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aMAzing Educators
Kairos | Mapping Our Way Forward

Plenary Sessions

  • Keynote: Four-Dimensional Education for the Age of Artificial Intelligence [Livestreamed]
    Charles Fadel
    What should students learn for the age of artificial intelligence? For the past several decades, education systems worldwide have been tackling "How" issues (pedagogies, assessments, administration, equity, etc.), but the "What" question has become suddenly just as urgent. A modern, relevant education should offer curated STEM, humanities, arts (as well as other disciplines such as entrepreneurship), and pay increased attention to wellness, "21st century skills", social/emotional learning, and "learning how to learn".

  • Subarctic Survival
    Monica Higgins and Uche Amaechi
    This simulation exercise focuses on team strategy, team process, and the potential for gains that can result from working effectively as a team. The simulation exercise itself places participants in an unfamiliar setting, the subarctic, to eliminate the potential for high levels of expertise and familiarity with the task. Participants are asked to rank some items in order of their importance to their survival, drawing upon whatever individual stocks of knowledge they currently possess. Then, participants do this same exercise but as a team. Data are then gathered regarding their performance (answers are compared to those of an expert). The debrief of the simulation allows for a discussion of how factors such as diversity of experience, expertise, and identity group differences contributed to voices being heard (or not) during the team's deliberations. Lessons stem from personal reflections on how individuals engaged with the exercise and the ways in which their interpersonal style impacted their team's effectiveness.

Breakout Sessions

  • 21st Century Public School Governance and Employment Relations: The Impact on Student Achievement, Teacher Turnover, Innovation and Poverty
    Saul Avery Rubinstein
    A discussion of current research and practice implementing union-management partnerships and collaborative leadership approaches at the district and school levels and their impact on student achievement, teacher turnover, and innovation across schools, particularly in high poverty areas.

  • Big Dig (Tonka Trucks) [Livestreamed]
    Allison Chester, Amanda Murphy, and Jen Powell
    The engineering design process and practical problem solving are 21st century skills that our students need to develop. Work in a collaborative team to solve an engineering dilemma encountered during our Commonwealth's most intricate and involved transportation project.

  • Biopsy Simulation [Livestreamed]
    Angela Marzilli
    What is it really like to be a physician or surgeon? In this course, students investigate how the body works by participating in a range of hands-on activities, such as dissections and construction of life-sized physiological system maps (skeletal, nervous, circulatory, immune). Students conduct simulated surgeries, perform biopsies, and learn how to suture. They also learn about important medical and surgical breakthroughs and practice the type of problem-based learning taught in medical school. In this activity, participants will get to simulate a surgical procedure to remove an unwanted tissue structure from a patient. During this simulation, participants will learn about the rationale behind performing a biopsy versus a lumpectomy.
    Activity Objectives:
    1. Students will perform a simulated biopsy and lumpectomy.
    2. Students will distinguish the application of biopsies and lumpectomies.

  • Building Mathematical Schema with ST Math
    Jessica McKenzie and Raymond Borno
    Experience engaging elementary math curricula designed for how the human brain learns and created to prepare students to solve the world's most challenging problems. Participants will learn about the instructional software program ST Math and how the program's models and feedback develop students' understanding of mathematical concepts. The session will include interactive lessons about fractions for participants to experience classroom instruction with ST Math.

  • Building Systems of Opportunity and Support for Massachusetts' Students
    Paul Reville
    This session will look at the challenge of assuring all students — and all means all — are prepared for success. What does it take for each and every child to be able to show up to school each and every day genuinely ready to learn? How can communities build systems of support and opportunity to effectively wrap around public schools to create a genuine cradle to career, insulated pipeline?

  • Early College and Career Pathways
    Mary M. Bourque, Kimberley Murphy, and Steve Prudent
    Chelsea High School's Early College program is built on the value of access and equity. Now in its fifth year of a partnership, the Early College program with Bunker Hill Community College at Chelsea High has over 300 students participating. Through academic pathways, advising, curriculum alignment, and purposeful course selections, the next steps for Chelsea is an expanded 9–12 model with specific paths towards graduating high school with stackable credentials.

  • Educator Workforce Diversity [Livestreamed]
    Ventura Rodriguez and Shay Edmond
    Currently, 40 percent of Massachusetts public school students are students of color, however, only 7 percent of educators in the state are educators of color. A growing body of research indicates that increasing teacher diversity is an important strategy for improving learning for students of color and for closing achievement gaps. This session will provide an overview of current strategies developed and implemented by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support the diversification of the Massachusetts educator workforce.

  • Getting Creative with Code!
    Karen Brennan, Alexa Kutler, and Laura Peters
    Join us for a playful session of learning to code with Scratch, a visual programming language for young people. This hands-on play session will be organized around three activities. We will begin by imagining what is possible with Scratch by exploring a few of the millions of stories, games, and animations that young people around the world have already created. We will then dive into creating our own Scratch projects. We will end by sharing our projects, our questions, and our ideas for cultivating creativity with code in any learning environment. What will you create?

