We all want our students to be engaged in authentic and meaningful learning that prepares them for the real world. However, learning often takes place in contexts with inflexible schedules, fixed rosters, and discrete subjects.

But why do all students have to attend the same amount of class time each year, even though we know students learn at different paces? Why don’t we give students more voice and choice in how they spend their school days? What if we were more flexible in our use of time and student groupings? Since we know real-world problems are so interconnected, why don’t we take a more interdisciplinary approach in our schools?

In this session for innovators, ideators, and futuristic thinkers, we will consider all of these questions and more. Examples of innovation at the middle and high school levels that demonstrate different approaches to personalized learning will be presented to create a jumping off point for further ideation. Participants will explore ways in which they might be able to push the envelope and increase innovation within their unique contexts.

Session Audience:

Elementary, Middle school, High school, Curriculum leaders, School leaders, Whole school / anyone

Session Goals:

• Explore and ideate around ways to implement various instructional innovations, including
• Personalized, project-based, and experiential learning
• Interdisciplinary approaches 
• Flexible schedules
• Identify the opportunities for, and barriers and bridges to, instructional innovations within one’s context

Session Outcomes:

Participants will generate an innovation action plan that will set in motion more instructional innovations in their classrooms and schools.

Presenter Bio:

Kris is an innovative educator who believes that kids achieve more and have more fun when they have more control over their learning. He has previously taught math, reading, and writing at the middle school level at public and charter schools in the US and Singapore. Currently, he is an advisor in Quest at Singapore American School. Quest is an innovative year-long program for 11th and 12th grade students that personalizes learning through interdisciplinary units in a flexible schedule.He is also completing his Doctor of Education at the University of Southern California, where his dissertation is on the long-term effects of project- and work-based learning. 

In his spare time, Kris  enjoys cooking, exploring  Singapore and the region, scuba diving, and skiing. His passion project on the side is maintaining @teachingpoints, an Instagram account dedicated to food and travel.

@k_munden

We would like to talk about how grade level teams can develop a culture of teaching and learning through Learning Communities.

Session Audience:

Learning Communities- ECC and Elementary

Session Goals/Outcomes:

• Brief overview of WABs journey
• The vocabulary of a learning community
• Community planning
• Documenting student learning
• Parent Understanding

Presenter Bio:

Angela Langlands is an elementary teacher who is passionate about pushing the envelope in education. She has spent nearly 20 years of her career living and working overseas in Africa, the Middle and Far East developing this thinking and taking the lead on many innovative initiatives. In her current role as Grade 3 Home Base teacher at the Western Academy of Beijing, Angela has been instrumental in helping the school develop its 

Participants will explore how to leverage the conditions to disrupt disengaged compliance, stimulate innovative inquiry, and change up the narrative of “doing school”  to make deep learners of us all.

Together, we will work through 3 protocols to reflect on our own practice, take action in an area we wish to grow as deep learning teachers, and consider how we might coach our teams to reflect on and strengthen the deep learning within the team.

Session Audience:

This session is intended for teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators who are looking for tools for meaningful, reflective conversations with teachers.

Session Goals/Outcomes:

• Participants will have the opportunity to practice a reflective mindset toward themselves as learners and learning leaders.
• Participants will use their understanding of their strengths and areas for growth to consider actions and practices that might ignite deep learning in their classroom.
• Participants will be able to share the message of self- and team-reflection in their schools that may shift to a more intentional deep learning culture.

Presenter Bio:

Ginny has been in international education since 2001. She began her adventures teaching middle school in Beirut, where she first became a grade-level leader. Along her way east, she has served as a teacher of grades 5-12, team/grade level leader, and a coordinator/director of assessment, accreditation, and professional learning in Saudi Arabia, Seoul, and Tokyo. In 2022, Ginny will transition to Africa to serve as the Director of Teaching and Learning at the International School of Kenya. Ginny earned her Doctorate in Education in 2020 with her research focused on successful transitions to standards-based grading and reporting in Asian expatriate high schools. She calls the Colorado mountains home and spends her summers hiking as many trails as possible.

https://twitter.com/GinnyPrairie

Queer/gender affirming, anti racist, and culturally responsive practices are key components in creating equitable classroom spaces. However, there is little analysis on how these core concepts intersect with multilingual classrooms and identities. In this session, we will unpack why it’s important to weave these concepts in our multilingual spaces and explore practices that we can bring back to our classroom.

These three core foundations will ground us during this session, and we will take time exploring each of them in depth and how they intersect with one another. However, this session is just the beginning. Participants will utilize planning tools to determine their sphere of influence and create a plan to enact change.

Session Audience:

K-12 classroom teachers/specialists

Session Goals/Outcomes:

• Examine one’s positionality within the scope of education
• Explore strategies to create inclusive multilingual spaces that are anti-racist, queer affirming, and culturally responsive
• Understand the importance of intersectionality within multicultural spaces
• Learn how language plays a key factor in identity

Presenter Bio:

Justin (they/them) is from Tohono O’odham land currently known as Phoenix, Arizona. Over the past ten years, they have taught in over four countries. They have dedicated their teaching career to creating equitable spaces in classrooms that explore the intersection of anti-racism, queerness, and multilingualism. They reside in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with their husband Barrak and dog, Boomer.

https://twitter.com/kruu_justin

The design process works best when based around empathy. Empathy for the user, for the subject matter, or for the system being designed. It helps student really visualize the needs and wants of the user, and helps guide students to a clear and authentic design end goal. However, starting projects with empathy and real user problems can be challenging for some students and teachers. Many rush to the prototyping stage and immediately start thinking about materials and tools, missing out on a great opportunity for students to understand the design process on a deeper level.

Our workshop would focus on starting a design project with empathy first; guiding participants on how to find real design challenges for students, how to scaffold skills required for conducting user interviews, and how to apply data collected to the ideation stage. We would use a lot of our school’s grade wide, or in-depth design projects as guides, as well as feature authentic challenges and ideas for units. There would be time to work together to develop at least 2 units to be able to apply immediately at school upon return from Learning2.

Session Audience:

Elementary, Middle school, High school, Arts, Curriculum leaders, Design and STEM/STEAM, Math & Science, Tech coaches, coordinators, integrators, etc, Whole school / anyone

Session Goals:

• Appreciation of the design process starting from an empathy perspective.
• An understanding on how to build a design challenge that gives students opportunities for authentic user interactions.
• Knowledge on how to scaffold activities to build empathy and design mindset in all students from K-12.

Session Outcomes:

• Participants will discuss how to create and cultivate empathy in the design classroom and projects.

• Participants will explore, through hands-on activities, how to engage students in authentic user interviews and brainstorming techniques.

• Participants will create at least one project and/or unit of design K-12 based around empathy and the design thinking process.

Presenter Bio:

Mike was previously a Learning2 leader in Tokyo in 2018. I have presented at 21st Century Learning and EARCOS as well. Nikki has previously presented at Learning by Design (Brussels) in 2016 and lead the student section of Learning by Design in 2018. She has also presented at Greenlight4Girls Brussels in 2016-2018 and KORCOS in 2019.