Explore transformative AI tools for education, including Questionwell, Curipod, and Twee. Learn to seamlessly integrate them into lessons, enhance student engagement, and elevate learning with AI-generated questions and personalized feedback.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain hands-on experience with AI tools for education, understanding their potential to enhance student engagement, streamline assessment, and promote innovative teaching strategies.

SPEAKERS:
Selene Verhofstad (Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship: No City, No State), Faryal Shaukat (Dobie High School: Houston, TX)

This session will offer practical and adaptable examples of formative classroom assessment techniques that could be incorporated into any science classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
This session will present formative assessment techniques that attendees can take back to their classrooms and use immediately.

SPEAKERS:
Tyler Buchan (Salisbury Composite High School: Sherwood Park, AB)

We often rely on Crosscutting Concepts within the Next Generation Science Standards as ways of thinking students participate all the time, in every grade, in every subject. But what happens when those skills have not been honed in the way we need them to be for our grade level and disciplinary core?

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave our session having attained concepts and skills that will help them measure attainment of Patterns, a critical Crosscutting Concept in the Next Generation Science Standards. Participants will be introduced to assessment resources and instructions for using them.

SPEAKERS:
Sonal Patel-Dame (Plattsburgh High School), Anoopa Singh (Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics: New York, NY)

This session will provide concrete and practical examples of how to implement lab skill performance assessments in the classroom and will offer easy-to-use and tangible information that teachers can take back to their own schools.

TAKEAWAYS:
This session will present how to administer performance assessments of five basic lab skills and the benefits to the classroom that result.

SPEAKERS:
Tyler Buchan (Salisbury Composite High School: Sherwood Park, AB)

Discover fresh teaching horizons: surprise yourself, collaborate actively, plan consciously, and enhance communication. Enjoy a transformational opportunity to stifle enthusiasm for differentiation and revitalize teaching with diverse strategies that will inspire and motivate students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will obtain a range of meaningful and easy-to-apply differentiation strategies for their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Luciana Girgulsky (Northlands: No City, No State)

STEM Policy Expert Jame Brown will paint a picture of the federal public policy landscape for STEM education generally and science education in particular, including emerging policies in Congress and the federal government and the outlook for the future.

TAKEAWAYS:
Get smart on what’s going on in Washington, DC around STEM education and how it can impact the science education ecosystem and your local community.

SPEAKERS:
James Brown (STEM Education Coalition: Washington, DC)

Explore the structure of the OpenSciEd High School assessment system across Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

TAKEAWAYS:
In OpenSciEd HS, the assessment system is structured to support teachers in assessing all three dimensions of the NGSS through formative, summative, peer, and self-assessment opportunities.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Vick (Northwestern University), Zoe Buck Bracey (Senior Science Educator and Director of Design for Justice: Colorado Springs, CO), Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO)

Learn to integrate science and engineering practices into proficiency scales for evaluating student performance in assessments. Explore how classroom educators calibrate student assessments and how to report scores into a gradebook that communicates to all stakeholders.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn how to integrate the SEPs into proficiency scales that can be used in a standards-based model, including instruction, assessments, and in PLCs through calibration and reporting.

SPEAKERS:
Erin Sinner (Davies High School: Fargo, ND), Alexandra Kollman (Fargo Public Schools: Fargo, ND)

The Learning Progression Model is a flexible, equitable assessment strategy to provide descriptive feedback, set goals, evaluate teaching, and report achievement. Attendees leave knowing how they can implement this in their classrooms, even in a traditional grades school. For K-College, all courses.

TAKEAWAYS:
Understand how the Learning Progression Model keeps students engaged and accountable, how learning progressions are used to develop/assess skills and knowledge aligned with NGSS, and how to integrate this approach into the traditional grading system.

SPEAKERS:
Elise Naramore (Pascack Hills High School: Montvale, NJ)

In my AP Physics 1 class I have a student who can’t rearrange simple equations alongside a student who got a 5 on AP Calc BC. I have the star of Honors English Lit and a new international student who doesn’t yet understand simple directions in English. How can I reach and challenge every student?

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to cater for every student in your classroom using my three guiding rules: facilitate self-paced learning, emphasize mastery, and playing to students’ strengths. This will ensure all students get a solid conceptual foundation and have the support that they need to reach their full potential.

