1:00-5:30 PM
Registration, Exhibits & Lounge Open
2:00-3:00 PM
Keynote | Symphony Ballroom
Speaker: Amanda Bickerstaff, AI for Education, Inc.
This keynote is designed to empower educators with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate the transformative landscape of AI in education. This engaging session goes beyond basic introductions, challenging participants to rethink traditional practices and embrace cutting-edge approaches that prepare students for an AI-integrated future.
Topics included:
3:00-3:30 PM
Break
3:30-4:30 PM
Breakouts
Building Student AI Literacy is a forward-thinking workshop designed to equip educators with the knowledge and tools necessary to prepare students for an AI-driven future. This comprehensive session empowers teachers to cultivate essential AI literacy skills, ensuring students can navigate, critically evaluate, and ethically engage with AI technologies in their academic, personal, and future professional lives.
Speakers: Jill Gough and Marsha Harris, Trinity School
As we continue to learn how to best support our learners with a focus on The Science of Reading, school leaders are looking for ways to select, administer, collect, and visualize data so that decisions can be made around intervention and enrichment opportunities for children. High-quality assessment practices in all schools continually evolve, while research and technology are at the forefront.
Join this session to learn how a 3-year-old through 6th-grade school selects, collaborates, and analyzes literacy assessments to support student learning and differentiated planning. At Trinity, evidence-based data now complements classroom performance, family history, and teacher intuition. In this session, we will explore various tools to visualize classroom formative assessment data, discuss differentiation strategies to support all learners in the classroom, and create a plan to support classroom teachers through the data process.
Speaker: Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, LME Global
How do human beings take in, embody, and utilize new information and ideas? In this session, we will explore the complete learning process. Using learning objectives as a through line, we will consider how to walk students from shallow into deep learning and consider what differentiates learning at the novice and expert levels. In addition, we will look at the issue of transfer and discuss why moving abilities and skills between contexts can be so tricky. Finally, we will draw this all back to questions of curricula: if there is a clear learning process, how might this be reflected and aligned within a structured curriculum?
Speakers: Brooke Peterson and Claire Vaughn, Advent Episcopal School
Learn how traditional schools can innovate within their mission, using local resources for interdisciplinary, project-based learning that engages students deeply. Join this session to explore how Advent Episcopal School, a traditional independent school, has innovated within its framework through Discover Bham, a place-based learning program.
This session will delve into how the program integrates Birmingham’s rich cultural, historical, and scientific resources into the curriculum, creating interdisciplinary and project-based learning opportunities that align with the school’s mission and values. Attendees will learn strategies for blending traditional education with contemporary approaches, leveraging unique local resources, and evaluating student engagement and learning within a traditional setting. Discover practical ways to bridge the gap between innovation and tradition, making learning more relevant and engaging for students.
4:30-5:30 PM
Reception
7:30-8:30 AM
Breakfast
7:30 AM-2:00 PM
Exhibits Open
8:30-9:30 AM
Speaker: Jay McTighe, McTighe and Associates
Based on his 25+ years of experience with the Understanding by Design® framework and newer ideas described in Leading Modern Learning, 2nd ed. (Solution Tree and ASCD, 2019), Jay will describe a framework for constructing a coherent curriculum and assessment system that integrates 21st Century Competencies (identified by a Profile of a Graduate) with disciplinary content (identified in Standards).
Join this keynote session to learn about a systemic approach to achieving a “guaranteed and viable” curriculum, an assessment system for gathering evidence on all valued outcomes, and more authentic and personalized learning.
9:30-10:00 AM
10:00-11:00 AM
Speakers: Dr. Sonja Taylor and Dr. David-Aaron Roth, Charlotte Latin School
Agency and belonging are essential mindsets that must be modeled and cultivated. In this session, we will explore practical strategies for fostering a sense of student agency and belonging within your school community. The session will be structured around a case study of Charlotte Latin’s journey, and the focus will be on actionable steps you can take in your own context.
We’ll discuss how to make your school’s vision and values a guiding document, not just words on a page. Learn how to incorporate these principles into meaningful experiences for both students and faculty, sending a clear message that student empowerment is an institutional priority. Leave this session with a clear action plan for creating a school culture where students truly feel heard, supported, and empowered to take ownership of their learning and faculty have observable and measurable ways to ensure that success.
Speaker: Mike Kentz, AI Literacy Partners
Language-based assessments are under assault by AI. Teachers can no longer rely on written assessments like essays, lab reports, even PowerPoint presentations to evaluate student proficiency and skill. Teachers need to stop grading the product and start grading the process of student learning. That means allowing use of AI but, importantly, assessing and evaluating the student interaction with AI across a variety of thinking tasks, skills, and objectives. This approach is the future of education. It allows educators to teach effective and responsible use of AI, but it also creates a window into student thinking that can be evaluated for content understanding and communication skills.
Speakers: Alexis Wiggins and Jay McTighe
This session explores how Jay McTighe and Alexis Wiggins, The John Cooper School’s Director of Teaching and Learning, worked together to develop a Curriculum Review process specific to the needs of independent schools.
In this session, participants will learn how Jay and Alexis designed a multi-year cycle in which, each year, one discipline works together across grade levels to develop Long-Term Transfer Goals, create department-wide understandings and essential questions, and map performance tasks. After several years, the outcomes of this work are clear: greater alignment, better assessments and rubrics, and enhanced collaboration and community across divisions. This breakout session is more practical than philosophical — we’ll explain the specific steps and timelines we took to implement this change and share documentation and advice for how you might apply this model to your own institution. The session is ideal for K-12 department chairs, directors of curriculum, associate heads of school, and other leaders seeking to implement a cohesive, goal-oriented curriculum review system.
