The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines are a tool that can be used to design learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners (CAST, 2018). Instructional designers and teachers can use these principles to create learning environments that reduce barriers to access for all students, while keeping in mind the learning goals of the lesson. The three guiding principles of UDL are engagement, representation, and action and expression. In this session educators will be provided with examples of these principles in action in sample materials from OpenSciEd and classroom videos. In these examples, participating will identify how the materials have been purposefully designed with multiple avenues for engagement, representation, and action and expression. Additionally, they will identify the built-in supports for teachers to highlight student assets and to address potential barriers to learning for their local student population. Teachers will utilize a tool to help them analyze their own lessons to identify goals, potential barriers, and ways to use the UDL Principles to remove barriers and create flexible paths to learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will utilize a tool to help them analyze their own lessons to identify goals, potential barriers, and ways to use the UDL Principles to remove barriers and create flexible paths to learning.

SPEAKERS:
Sarah Delaney (OpenSciEd: San Francisco, CA)

Wander your way through 30 different STEM stations to learn about resources, lessons, and teaching strategies to incorporate more STEM into your school and classroom. This farmer's market–type event brings together educators, authors, researchers, and leaders in early childhood through fifth-grade STEM education. Leave with a mindful of great ideas and be inspired!

TAKEAWAYS:
Pick up great ideas and be inspired during this farmer's market–type event.

SPEAKERS:
Sharon Bird (The NEED Project: Manassas, VA), Heather Pacheco-Guffrey (Bridgewater State University: Bridgewater, MA), Lauren Burrow (Stephen F. Austin State University: Nacogdoches, TX), Susan Erickson (Country School: Weston, MA), Sara Nelson (Iowa State University: Ames, IA), Constance Beecher (Iowa State University: Ames, IA), Elizabeth Dethloff (Robert R. Shaw Center for STEAM: Katy, TX), Christine Preston (The University of Sydney: Sydney, Australia), Catherine Scott (Coastal Carolina University: Conway, SC), Kristin Cook (Bellarmine University: Louisville, KY), Richard Cox, Jr. (Winthrop University: Rock Hill, SC), Annette Venegas (Kent School District: Kent, WA), Juliette Guarino Berg (The Town School: New York, NY), Katie Morrison (University Child Development School: Seattle, WA), Wendi Laurence (Create-osity: Park City, UT), Katrina Kmak (Park City Library: Park City, UT), Brittnie Hecht (Park City Library: Park City, UT), Diana Lockwood (Author & Executive Director), Godwyn Morris (Dazzling Discoveries / Skill Mill NYC: New York, NY), Bridget Miller (University of South Carolina: Columbia, SC), Christie Martin (University of South Carolina: Columbia, SC), Rebecca Kurson (Collegiate School: New York, NY), Cori Nelson (Winfield School District 34: Winfield, IL), Shelly Counsell (The University of Memphis: Memphis, TN), Belle Akers (Convent & Stuart Hall's Schools of the Sacred Heart: San Francisco, CA), Kathleen Tate (American Public University System: Charles Town, WV), Dennis Schatz (Institute for Learning Innovation: Beaverton, OR), Beth Pesnell (Kansas State University: Manhattan, KS), Bill Burton (The Lamplighter School: Dallas, TX), Barbara Bromley (Hazelwood Elementary School: Lynnwood, WA), Kim Stilwell (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Nancy McIntyre (Robotics Education & Competition Foundation: Greenville, TX), Shari Haug (Science Olympiad: Oakbrook Terrace, IL), Jane Savatski (Janet Berry Elementary School: Appleton, WI), Katrina Pavlik (Deputy Executive Director: Oakbrook Terrace, IL), Mitchell Rosenberg (Kinderlab Robotics, Inc.: Waltham, MA), Tiffany Leones (Digital Promise: Washington, DC), Beth Dykstra VanMeeteren (University of Northern Iowa: Cedar Falls, IA), Danielle Scharen (North Carolina State University: Raleigh, NC), Frances Hamilton (The University of Alabama in Huntsville: Huntsville, AL), Jennifer Williams (Isidore Newman School: New Orleans, LA), Anne Lowry (Aleph Academy: Reno, NV)

