In this session, we will explore the many "1%s" that make strong professional development - from intentional preparation to flawless execution! You'll learn many, many "behind-the-scenes" strategies that will make your execution of professional development seem magical to teachers---all while building your desired adult culture. Come join in to see what's behind the curtain!
If you came to this session last year, come to the 2.0 version also offered this year.
Democracy Prep’s ability to provide an excellent education to scholars in underserved communities depends on our talent and more certainly, our leaders. Democracy Prep offers one and two-year programs to cultivate talent from multiple points of entry to develop the best leaders for current, new, and turnaround Democracy Prep schools. Through action, research, case studies, school visits, residencies, and ongoing coaching, Leader U provides a platform that helps leaders rise.
Interested in Leader U? If you are thinking about applying to Leader U--either this year or in the future- come to learn more about the program from the people who have graduated from it and are now school leaders!
While we all love a good project, planning for and monitoring scholar progress and success on a major project can sometimes be daunting. Project-based learning provides the opportunity for teachers to step back and let scholars run with their own ideas and creativity. It also presents the ideal circumstances to build executive functioning and self-regulation skills in our scholars. During this session, teachers will backwards plan a unit-based project in order to determine steps and skills for scholar success as well as planning for active project management and skill building during the project's progress. This session is for middle and high school teachers at all levels of project-planning stages.
Faulker famously wrote "the past isn't dead. It's not even past." In many of our classrooms, history instruction stays in 2000 BCE. In this session, we will look at how to structure to articulate a purpose to students besides just learning the past - and to learn techniques that will promote student inquiry and discussing about values within a history classroom.
You are observing a colleague and want to provide feedback. Where do you begin? What areas do you ultimately decide to give feedback on? How do you write/type the feedback clearly so that a teammate can use it in their next interaction? In this session, we will practice writing out clear feedback. We will also identify what teaching techniques to prioritize when coaching newer teachers through a video analysis of a newer teacher.
Friday October 26, 2018 1:30pm - 2:45pm CDT
Meeting 212 A
In this session, we will practice six engaging and fun structures you can use on Monday: Timed Round Robin, All Write Round Robin, Fan N' Pick, Numbered Heads Together, Gallery Walk for mini-presentations, and Sage-and-Scribe.
Kagan Cooperative Learning pedagogy builds ratio so effectively because it relies upon four principles: Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Equal Participation, and Simultaneous Interaction. When these principles are followed, students are most able to take intellectual risks, solve problems creatively, collaborate rather than compete, and engage in rigorous critical thought.
These approaches not only significantly boost both participation and think ratio, they instill values of tolerance, empathy, community, and humor.
We all want our scholars to fully internalize our content and be able to apply it to a variety of contexts. But how do we do that? In this session, we’ll explore an actual project in which scholars assume the role of constitutional lawyers in an imagined Supreme Court case. Participants will get to analyze the lead up, actual work, and summative activity from the perspective of both scholar and observer. After, we’ll have space to analyze the activity and discuss how to apply this type of activity to their own class.
Aggressively monitoring scholar work is a key way that you can collect in-the-moment data from your scholars. In this session we will be discussing key strategies to help you efficiently and effectively collect and respond to the work that scholars are completing during independent practice. We will also action plan how to apply strategies discussed to your own unique classroom and scholars.
Does data scare you? Are you struggling to understand how data can improve your teaching practice? Are you interested in the intersections between academic and behavioral data? Then, this session is for you! Throughout our time together, we will explore how to organize collected data, interpret the data, and translate these interpretations into effective classroom practice. We will cover where to get data from, what data to pull, and all necessary analytic skills. Come one, come all!
Teachers, have you ever wondered how your DREAM Coach has developed such good scholar relationships? DREAM coaches, have you ever wondered about how to best work with teachers to better support scholar outcomes? This session is designed to explore Teacher-DREAM Coach partnerships as a means to build a supportive culture for our scholars. First, we excavate why these partnerships are vital, and discuss potential areas of friction (i.e. teacher communication around send-outs, or norming DREAM Coach feedback for teachers). Last, we highlight how changing feedback norms and leveraging DeansList data can inform conversations and bolster these important partnerships.
