Learning Summit 2023

Experiencing a sense of belonging is a necessary condition for allowing student agency to flourish. When a learning environment arms who students are and prioritizes their psychological safety, students are more engaged, motivated, and invested in their learning. In this sessions, we’ll explore the connection between belonging and student agency and how we can cultivate communities where all students feel valued, respected, and heard. We’ll explore strategies aligned to GOA’s Cultivate Belonging Educator Competency rubric and invite participants to co-design with us, sharing what’s working and planning for next steps.

Competency-Based Learning is a student-centered approach that aims to mirror how people learn, work, and succeed in the world. Now that generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly altering how we operate in contemporary society, how do we prepare our students for the world beyond the classroom? What skills are essential to empower students to thrive in this new landscape? How might a competency-based approach prepare our students for what’s to come? Join us for this hands-on session in which we’ll work through a design framework for articulating what skills matter in the Age of AI.

Prerequisite: Bring an existing assessment you use that you want to redesign. As educators we spend a lot of time thinking about assessment – how do we (and students) know that they’re learning? The rise of generative AI seems to pose a threat to our ability to accurately assess student learning. How might we recognize Artificial Intelligence as an opportunity rather than a threat when it comes to assessment design? How might AI support students in developing skills higher up on Bloom’s Taxonomy? How might we build capacity within our students to self-assess using AI? In this hands-on session, you’ll get the opportunity to “break” an existing assessment you use and redesign it to leverage AI to foster student agency.

Students learn deeply when learning experiences are intentionally designed and facilitated for students to develop ownership over their learning. Guided by one of GOA’s Foster Student-Led Learning Educator Competency Rubric, we’ll explore the day-to-day actions we can take for agency. What intentional moves can we make to provide voice and choice? How do we create pathways for self-directed learning? What protocols scaffold and invite engagement? This session explores daily structures we can implement and ongoing facilitation moves we can make that empower students to lead their own learning.

Schools communities that have a strong ethic of collaboration among adults all have one thing in common: psychological safety. According to Amy Edmondson, “Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” This session will dive into strategies that leaders can use to foster psychological safety in order to build collaborative adult communities that center trust, care, and high expectations.

Clarity is an essential condition for agency. When individuals know and understand what they’re working towards, they’re then empowered to take steps towards those goals. At GOA, we’ve witnessed the incredible impact having a set of educator competencies have had in building teacher capacity, supporting teacher self-efficacy, and ultimately improving student learning outcomes. In this session you’ll gain an understanding of what educator competencies are and how they can be used to drive teacher growth. You’ll walk away with a framework for developing a set of educator competencies to be used within your own school community.

We know that generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the landscape of student learning in a myriad of ways. What might it look like to use AI to rethink some of the systems and processes for the adults at our schools, from admissions to communications to college counseling? How might we use AI to streamline administrative tasks, like data analysis and learning reports? How might you lead your faculty to use AI to make their work more sustainable and impactful? How do we begin to wrap our heads around the ethical implications of using AI? Join us for a fireside chat in which we consider the possible use cases for AI within a school ecosystem.

As leaders, we are responsible for making decisions in the face of ambiguity. However, not all of the decisions that we make are finite solutions to finite problems. Some of the problems we have to address are actually polarities to be managed, a set of complementary and interdependent forces that have to be balanced. In this workshop, we’ll explore how polarity mapping can be used as a framework for identifying polarities and articulating strategies to manage them. In using polarity mapping to create clarity from chaos, you’ll learn how to empower members of school communities to act and iterate.

Prerequisite: Bring a unit or lesson that contains multiple learning resources to actively redesign–this might be an online module, a series of digital handouts and presentations for face-to-face facilitation, or a combination of both “offline” digital resources and online material. In order to allow for agency to flourish, we have to pay particular attention to how our learning environments are operating as invitational spaces. One approach that educators should consider is leaning into visual design as a way to make classroom materials and resources more learner-centered. In this session, participants will build a common language and foundational understanding of visual design techniques and the role they play in creating learning environments that foster student engagement. Participants will take small actions to improve visual information and communications and apply foundational visual design principles to their chosen unit or lesson for revision.

Prerequisite: Bring a unit or lesson that contains multiple learning resources to actively redesign–this might be an online module, a series of digital handouts and presentations for face-to-face facilitation, or a combination of both “offline” digital resources and online material. Knowing that belonging is an essential condition for agency, how might we design more inclusive learning environments? By designing with accessibility in mind from the start, teachers can create a better learning experience for all students that allows them to feel seen and heard. In this workshop, participants will learn how to identify potential accessibility barriers in common resource and media types. Participants will build a common language and foundational understanding of accessibility techniques and apply accessibility principles to a chosen unit or lesson for revision. In taking concrete actions to make resources more inclusive of all learners, participants will be able to foster a greater sense of belonging in their classrooms and set the stage for agency to flourish.

Prerequisite: Attendance at Visual Design: Removing Barriers to Student Engagement OR Inclusive Design: Creating Learning Environments for Belonging. A critical component of designing for agency is creating opportunities for students to have a voice when it comes to their learning. In this session, participants will learn about the user experience (UX) research methodology of journey mapping in order to capture feedback from students. Participants will gain a foundational understanding of user experience (UX) research methodologies, with a deeper exploration of journey mapping, its purpose, and its discrete phases. Participants will take their redesigned unit or lesson from either the Visual Design or Inclusive Design session and create a concrete action plan to implement journey mapping to solicit learner feedback.

Prerequisite: Attendance at Visual Design: Removing Barriers to Student Engagement OR Inclusive Design: Creating Learning Environments for Belonging. If we want our students to feel a sense of ownership over their own learning, it's essential to create time and space for students to collaborate with their teachers. In this session, participants will learn about the user experience (UX) research methodology of focus groups in order to capture feedback from students. Participants will gain a foundational understanding of user experience (UX) research methodologies, with a deeper exploration of focus group research, its purpose, and its approach. Participants will take their redesigned unit or lesson from either the Visual Design or Inclusive Design session and create a concrete action plan along with draft focus group questions to scaffold student input.