  • It's Personal! It's Financial! It's Natural! Financial Choices Students Make: PreK–12
    Talitha Oliveri and Jacqueline Prester
    Making choices is part of our everyday lives. Certain everyday choices need more guidance than others — financial choices. Come prepared to take on the role of a preK–12 student as teachers and high school students demonstrate how to provide quality instruction while integrating personal finance content into several age-appropriate lessons. Follow along with the progression of financial choices students face as pre-K students to graduating seniors. This workshop will follow a 10:20:10 model, with 10 minutes of direct instruction for preK–4, 20 minutes of breakouts for grades 5–8 or 9–12, and a 10-minute wrap-up including testimonials by former students. Session takeaways include easily replicable hands-on activities, educator resources, parent/caregiver connections, and more.

  • Let's Create!
    Genein Letford
    Creating is fun, but now it's absolutely necessary for success! The World Economic Forum listed creative thinking as one of the top skills for 2020. Creativity is not a special talent that only some people possess; it's in all of us and can be developed! This seminar will show you how to jumpstart your students' creative thinking through engaging, fun, and thought-provoking exercises. Genein reconnects and strengthens the childlike imagination with the mature ability of reasoning and introspection. Now let's create!

    Activity Objectives:
    • Students will understand the value and importance of creative thinking
    • Students will invent a catapult with random materials to reach a common goal
    • Students will increase metaphorical thinking by linking two unrelated objects
    • (Plus a few other fun activities)

  • Marble Run (Kinetic Sculpture)
    Scott Geter
    The connection between engineering and art is much closer than some people realize. Kinetic sculpture introduces students to key concepts and skills from physics and engineering, including balance, gearing, energy sources, and design-oriented thinking, while connecting and applying these skills to construct a variety of moving works of art. Students will use the work of Alexander Calder, George Rhodes, Anne Lilly and Arthur Ganson as examples of various forms of kinetic sculpture. The marble run is one of the anchoring activities of kinetic sculpture and explores the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. Participants will design a run that incorporates their creativity and meets specific requirements, taking into account laws of motion.
    Activity Objectives:
    1. Students will be able to identify which components of a sculpture contain potential and/or kinetic energy.
    2. Students will create a marble run to demonstrate how changes in potential and kinetic energy can benefit the sculpture.

  • Model Rockets (Building a Lunar Colony)
    Debby Greenstein
    If humans continue to deplete resources on planet Earth, will there come a time when we need to create a settlement somewhere else in our solar system? In this course, students explore what it might take to set up a Moon colony — what materials they would need to bring, how the very different lunar environment might impact the way they live, and what challenges they would face to survive on the Moon. Students investigate impacts of the lunar environment and construct models of possible colonies to meet specific criteria and constraints. Workshop participants will be faced with the challenge of designing and launching a rocket that can travel from Earth to the Moon. Not to worry, though, the rocket will not need to travel the actual 238,900 miles. Instead, participants will prepare a scaled-down model for their launch.
    Activity Objectives:
    1. Students will construct model rockets that will be able to travel from the model Earth to the model Moon.
    2. Students will be able to justify the benefits of using models.

  • Owl Pellet Dissection
    Danielle Quinlan
    We will be engaging in an owl pellet dissection to identify characteristics of owl behavior. The lesson will start by previewing important vocabulary, then dive into an article to pull out important background knowledge in order to draw conclusions about how owls and other species interact with each other in the same habitat. I will share several behavior management techniques that help quickly re-engage students and facilitate accountable talk.

  • The Road Not Taken: Changing Up Family Engagement in the Home of Robert Frost
    Denise M. Snyder and Nelson Butten
    This session will examine Lawrence Public Schools' strategic planning process as well as the results of that journey. The session will focus on initiatives that grow capacity in educators and families, build relationships, and share decision making. We'll cover the rollout of a fellowship for schools, the launch of a parent advocacy program, and the development of a district-wide stakeholder council that is currently working on family engagement policy!

  • Rubber Band Helicopter
    Captain Barrington Irving
    This engineering challenge will focus on helicopters and their use of rotating wings called blades to fly. These blades allow a helicopter to fly in directions and patterns that an airplane cannot. Even though a helicopter does not have wings, it is still impacted by the same four forces that impact a plane: lift, drag, weight, and thrust.

  • Targeting Market Segments through Advertising Using Ethos, Pathos, and Logos: An Interdisciplinary Lesson on Marketing Principles and English Language Arts
    Meghan Symmes Beaulieu
    The theme of this conference is kairos — Greek for a moment of decision and action — and this session will look at other Greek concepts: ethos, pathos, and logos. In this interactive lesson, we will understand how marketers in the real world use these concepts to advertise their products or services focusing on segmented target markets. The "students" will work creatively and collaboratively to use these three persuasive techniques as well as other advertising strategies to advertise a product.

  • Tower Building — Importance of Collaboration
    Emily Galindo, Jennifer DiSarcina and Jodi Krous
    Collaboration and communication are essential elements for constructing knowledge in the classroom. Participants will have to agree upon a concept, determine a plan of action, implement it, and adjust ideas to build their tower of learning together.

  • White Nose Syndrome
    Holly McPartlin and Aliza (Kiki) Moschella
    Ecosystems are nature's reminder that we are inextricably linked. How do we determine and measure the influence of our decisions on our immediate environment and beyond? Choices we make and the data we gather can impact the future for all of us.

Last Updated: March 20, 2019

 
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