In this session, we will refine the many "1%s" that make strong professional development - from intentional preparation to flawless execution! You'll refine many, many "behind-the-scenes" strategies that will make your execution of professional development seem magical to teachers---all while building your desired adult culture.
If you did not participate in this session at DP You last year, please attend the 1.0 version instead of this one!
It can be difficult at times to find the right solution to problems we are confronted with because of our inability to step back, be completely objective, and ask the right questions when we are in the thick of it. Sometimes it takes an objective voice to help us unpack the problem in order to identify the root cause and thus the appropriate solution. During this session, teacher-leaders from across all regions will have the opportunity to work through the Problem of Practice Consultancy Protocol using peer selected problems that individuals are currently grappling with in their teacher-leader role. This session is an opportunity to tap the expertise of a group of peers around a particular dilemma and get respectful, thoughtful responses to solve the problem. DP YOU provides a unique space to leverage the ideas and feedback from all teacher-leaders in order to discover solutions to problems that may not have not been thought of before.
While we all love a good project, planning for and monitoring scholar progress and success on a major project can sometimes be daunting. Project-based learning provides the opportunity for teachers to step back and let scholars run with their own ideas and creativity. It also presents the ideal circumstances to build executive functioning and self-regulation skills in our scholars. During this session, teachers will backwards plan a unit-based project in order to determine steps and skills for scholar success as well as planning for active project management and skill building during the project's progress. This session is for middle and high school teachers at all levels of project-planning stages.
This session will provide teachers with a tool for increasing student voice and engagement in their classrooms: the Socratic Seminar. Socratic Seminars place students at the forefront of discussion and provide an opportunity for them to think critically and independently about text with a teacher's guidance. In this session, teachers will engage in a Socratic Seminar, learn strategies for preparing their students for a Socratic Seminar, and plan a Socratic Seminar in an upcoming lesson.
Have you ever had a student get confused in the classroom? Or run into a wall of misconceptions when teaching? In this session, we will dig into how to best plan for and anticipate misconceptions when doing your own intellectual prep. We will use and practice in-the-moment strategies as tools to respond to unanticipated scholar misconceptions during class.
Have you ever had a student get confused in the classroom? Or run into a wall of misconceptions when teaching? In this session, we will dig into how to best plan for and anticipate misconceptions when doing your own intellectual prep. We will use and practice in-the-moment strategies as tools to respond to unanticipated scholar misconceptions during class.
In this session, we will explore the many "1%s" that make strong professional development - from intentional preparation to flawless execution! You'll learn many, many "behind-the-scenes" strategies that will make your execution of professional development seem magical to teachers---all while building your desired adult culture. Come join in to see what's behind the curtain!
If you came to this session last year, come to the 2.0 version also offered this year.
Want to foster males sense of responsibility for their school community and self? Do you see potential leaders within your school, and are looking for something more to give them besides a classroom job? Do you believe in peer to peer mentoring? Come out and hear about one initiative that is working to foster leadership skills in our middle school males using a strengths base approach, The L.O.T (Leaders Of Tomorrow) Program. Staff will be able to walk away with beginning action steps to starting their own boys leadership chapter.
School Social Worker, Democracy Prep Harlem Middle School
I have been a school social worker within charter schools for over 10 years. I am a advocate for young people, and a strong believer in developing adolescences assets and social skill competencies. I am excited and honored to be doing such important work.
Saturday October 27, 2018 9:15am - 10:30am CDT
River 007 D
In this session participants will learn how to use grapple problems (structured exploratory learning activities) to teach essential content. Participants will experience a grapple activity from the perspective of scholars and then work to design grapple problems for their own classroom. Teachers from all content areas and grade levels are welcome. Differentiated lesson resources will be provided. Note: This PD is a slightly revised version of the one I lead from two years ago.
