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How do we create a safe, vibrant classroom environment where every student can thrive? This series of presentations focuses on innovative approaches to student safety, behavior, and academic depth. Discover creative management techniques—from curbing middle school behavior challenges to high-interest, pop-culture-inspired strategy rotations. Learn how to safely navigate student health and self-regulation needs, facilitate empathetic student dialogues on controversial issues, and leverage visual tools to deepen critical thinking, all while collaborating with fellow educators on real, meaningful classroom differentiation. Join us to find the spark that brings your school community together! Join us on the Sky Bridge for a dynamic and interactive series of poster sessions designed to spark innovation and provide practical solutions for today’s educators. These sessions offer a unique opportunity to engage directly with experts, explore visual data, and take away actionable strategies in a concise, high-impact format.
Motivating Middle Schoolers: Get your Middle school students participating in class and curb those behavior problems. Asia Alvarado
"Now Climb that Tree": Discussing Effective Differentiation Strategies: Education is, at times, a river of pedagogical jargon. The jargon comes and goes, but often the core problems remain. Our students are behind. Our state is underperforming. I have been teaching for over 20 years. As an ELD teacher and Co-teacher, the one piece of jargon I observe consistently missing from our classrooms is differentiation. I want to facilitate a collaborative learning session where teachers can come together to discuss the most effective strategies they have used to differentiate for their students, and to hear from all APS teachers who are experts in, or struggling with, differentiation. I want to discuss how to raise our scores without drill and kill, to explore differentiation in a safe space where teachers share their experiences, vent their frustrations, and find solutions. I want teachers to leave with new solutions, as well as solid plans for proven differentiation techniques they can use to get off to a great start for the new year. Megan Blaich
"Would You Know What to Do?" -Student Safety, Chronic Conditions & Self-Regulation in Schools: This interactive gallery walk engages teachers, educational assistants, administrators, and support staff in recognizing and responding to common student health needs in the school setting. Using real-world scenarios, participants will explore how everyday staff actions impact student safety, engagement, and self-regulation. This session highlights a practical framework—Recognize, Respond, Support—to guide decision-making when students report symptoms or show signs of distress. Participants will also engage with demonstration emergency medications (e.g., inhalers, epinephrine auto-injectors) to build confidence in real-time response. Attendees will leave with clear, actionable strategies to support student voice, ensure timely care, and reduce barriers to learning. Pamela Garcia Arnold
Tackle Complex or Controversial Issues in the Classroom Through Civil Conversation: Students are eager to discuss real-world issues. Help transform their curiosity into meaningful dialogue that builds empathy and critical thinking. The Civil Conversation method helps students gain a deeper understanding of complex topics through a combination of close reading and guided small-group discussion. This strategy uses graphic organizers and discussion guides to help students consider multiple perspectives, use evidence to support their claims, and ask clarifying questions. Join us in this session to learn more about Civil Conversation, explore resources, and discuss best practices for using student deliberation in the classroom. This workshop will include collaborative planning time and participants will leave with a ready-to-use lesson tailored to their course and grade level. Kathleen Hughes
Attention Mandalorians: This Strategy Rotation Session is inspired by both Harry Potter and Star Wars: The Mandalorian this is a strategy for classroom management that is engaging, relevant and fun. It can be used in a classroom setting or adapted for school wide program. Alyssa Anaya
Hexagonal Thinking: Bringing Collaboration and Critical Thinking into the Classroom: Hexagonal thinking is a simple classroom strategy to engage students in collaboration and critical thinking. Students review terms and concepts in any given subject and connect or link them using hexagons. If hexagon sides touch, the terms and concepts must relate to one another. Because hexagons have six sides, multiple connections can be made and students must be able to justify any and all connections. This activity fosters student engagement through discussion, debate, problem solving, and critical thinking. Each group’s unique visual map of hexagons helps students to see the bigger picture of how terms/concepts relate within the content. Stacy Cooley
