STLinSTL 2025: Full Schedule

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8:00am CDT

Revitalizing Our Curriculum: A Storyboard Approach

Thursday June 5, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am CDT

Storyboards refresh the content foundations and dispositions of our curriculum into a compelling storyline that energizes the curiosity and engagement of our students.

Keynote Speakers

Allison Zmuda

Co-Director; Co-Founder; Educational Consultant; Author, The Institute for Habits of Mind; Curriculum Storyboards

Allison Zmuda is an international curriculum consultant and author with over two decades of experience helping schools design educational systems that are dynamic, engaging, and relevant. Specializing in curriculum, assessment, and instructional planning, Allison collaborates with... Read More →

Dr. Bena Kallick

Co-Founder and Co-Director; Author; Educational Consultant, The Institute for Habits of Mind

Dr. Bena Kallick is an internationally recognized author, award-winning educational consultant, and co-found of The Institute for Habits of Mind. Armed with a deep understanding of the structures of the mind and learning, Dr. Kallick has devoted her career to improving education... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am CDT
Brauer Auditorium

Keynote

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

Play Matters: the Power of Play in Education

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am CDT

Play is the purest expression of our humanity. What is happening in our brain when we play? How can we incorporate more play into the lives of our students? And how can we get better at play as adults? Some say we are most alive when we play. Let’s get better at it. In this session, I will share the research on play, how it is a key component of what has made us human from the beginning of our existence, and practical ways we can incorporate play into our day.

Speakers

Denise Ford

Gifted Teacher, Kirkwood School District

Passionate about Gifted Education, innovation, creativity, and learning.

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am CDT

1-Hour Session

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

When the Primary Goal is Real World Impact

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am CDT

Marc Prensky has written books on unlocking the power of students to change the world by prioritizing student-led projects where real world impact is the goal, and learning happens along the way. Letting go of my curriculum, state standards, and my understanding of what education looks like, I dove in with a team of teachers to see what happens when you unleash your students on the world’s challenges. Come live vicariously through my students' experiences to learn about the pitfalls and successes of this approach.

Speakers

Mark Russo

Integrated Studies Teacher, Principia School

Mark Russo began as a naturalist at state parks and outdoor education centers before finding his calling as a middle and high school classroom teacher. He has worked in traditional, non-traditional inner city classroom settings in Saint Paul, Minnesota since 2000, combining his love... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am CDT

1-Hour Session

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

An Energy Storyline

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Conservation of energy is a fundamental principle of the Universe. Yet, teaching and applying conservation of energy is rife with inconsistencies, unarticulated assumptions, and untenable definitions which leaves students without a strong framework which they can use to analyze any system. In this workshop, we will walk through an "energy storyline" starting with the energy of a particle, then the energy of a system of interacting particles, and then the energy of a macroscopic system. Although I will use a number of examples in physics, this workshop will apply to all physical, life, and earth sciences, and it will be useful for all science teachers.

Featured Speakers

Aaron Titus

Teaching Professor, Department of Physics, North Carolina State University

Aaron Titus is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Physics at North Carolina State University. Aaron’s contributions are at the intersection of undergraduate research, educational technology, computational physics, leadership, and student mentoring. In 1997, Aaron and Larry... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

Blueprint for Learning: Storyboarding Your Curriculum

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

This session will focus on essential components of curriculum storyboard and provide illustrative examples and coaching tips to spark your design.

Keynote Speakers

Allison Zmuda

Co-Director; Co-Founder; Educational Consultant; Author, The Institute for Habits of Mind; Curriculum Storyboards

Dr. Bena Kallick

Co-Founder and Co-Director; Author; Educational Consultant, The Institute for Habits of Mind

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

Differentiating Instruction with Mastery Learning

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

This presentation describes ways to personalize and differentiate instruction for diverse students through the use of mastery learning instructional strategies. The practical issues involved in implementing mastery learning are presented, along with ways to adapt these procedures to personal teaching styles, specific classroom situations, and the needs of individual students. Participants will gain a clear understanding of the theory and practice of mastery learning and explore ways to effectively implement these strategies to help more students learn excellently.

Featured Speakers

Tom Guskey

Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky

Thomas R. Guskey, PhD, is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education, University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago’s renowned Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis (MESA) program, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

9:15am CDT

It’s Time for Curriculum Mapping 3.0

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Curriculum mapping is a well-established process for ensuring a coherent and vertically aligned curriculum across the grades. The first generation of curriculum mapping asked teachers to generate diary maps to identify the unit topics and skills they taught, placed on a calendar map to show when they were taught and for how long. Then, grade-level or department teacher teams would meet to share their individual maps and look for gaps or redundancies. The second generation of curriculum mapping emerged as states, provinces, and nations developed standards that teachers were expected to follow. Typically, teachers met in teams to create consensus maps showing the scope and sequence for the curriculum based on the standards.
These two types of curriculum maps basically identify the inputs – the content to be “covered” in a designated time period. While there is a need for a scope of sequence, the focus exclusively on the content to be taught may unwittingly promote a “coverage” orientation to teaching and learning. The third generation calls for a shift to outcomes or competencies by mapping out the performances that we want students to be able to do with their learning.
This session will make the case for curriculum mapping 3.0, show examples of curriculum maps of authentic performance tasks, and share a variety of practical and proven resources for creating such maps at the classroom, department, and school levels.

