and a teacher-designed guiding question, activating prior knowledge, building flowcharts or visual representations, and co-constructing models that evolve over time.
In this interactive workshop, participants will experience the modeling process as learners—beginning with a compelling phenomenon and a teacher-designed guiding question, activating prior knowledge, building flowcharts or visual representations, and co-constructing models that evolve over time. We’ll explore how this process supports student sensemaking, encourages revision through peer feedback, and builds connections across a unit or course. Participants will then shift into a design role: adapting a flexible modeling template for their own subject area and beginning to draft model trackers—daily-use documents students rely on to jot down ideas, activate prior knowledge, take notes, reflect, and build models using information from multiple lessons to connect ideas over time. We’ll look at a science classroom example and discuss how this tool can be customized for use in science, humanities, math, or interdisciplinary courses. Finally, we’ll explore how these trackers can lead to meaningful end-of-year portfolios that highlight growth, systems thinking, and evolving understanding. This session offers practical, adaptable strategies to make modeling a visible, reflective, and routine part of learning in any classroom.
Jen Doran, Rye Country Day School
Creating Art for Critical and Empathetic Reading
What happens when students create art inspired by the literature they read? Making art can improve comprehension (or reveal where it is lacking), convey themes, practice empathy, and deepen their writing. In the language of Muhammad’s Culturally Responsive Education, students are bringing their identity and joy to the skill of close reading, their intellect as they wrestle with metaphors and symbolism, and their criticality as they respond to the text.
What happens when students create art inspired by the literature they read? Making art can improve comprehension (or reveal where it is lacking), convey themes, practice empathy, and deepen their writing. In the language of Muhammad’s Culturally Responsive Education, students are bringing their identity and joy to the skill of close reading, their intellect as they wrestle with metaphors and symbolism, and their criticality as they respond to the text. In this workshop, I will share three experiments of pairing art with written assessments: specifically, (1) using Adobe Firefly to generate AI images for the science fiction novel, The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera (paired with journal writing), (2) using Canva to create public service announcements for Greek mythology (paired with an in-class thematic essay) and (3) creating collages (using magazines, paper, scissors, glue) inspired by Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson (paired with an artist statement). The collage assignment was particularly effective for discussing race and inclusion.
Cappello, M., & Walker, N. T. (2021). Talking Drawings. The Reading Teacher, 74(4), 407–418.
Holdren, T. S. (2012). Using Art to Assess Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking in Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(8), 692–703. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.00084
Muhammad, G. (2023). Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning. Scholastic Professional.
Deborah R. Howe, Nichols School
Different Paths, Same Destination: Differentiation for Every Learner
Supporting all learners in the elementary classroom means recognizing and responding to the diverse needs, backgrounds, and abilities of students. Differentiation helps ensure that every child can access the curriculum, feel successful, and stay engaged—without overwhelming the teacher.
Supporting all learners in the elementary classroom means recognizing and responding to the diverse needs, backgrounds, and abilities of students. Differentiation helps ensure that every child can access the curriculum, feel successful, and stay engaged—without overwhelming the teacher.
This interactive workshop is designed specifically for Pre-K – Grade 4 educators. We’ll explore practical ways to differentiate instruction across subject areas and curricula. Strategies will include adjusting assignment length or complexity, using online and hands-on materials, incorporating leveled texts, offering student choice, and creating flexible groups. We’ll focus on approaches that are realistic, sustainable, and easily integrated into your existing routines.
Participants will have the opportunity to bring their own lessons or assignments and work collaboratively to adapt them for different learning needs. You may leave with differentiated versions of your own materials, ready to use in your classroom.
In addition, we’ll discuss how to communicate differentiation strategies to young learners and their families in clear, supportive ways. Understanding and transparency can foster stronger partnerships and reduce misunderstandings around fairness and expectations.
Whether you’re new to differentiation or looking to refine your approach, this session will offer tools, ideas, and confidence to meet your students where they are—and help them grow from there.
Bailey Wheeler, The Harley School
Engaging Classroom Practice in Mandarin Language Learning
In this interactive session, participants will explore engaging classroom strategies tailored for Mandarin language instruction but applicable across all world language classrooms.
