South Shore Winter Warm-Up @ Duneland

All DSC teachers are required to select a high-impact teaching strategy (HITS) to focus on throughout the school year. If you're looking for teacher- and coach-tested ideas to enhance your chosen HITS strategy, look no further - this session is for you! Let's dig in to some great ideas to use in your classroom right away!

The objectives of this presentation would be teamwork and critical thinking with decision making. I think these two also apply to our school district initiative. I would like to do a presentation to review what exactly collaborative and cooperative learning is. Afterwards, I would like the audience to brainstorm ideas, in groups, that they can incorporate into different subject classes that are collaborative and cooperative. Then, we can share those ideas. I think it would also be fun, if time allows, to practice a strategy and get feedback on what works and what is more of a struggle.

CHS is one of 9 Indiana High Schools that offers the opportunity for students to earn the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma during their junior and senior year by completing IB courses and exams. An IB education aims to transform students and schools as they learn, through dynamic cycles of inquiry, action and reflection. Teachers enable and support students as they develop the approaches to learning they need – for both academic and personal success. The aim is to help students explore and construct their own personal and cultural identities. Attendees will learn about the Inquiry, Action and Reflection cycle used in IB courses then share ways they currently address these in their classrooms. Through discussion attendees will make a plan for incorporating these strategies for students to become inquiring, knowledgeable and caring people that help to create a better and more peaceful world.

Effective feedback provides students with descriptive information about their progress in reaching their learning goals.  This helps students refocus their actions throughout the learning process.  Our sixth ELA team at Westchester Intermediate has shown significant growth on ILEARN the last few years and we would like to share feedback strategies that we believe made a difference in our instruction.  While examples given in the presentation will be primarily from ELA, these strategies can apply to any classroom with written responses.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to kickstart your class, energize your students during brain breaks, or provide meaningful challenges for early finishers? In this session, we'll explore how to incorporate the New York Times (NYT) games—Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections—into your classroom routines. These games provide a perfect blend of cognitive stimulation, teamwork, and creativity, while encouraging critical thinking and language skills.
We'll cover:

• Wordle: How to use this popular word puzzle for quick morning warm-ups, group activities, or as a daily challenge to boost vocabulary and pattern recognition.
• Spelling Bee: Ways to incorporate this game for spelling and vocabulary practice, with fun twists to make it interactive and competitive in the classroom.
• Connections: Techniques for using this game to help students make connections between words and concepts, fostering critical thinking and enhancing problem-solving skills.

Whether you want to offer a fun class brain break, keep early finishers engaged, or strengthen your students' cognitive and linguistic abilities, these NYT games can be a powerful classroom tool. Join us to discover how to seamlessly integrate these activities into your teaching practice and watch your students get excited about learning in new ways!

Effective questioning yields immediate feedback on student understanding, supports informal and formative assessment, and captures input on the effectiveness of teaching strategies. Let’s scaffold from teacher-led questioning to student-led questioning and prepare our students for post-high school experiences with critical thinking skills, advocating for themselves, and questioning where they and their ideas fit into our diverse world.

This year Yost kindergarten teachers piloted a program where students were not initially assigned a teacher. Students started the year with a “Homeroom” teacher and would rotate through all teachers during the frist 13 days of school. Not only did students get to be with other teachers but students also got to switch and be with other students. The purpose of this was to see how different personalities, behaviors and needs would work together. During these first 13 days we assessed, observed and taught students. Once the pilot was over we looked at data and compared notes. We then created final classes based off of our data.

This session will help educators develop a mindset of continuous growth through reflection, feedback, and goal-setting. Participants will explore strategies to enhance their practice and dynamics within their teaching teams and foster a culture of solution-oriented practices at school. The story of Yost's continued changes will be the backdrop upon which these topics are discussed.