SPEAKERS:
Abigail Vega (Physics & Chemistry Teacher: , CA)

In my first year teaching I worked 16 hours a day, swamped with planning and grading. Despite my best intentions, neglecting my own needs had a negative impact on my teaching. I now leverage technology to work smarter not harder, reducing my workload while improving my students’ learning experience.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to reduce your workload whilst maximizing students’ benefit. Reduce grading workload using my three rules for grading: automate it, delegate it, and simplify it! Save time lesson planning using my 3 favorite tools: the 5-minute lesson plan, video examples, and Google suite.

SPEAKERS:
Abigail Vega (Physics & Chemistry Teacher: , CA)

Teachers in many rural districts around the country operate as singletons and very rarely have the opportunity to collaborate with teachers of the same subject area. The presenter will discuss the steps she took that led to significant growth as indicated by state test scores.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn the strategies that are necessary to support teachers in rural school districts, which in turn, supports all learners.

SPEAKERS:
LATASHA LAMPKIN (District Science Coach: , GA)

In an era where science educators are encouraged to do more hands-on learning, benefiting students that learn by doing, we still test using traditional styles. Take a look into the benefits of practical style summative tests to help this student population.

TAKEAWAYS:
How to structure summative tests for kinesthetic learners, rather than the standard "pen and paper" style tests.

SPEAKERS:
Ryan Fernandes (Wayne County Schools Career Center: No City, No State)

Want to know what the students actually know without spending all your time grading their responses? Adjust your assessment questions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to adapt "typical" assessment questions into more meaningful questions in order to better get at what students understand, without the endless hours of grading.

SPEAKERS:
Meredith Diehl (Northview High School: Sylvania, OH)

This short session will chronicle the journey of developing and enhancing NGSS-aligned Performance Assessment Tasks that complement effective science instruction and engage students in high-quality phenomenon-based lessons and assessment AS learning!

TAKEAWAYS:
The key takeaways will include: 1. Tips and tricks for writing novel performance assessment tasks that fit right into regular science classes. 2. Tips and tricks for enhancing/modifying existing assessment tasks. 3. Samples of modified assessment tasks for both Biology & Physical Science.

SPEAKERS:
Marissa Murdock (Dekalb County School District: No City, No State)

Are you looking for a way to simplify your workload of grading and providing feedback on CER writing tasks? Look no further than Autocrat! This Google Sheets extension can shorten your grading and feedback process from weeks to minutes!

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with templates of resources from the presentation that will enable them to carry out their own automated feedback process using Autocrat.

SPEAKERS:
Morgan Cook (Chemistry Teacher: No City, No State)

EarthX is a collaboration of stakeholders supporting the implementation of Earth Science and local phenomena into Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. EarthX is developing, testing, and refining embedded, BOY, and unit assessments that will provide near-real-time feedback to teachers and students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about our research and have the opportunity to see embedded formative assessments and use the UC Berkeley BASS system (AI).

SPEAKERS:
Alan Berkowitz (Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: Millbrook, NY), Angela Hood (Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: Millbrook, NY), Edmund Mitzel, Jr., Ph.D. (Baltimore City Public Schools: Baltimore, MD), Kevin Garner, Ed.D. (Baltimore City Public Schools: Baltimore, MD)

Track Stars is a transformative professional development session that not only empowers teachers with data-driven strategies but also harnesses the competitive spirit of students, ultimately leading to improved academic outcomes and a culture of excellence in secondary education.

TAKEAWAYS:
Track Stars is a dynamic professional development program tailored to secondary teachers, designed to equip them with practical data-tracking strategies that can revolutionize their classrooms into highly effective and competitive data-driven environments.

SPEAKERS:
ROBBIE KEUCHLER JR (Secondary Science Specialist: Orange Park, FL)

Participants will learn about and experience how we created student-focused digital video science labs. We will share how we modified existing labs by identifying phenomena, developing mini-storylines with student materials, and creating/editing videos.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to develop storyboards along with how to video/edit their associated three-dimensional sensemaking interactive labs.

SPEAKERS:
Laura Sanches (Saratoga Middle/High School: Saratoga, WY), Lesley Urasky (Saratoga Middle/High School: Saratoga, WY)