Design & Mapping

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: Alexis Wiggins and Jay McTigue

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: 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: 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.