In this interactive session, participants will explore engaging classroom strategies tailored for Mandarin language instruction but applicable across all world language classrooms. Drawing from real K–8 classroom experiences, this workshop showcases how intentional routines, visual supports, storytelling, music, and movement can transform student engagement, even in beginner-level language environments.
Jun Wang-Tiedemann, Elmwood Franklin School
Field Work: developing researchers in lower school grades
From the Fours through 12th grade, LREI students travel beyond the walls of the classroom to engage authentically and meaningfully with the social world.
From the Fours through 12th grade, LREI students travel beyond the walls of the classroom to engage authentically and meaningfully with the social world. “Field work” is the fullest embodiment of educative experience, as students take up positions as researchers in the world. They pose questions, collect data, and return to their classrooms to wrestle with and make sense of all they uncovered. In this workshop, participants will be invited to engage in field work led by LREI teacheres to construct their own understanding of the ways this powerful tool is used to deepen experiences that happen outside of the classroom, and make what has been occurring inside the classroom more meaningful.
Tasha Hernandez, LREI
From Worksheets to Wonder: Empowering Middle Schoolers Through Project-Based Learning
Over the past five years, our team has developed and refined a dynamic Project-Based Curriculum specifically tailored to meet the needs of middle school learners.
Over the past five years, our team has developed and refined a dynamic Project-Based Curriculum specifically tailored to meet the needs of middle school learners. What began as a loosely structured, trial-and-error approach has evolved into a purposeful, highly engaging curriculum with clearly defined outcomes and final products that showcase student learning and creativity.
This session will explore the evolution of our curriculum, from its early days of improvisation to its current form: a scaffolded, theme-based program that fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and real-world application. Each semester centers around a unique project theme designed to tap into student interests and promote authentic learning. Our first theme challenges students to explore social and emotional issues relevant to their age through graphic cartooning. The second, inspired by Shark Tank, invites students to pitch original inventions or products. Finally, our third theme empowers students to learn and demonstrate a completely new skill, culminating in a showcase of personal growth and perseverance.
Chris Krow, Academy of St. Joseph
Grown Up Group Projects: Meaningful Collaboration and Cross-Subject Programming
Join three Lower School specialists to explore the art of meaningful collaboration across subject areas. In this workshop, we’ll introduce a model for creating experiences that inspire student engagement and support transference of subject-specific content beyond individual classrooms.
Join three Lower School specialists to explore the art of meaningful collaboration across subject areas. In this workshop, we’ll introduce a model for creating experiences that inspire student engagement and support transference of subject-specific content beyond individual classrooms. We’ll explore possibilities for cross-subject alignment within the curriculum, in division-wide programming, and through special events. We’ll share highlights from our practice, including exploring immigration and migration with kindergarteners, teaching fourth graders about Violeta Parra and La Nueva Cancion, and a 200+ family event exploring a beloved movie. You’ll walk away inspired to create experiences that invigorate your personal practice, professional connections, and school community.
Megan Westman, Friends Seminary
Healing History: Teaching 9/11 and Its Aftermath
This session is rooted in the research and experience after attending the 9/11 Memorial and Museum Institute for Educators
This session is rooted in the research and experience after attending the 9/11 Memorial and Museum Institute for Educators. This workshop will focus on how to use the 9/11 Memorial and Memorial resources in the classroom, ways to grapple with difficult content in the classroom, strategies for making and building recent past-present connections, humanize history, and develop empathy.
Kymberly Mattern, The Collegiate School
Incugator: Community Engagement Through Purposeful Action
Join us to learn about Incugator at The Chapin School (New York, NY) our purpose-driven mentorship program where Grades 5 and 7 students collaborate to address food insecurity through interdisciplinary projects with our community partner, Grassroots Grocery.
Join us to learn about Incugator at The Chapin School (New York, NY) our purpose-driven mentorship program where Grades 5 and 7 students collaborate to address food insecurity through interdisciplinary projects with our community partner, Grassroots Grocery. Our project is guided by the essential question “How might we use our power to connect communities through action?” Our students develop leadership and mentorship skills by identifying their purpose through work with the World Leadership School and extension activities in our advisory program. Students refined their research skills while building empathy and creating real world solutions together with experts in the field of food insecurity. We will share key insights from our pilot year. Participants will have first hand experience through our lessons and activities. We will discuss how we used community feedback to kick-off year two of Incugator. Lastly, we will share how this year long program fosters meaningful student growth and community engagement.