Resources and strategies to support P–12 and postsecondary students in STEM classrooms who have invisible illnesses/ health-impairment disabilities will be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will get an overview of resources and strategies that address the need for safe and equitable learning environments for P–12 and postsecondary students with invisible disabilities/ health-impairment illnesses in STEM classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Nancy Grim-Hunter (Chicago State University: Chicago, IL)

Join the members of NSTA as they share how to create a classroom culture that supports equitable participation, and learn how to implement these best practices within your own classroom. A roundtable discussion will follow.

TAKEAWAYS:
Sharing of ideas on creating a classroom culture that supports equitable participation

SPEAKERS:
Kate Soriano (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Kristin Rademaker (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Holly Hereau (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Creating an equitable classroom requires the creation of a learning community that integrates supports for all students to succeed. Learn how to use common strategies with intentionality to build a classroom community that supports sensemaking. In this session participants will learn strategies that allow you to take your students to the next level as a community.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how different strategies can be used to support ALL learners to create a community that learns together.

SPEAKERS:
Megan Elmore (Glenn Westlake Middle School: Lombard, IL), Randie Johnson (Glenn Westlake Middle School: Lombard, IL)

Culturally relevant pedagogy embodies a professional, political, cultural, ethnical, and ideological disposition that supersedes mundane teaching acts; it is centered in fundamental beliefs about teaching, learning, students, their families, and their communities, and an unyielding commitment to see student success become less rhetoric and more of a reality. This session will aid in building awareness and sensitivity to the culture-based genius that students bring to the classroom using science inquiry strategies. Emphasis will be placed on a model for the inclusion of culturally relevant content that accommodates student backgrounds and methods of learning. In this session, we will exhibit how to identify the key characteristics of culturally responsive lessons. Attendees will acquire lesson design methods that employ cultural competence and effective communication. Attendees will use collaborate boards during the presentation to respond and interact. Activities to exhibit how students identify with what they know in the classroom will be utilized to help educators make connections and apply this information when planning lessons.

TAKEAWAYS:
Building awareness and sensitivity to the culture-based genius that students bring to the classroom using science inquiry strategies. Emphasis will be placed on a model for the inclusion of culturally relevant content that accommodates student backgrounds and methods of learning.

SPEAKERS:
Kelly Haynes (Baker High School: Baker, LA), Jennifer Norwood (Instructional Support Specialist), Tara Hollins (Exceptional Student Services Educator: Zachary, LA)

Students find science difficult or non-stimulating particularly when teachers do not consider cognitive, physiological, and socio-emotional disparities in students. Research has shown that engaging the appropriate parts of the brain helps students make a long-lasting, personalized connection to scientific concepts and practices. Studies show that discipline and learning problems in our classrooms may be associated with a lack of student engagement. Engaged students are less likely to be disruptive and are more likely to retain information longer. The focus of this presentation is to equip teachers with the pedagogical skills and strategies needed to drive student engagement and achievement by recognizing and addressing physiological, cognitive, and socio-emotional disparities in students based on an understanding of how a learner’s brain works. Participating teachers will explore the impact of emotions, storytelling, culturally relevant and hands-on learning on the forebrain and consequently on student engagement and comprehension. Teachers will learn to correctly harness the learning power of the forebrain, particularly, those of the hippocampus and amygdala, by appropriately employing suitable learning strategies. These will enhance student engagement, improve learning outcomes and increase academic achievement in the sciences.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will learn to correctly harness the learning power of the forebrain, particularly, those of the hippocampus and amygdala, by appropriately employing suitable learning strategies

SPEAKERS:
Chidi Duru (Prince George's County Public Schools: Upper Marlboro, MD)