Featured Speakers

Jay McTighe

Author & Education Consultant, Jay McTighe & Associates

Jay McTighe brings a wealth of experience developed during a rich and varied career in education. He served as director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, a state collaboration of school districts working together to develop and share formative performance assessments. Prior to... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:15am - 11:45am CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

1:40pm CDT

Beyond Assessments For Learning: Assessment That Improves Learning

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

Using assessments to improve student learning involves more than simply administering “formative” assessments. It requires teachers to make well-designed classroom assessments an integral part of the instructional process. This presentation describes how teachers can develop clear learning targets, gather useful information on students’ performance, offer effective feedback to guide improvements in teaching and learning, and then accurately document students’ learning progress. Participants will learn how to use classroom assessments as effective learning tools, how to integrate performance assessments with more traditional assessment methods, how to align assessment procedures with important learning goals, and how these procedures will allow them to better meet the needs of diverse learners.

Featured Speakers

Tom Guskey

Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

1:40pm CDT

Curriculum Storyboarding Design and Feedback Session

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

This session is for those who are energized by the morning session (Blueprint for Learning: Storyboarding Your Curriculum) and would like immersive time to draft their ideas in a supportive environment. There will be opportunities to ask questions, seek out more illustrative examples, and receive feedback from Allison.

Keynote Speakers

Allison Zmuda

Co-Director; Co-Founder; Educational Consultant; Author, The Institute for Habits of Mind; Curriculum Storyboards

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

1:40pm CDT

Develop Real World Skills Through Authentic Tasks and Projects

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

Authentic performance tasks and projects (PBL) can engage students in applying a variety of life-worthy skills including critical thinking, creative problem solving, group collaboration, and communication through various media. In this workshop, Jay will present examples of authentic tasks along with a set of practical and proven design tools. He will explore the use of Artificial Intelligence tools to generate ideas for such tasks and describe a set of task variables (e.g., time frame, student choice) to consider. Finally, he will share a 23-page hot-linked set of performance tasks and associated resources. These alone are worth the price of admission!

Featured Speakers

Jay McTighe

Author & Education Consultant, Jay McTighe & Associates

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:40pm - 1:55pm CDT

Workshop

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

1:45pm CDT

Authentic Research Experiences: A Pathway to STEM Identity, STEM Positionality, and a Sense of Belonging

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm CDT

The knowledge and use of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills are essential for thriving in the STEM community. However, the professional STEM community does not accurately represent the community of students present in STEM classes today. Many students, from populations that are traditionally underrepresented in STEM, lack a positive STEM identity, STEM positionality or sense of belonging in STEM classes. Some students do not thrive when it comes to traditional STEM classes in schools in the United States and therefore do not go on to join the STEM community. The overall purpose of this study was to investigate how Authentic Research Experiences (ARE) can be used to disrupt the narrative in the science classroom of what it means to do science and what it means to be a doer of science for students traditionally underrepresented in STEM.

In an effort to disrupt the narrative of traditional science education, this multiple case study determined how Authentic Research Experiences (ARE) influence student STEM identity, STEM positionality and sense of belonging in 6th grade students at one K-12 independent school in the United States. ARE incorporate discovery, original data and information, engagement with research practices and techniques, encourage collaboration, utilize iterative design and process skills, and incorporate mentors and expert knowledge (Burmeister et al., 2021; Gentile et al., 2017). ARE provide authentic opportunities for teachers to empower students and change the narrative on how students learn science. This could lead to an altering of the STEM pipeline in ways that are more inclusive and socially just. In this study, students were observed, surveyed, and interviewed to determine how ARE influence how students perceive themselves as a participant in the STEM classroom or are recognized as a STEM person (STEM identity), how experiences influence a students’ STEM positionality (all of the aspects that position a student as an insider or outsider in STEM), and how these experiences influence a student’s sense of belonging in science courses.

Speakers

Christine Pickett

Upper School Science Teacher, Mary Institute and Country Day School

Christine Pickett is an Upper School Science teacher at Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School as well as a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education at Saint Louis University. Her dissertation research is titled Authentic Research Experiences... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm CDT

1-Hour Session

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

3:00pm CDT

Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing Good Questions to Promote Student Inquiry

Thursday June 5, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm CDT

Explore how to teach and learn through inquiry and by questioning with good questions. Understand how good questions prompt students to demonstrate different levels of thinking and discuss their Depth of Knowledge (DOK). Rephrase learning expectations and targets into good questions that will set the instructional focus, serve as assessments, and personalize learning. Pose good questions that pique student curiosity and promote students to share and summarize their learning. Use generative AI to craft good questions that will engage students in deep inquiry. Most importantly, realize how teaching and learning with an inquiring mind ensures the experience is meaningful, measurable, and motivating.

Featured Speakers

Erik M. Francis

Author / Educator / Presenter, Maverik Education

Erik M. Francis, M.Ed., M.S., is an international author, educator, presenter, and professional development provider with 30 years of experience in education. He is the author of Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing Good Questions to Promote Student Inquiry (Solution Tree), Deconstructing... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm CDT

1-Hour Session

Category Student-Centered Best Practices

STLinSTL 2025

From $250.00