Speaker: Ann Marsh Rutledge, MV Ventures, The Mount Vernon School
Explore how Instructional Rounds can transform classrooms through collaborative, inquiry-driven observation. This session demonstrates how educators can leverage reflective dialogue and actionable feedback to enhance teaching strategies and foster deeper student learning and growth. By activating professional agency and nurturing a culture of continuous improvement, Instructional Rounds drive lasting innovation in teaching and learning. Join us to discover how this process empowers educators and builds an engaged community dedicated to sustained impact and transformation in schools.
11:00-11:30 AM
11:30 AM-12:30 PM
Speaker: Connie White, Woodward Academy
Join us for a deep dive into the essential foundations of modern learning at Woodward Academy. This session will focus on curriculum development, including the articulation of disciplinary goals and the Portrait of a Graduate skills. We’ll demonstrate how we use Toddle for curriculum planning, assessments, and student portfolios.
Curriculum alignment can be challenging, but you’ll gain valuable ideas, resources, and frameworks to jumpstart your work. We’ll also share how we’ve harnessed AI to reduce the time teachers spend on repetitive tasks and enhance student agency by integrating cornerstone performance tasks in our courses. This research-based session offers practical insights and strategies to meet the evolving needs of today’s learners. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your educational practices with tools and knowledge that will make a real difference in your school.
Speaker: Dr. Kelly Swanson, Mount Paran Christian School
Are you ready to tackle one of the most debated topics in education head on? Assessment is more than just grades – it’s the key to unlocking student potential!
Join us for a dynamic, hands-on session where we’ll uncover the mysteries to designing assessments that are reliable, valid, fair, and secure. You’ll walk away with practical tools to empower your teachers and create assessments that truly measure what matters. After all, education has suffered enough from weak assessments – let’s change that starting NOW. Get ready to lead the way in transforming how we measure student success!
Speaker: Sarah Hanawald, Association for Academic Leaders
To ensure the successful integration of generative AI, participants will be guided through the process of creating a strategic roadmap. This roadmap will include setting realistic goals, identifying necessary resources, and establishing metrics for success. By the end of the session, department chairs will have a clear action plan tailored to their school’s unique context and needs.
Speakers: Ann Marsh Rutledge, The Mount Vernon School, and Nicole Martin, The Mount Vernon School
High-quality, student-centered project-based learning is a key pedagogical tool for future-ready schools. In this interactive session, learn how to lead your school toward more effective, rigorous, and engaging project-based learning.
Why would schools utilize project-based learning? How might we create a shared vision and build capacity for PBL at our school? How will we launch next steps toward PBL in our unique organizations? Join us in imagining your school’s journey in PBL!
12:30-2:00 PM
Lunch & Exhibits
Speakers: Lauren Frye, Michelle Klosterman, Dr. Yolanda McClure, Forsyth Country Day School
Examine how using no-cost, low-cost, or transformative strategies can help your school uncover the potential of the built environment to maximize student engagement. Learn how learning spaces, when intentionally designed and used, can enhance student learning outcomes, improve the well-being of students and teachers, support differentiated learning and inclusive learning, and demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. Explore and design spaces that maximize the built environment for learning. Examine our school’s journey of soliciting teacher, student, and community voices alongside established research to map the next steps for your school and most importantly, student engagement.
Speakers: Danette Morton, John Monahan, and Tori Sparks, The Westminster Schools
In a time of intense polarization, schools are tasked with teaching students to live together in community and preparing them to enter civic life. Discover how Westminster Upper School’s Civil Dialogue Fellows program is empowering students with the skills for respectful, productive discourse, fostering hope for a brighter future.
Speakers: Dr. Maggie Renken and Steve Nowack, Rabun Gap Nacoochee School
As the future for our students rapidly changes, independent school leaders must recognize and respond to teaching and learning that best prepares our students and graduates.
In this session, we’ll emphasize how to lead faculty through change while focusing on hiring, satisfaction, and retention. We will cover the planning and implementation strategies recently employed for leading faculty to adopt a modern learning approach in a way that meets faculty needs and that aligns with our academic vision. This vision is to center learners in our curriculum, connect them to community, and equip them with the skills required for success in the future and rapidly changing world.
We will highlight three key action examples: (1) redesigning student orientation to center on design thinking and competency-driven education, (2) developing grade-level transdisciplinary applied learning projects that connect course content to community, and (3) onboarding educational AI tools for faculty and students.
In addition to describing planning and implementation strategies through these examples, we will highlight successes and failures. Attendees will learn new thinking and technology tools for organizing, leading, and supporting faculty through, sometimes difficult, school-wide shifts in their approach to teaching and learning.
Speaker: Dr. Ryan Welsh, Providence Day School
How might we enable students to pursue learning at the intersection of their passions and curiosities? How might we develop teachers and school leaders to think of themselves as learning designers? IDEAS@PD offers students and faculty the opportunity to practice the skills and mindsets we need to create learning that moves everyone forward, where Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship, Analytics, and Sustainability intersect.
This workshop will invite participants to explore the mashups of skills, mindsets, and tools that would best serve the students in their respective school communities. Students currently in Providence Day School’s IDEAS@PD learning experiences will be on hand to facilitate small groups to demonstrate and share their burgeoning skills in creative, collaborative problem-solving. Participants will get to explore their passions and curiosities not limited to the following: design thinking, LEGO, artificial intelligence, maker ed, MadLibs, inquiry-based learning, boatbuilding, eSports, portraiture, and band-aids.
3:00 PM
Adjourn