Anna Jacinta Mello, The Chapin School
Pi Day Fun and Math Olympiads
Over the years I have developed a program which involves learning about Pi, calculalting formulas for circles, learning by doing in class projects involving Pi, making Pi necklaces, and in class stations where they must demonstrate all they know about circles.
Over the years I have developed a program which involves learning about Pi, calculalting formulas for circles, learning by doing in class projects involving Pi, making Pi necklaces, and in class stations where they must demonstrate all they know about circles. The two weeks culminate in a competition (American Pidol) for the best video, video game, skit, poem, song, artifact that uses Pi as its topic-we have a panel of 4 teachers who are the judges. I will present these ideas to the group, offering a little workshop using one of my lessons. I also will talk briefly about the value of doing Math Olympiads in the classroom.
Lee Allen-McDermott, The Harley School
Purposeful Assessment Practices (PK–Grade 4)
In this session, we will explore how purposeful and strategic assessment drives instruction across core content areas—literacy, math, science, and social studies—for students in PK through fourth grade.
In this session, we will explore how purposeful and strategic assessment drives instruction across core content areas—literacy, math, science, and social studies—for students in PK through fourth grade. Early elementary education sets the foundation for lifelong learning, and intentional assessment practices are key to identifying student needs, informing instruction, and promoting academic growth. Participants will examine a variety of age-appropriate formative and summative assessment tools and strategies that are developmentally appropriate and aligned with standards. The session will emphasize how to balance data collection with responsive, student-centered instruction.
Attendees will engage in discussion around how assessment looks different across developmental stages, and how it can be used to support differentiated instruction, interdisciplinary connections, and whole-child learning. Concrete examples of authentic assessments—including observational checklists, performance tasks, student self-assessments, and integrated content rubrics—will be shared. Educators will leave with practical tools, adaptable templates, and strategies to implement effective assessment systems that work across subject areas and grade levels.
This session is ideal for classroom teachers, instructional coaches, and curriculum leaders seeking to refine their assessment practices to better support all learners in early childhood and elementary classrooms.
Christina Kerr, The Harley School
Time Travel and Truth-Telling: Teaching Historical Fiction Narratives Through Octavia Butler’s Kindred
This session explores how the speculative historical novel Kindred by Octavia Butler can anchor a cross-disciplinary unit that fuses literacy, health & wellness, creative writing, and historical inquiry.
“Historical fiction allows us to talk about things that people don’t want to talk about.”
Lauren Groff, author
This session explores how the speculative historical novel Kindred by Octavia Butler can anchor a cross-disciplinary unit that fuses literacy, health & wellness, creative writing, and historical inquiry. Participants will examine how this genre-defying text supports students in developing narrative craft while grappling with the emotional weight of American slavery and its legacies. We’ll explore how analyzing Kindred’s nonlinear structure, character development, and use of historical detail enables students to imagine character moodboards, craft storyboards, write their own historically grounded fiction–and more. This approach cultivates historical empathy, strengthens voice, and supports the cultivation of mastery through iterative drafting and interdisciplinary thinking.
Iris Williamson, Packer Collegiate Institute
Tuning into Children: Responsive Design for Fluid and Meaningful Dramatic Play
This workshop invites participants to tune into children’s interests and leverage the potential of dramatic play to create vibrant and meaningful learning environments. We’ll delve into the Reggio Emilia approach, focusing on how to adapt our teaching methods and play spaces to inspire curiosity and meet the diverse needs of young learners.
This workshop invites participants to tune into children’s interests and leverage the potential of dramatic play to create vibrant and meaningful learning environments. We’ll delve into the Reggio Emilia approach, focusing on how to adapt our teaching methods and play spaces to inspire curiosity and meet the diverse needs of young learners.
Participants will find inspiration from top early childhood classrooms on Long Island and in New York City. We will examine different dramatic play curricula, from campgrounds to food banks, Chobani yogurt shops, and maternity wards. Together, we’ll reflect how teachers came up with these ideas and the value in letting children’s unique voices and interests guide the way. By the end of the session, participants will walk away with a toolkit of practical ideas to create dynamic play spaces that spark curiosity and support children’s growth.
Abigail Cook Gonzalez, Friends Academy