Imagine a classroom where scholars know exactly what's expected of them academically, 100% of the time. Imagine that there was a way for you to know, before the exit ticket, whether or not scholars would master the aim. Your dreams could become reality on October 27. Come learn how "Criteria For Success" and “Intentional IP” keep expectations high while setting all of your scholars up for success. You'll have the opportunity to implement these new strategies into an upcoming lesson plan so that you can execute CFS in class on Monday.
Korean teachers in Democracy Prep are in a unique situation where students in our classrooms are 100% "non-heritage" learners. Since curricula and teaching methods used by Korean teachers in the United States have traditionally targeted teaching students of Korean American heritage, we need to develop curriculum that meet the needs of our unique student body. My goal for this session is to provide Korean teachers useful insights on how to effectively respond to a few issues that non-heritage learners struggle understanding: verb/adjectives conjugation, use of particles and S-O-V sentence structure. Some frequent mistakes our students make will be presented and teachers will discuss ways to teach the needed skills to prevent them. I would also like to share with the team how I have dealt with those topics and ask teachers to share their own experiences.
We take MAP testing two to three times a year. This is the equivalent of spending three full school days on MAP testing. If we commit this much time to it, we need to make it meaningful for our scholars. During our session you will learn key entry points to understanding MAP data. You will leave with the MAP reflection tools and templates necessary to transfer ownership of data to scholars. This leads to all teachers ultamate goal of our scholars being invested in their own learning and growth.
Here are two main reasons why you should LOVE MAP testing: 1. Being able to track scholar data over multiple years embodies what it means to be a "Growth Matters Most" network 2. The data is available instantly. Mean you can create purposeful groupings, targeted inventions, and personalized goals for scholars right away.
The goal of this session is to share and practice strategies to create a joyous culture of reading in your classroom. In order for our scholars to master the aims in our lessons, they must truly grapple with the texts we put in front of them. But how do we prevent scholars from checking out during independent or whole group reading? I will share strategies that have worked for me in my class of struggling readers to establish a strong culture of reading. Session participants will participate in a classroom simulation, debrief the use of strategies, and practice engaging all scholars during control the game. This session is recommended to teachers who have had an introduction to control the game and is open to all content teachers although the strategies may be more helpful for humanities teachers.
In this session, we will refine the many "1%s" that make strong professional development - from intentional preparation to flawless execution! You'll refine many, many "behind-the-scenes" strategies that will make your execution of professional development seem magical to teachers---all while building your desired adult culture.
If you did not participate in this session at DP You last year, please attend the 1.0 version instead of this one!
You are observing a colleague and want to provide feedback. Where do you begin? What areas do you ultimately decide to give feedback on? How do you write/type the feedback clearly so that a teammate can use it in their next interaction? In this session, we will practice writing out clear feedback. We will also identify what teaching techniques to prioritize when coaching newer teachers through a video analysis of a newer teacher.
Saturday October 27, 2018 10:30am - 11:45am CDT
Meeting 225 B
It can be difficult at times to find the right solution to problems we are confronted with because of our inability to step back, be completely objective, and ask the right questions when we are in the thick of it. Sometimes it takes an objective voice to help us unpack the problem in order to identify the root cause and thus the appropriate solution. During this session, teacher-leaders from across all regions will have the opportunity to work through the Problem of Practice Consultancy Protocol using peer selected problems that individuals are currently grappling with in their teacher-leader role. This session is an opportunity to tap the expertise of a group of peers around a particular dilemma and get respectful, thoughtful responses to solve the problem. DP YOU provides a unique space to leverage the ideas and feedback from all teacher-leaders in order to discover solutions to problems that may not have not been thought of before.
Do you ever give tests and wonder what the results tell you about your students? Perhaps you've seen results that contradict your perception of how your class has grasped the material. This session will provide a framework for speaking about test validity, and draw boundaries around what tests can and can't tell us about student performance. We will also articulate what makes a test question a good one, and explore ways we can objectively talk about test quality.
