Weekly Webinars
Please join Elevate member and non-member schools for our weekly webinars. We are hosting webinars each week featuring a short talk followed by an open forum Q+A.
10a EST | FRI, July 17, 2020
Supporting Educators in Culturally Responsive Practices: A Summer Guide
How can educators do the individual work and schools the collective reflection to become more equity-literate so they can better meet their Black and Brown students' needs? Join us for a conversation between Sudipti Kumar, Elevate’s Director of Research and Tamisha Williams, Director of Equity and Community Initiatives at The Potomac School. Tamisha will share tools and resources from her Summer Workbook for Educators, which uses the framework of the Onward habits (developed by Elena Aguilar) and is rooted in culturally responsive education.
Previous Webinars
10a EST | FRI, July 10, 2020
Pilot-Programs in 2020--Now More Than Ever Make Some Small Bets
In recent months every step a school leader makes feels existential, and the pressure to move schools forward into an unknown future is only increasing. In this webinar for school heads and leadership teams, Ross Peters, Vice-President for School Strategy, will discuss the strategic purposefulness of pilot programming at this moment in the history of schools. Topics will include: using pilot programs as a means to highlight progress, extend/deepen what is already good, encourage experimentation, and mitigate damage when a new idea falls short. How might we create opportunities for the school community to see the efficacy of the school’s direction as well as the chance to lead and to drive forward key progress in the school?
10a EST | FRI, June 26, 2020
Strategies for Designing Active, Project, and Movement-Based Courses Online, Featuring Author and Teacher Dan Ryder
Transitioning to remote learning is a big design challenge for every teacher. For those who teach dance, theater, science, art, music — any course that depends on movement, handbuilding, or physical interaction — the challenge can feel insurmountable. How do you collect meaningful data from a pendulum motion lab? How do you play off another actor when you cannot see them? How do you learn soccer alone and in your living room? Most importantly, how do you do it in a way that is equitable for all your learners. Join Designer/Author/Teacher Extraordinaire, Dan Ryder (co-author of Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom) and imagine strategies and tactics that will keep our active classes as engaging in remote learning as they are in person.
10a EST | FRI, June 19, 2020
Blended Learning In Action: Greenfields Academy
Many schools are seriously considering some form of hybrid learning for students when they reopen. Those programs who utilized blended learning models pre-pandemic may hold some answers to the questions schools are currently grappling with. Join us in conversation with Maggie Baker, Assistant Head of School at Greenfields Academy in Chicago, IL. Greenfields utilizes a flex blended learning approach that prioritizes student agency and ownership over their learning. Hear from Maggie how their model served them well during remote instruction this spring and how their design and structure will help to smooth their transition back when they reopen.
10a EST | FRI, June 12, 2020
Navigating Challenging Conversations: Why We Disagree and How To Understand Effectively
Engaging with our school’s diverse constituencies is a challenging task in normal times; in the context of the pandemic and conversations about racial injustice, it is even more stressful and uncertain. Whether speaking with a faculty member about their commitment, asking a donor for a significant gift, or a parent about a disciplinary issue, we must engage and influence productively. The critical first step is understanding what is important to this person and why -- their unique perspectives, motivations, needs, and concerns. In this webinar, negotiation experts from the Bridgeway Group will introduce the first of a set of conversation tools, the Ladder of Inference, which is essential to uncovering others’ underlying perspectives as we navigate challenging conversations.
10a EST | FRI, June 5, 2020
Beyond Synchronous and Asynchronous: Elastic Proximity
When we talk about teaching synchronously or asynchronously, we are describing what teachers are doing, not what students are learning or what skills they are developing. Students don’t learn synchronously or asynchronously. Students learn and grow…and they learn and grow in varied proximity to teachers and to each other. In this webinar, Ross Peters will introduce “elastic proximity,” an approach to teaching in which the teacher makes decisions about delivery, student guidance, and student skill development based on the ideal proximity of the teacher to students, of the students to other students, and of the individual student to the teacher.
10a EST | FRI, May 29, 2020
Great Management in Times of Crisis: Leading Through COVID-19
Covid19 requires not that we imagine the world will reach a new normal, but rather that we create within our school a new normal regarding how we respond to an ever changing world. In this webinar, incoming Vice President for School Strategy for EXPLO, Ross Peters, will take a deep dive into a change management process called TWO-FIVE-TEN. School leaders and leadership teams face unprecedented and stunningly complex decisions in the quickly evolving context of the Covid19 pandemic. TWO-FIVE-TEN is scalable, replicable and well-suited to frame the expedited change processes demanded by Covid19. Ross will also point out how to use pilot programs and foreshadowing as tools to help constituents understand the direction of the school when so much feels uncertain.
10a EST | FRI, May 22, 2020
Reopening School in a Pandemic: Planning For Fall 2020
The reality is that this fall will be unlike any other start of a school year. School leaders must start putting plans into action now to be ready for this new complicated reality. Join Moira Kelly, President of Exploration Learning, to examine reopening models and the operational and programmatic issues that will accompany throwing open the doors of brick and mortar schools in the Age of COVID. Ross Peters, incoming VP for School Strategy for EXPLO Elevate will walk us through a practical planning process called 2-5-10. This process can be used to clearly frame priorities and broadly taps the strengths of your entire school community. The result of implementing 2-5-10 is that you can walk into the 2020-2021 school year ready to deal with ongoing volatility and uncertainty.
10a EST | FRI, May 15, 2020
Guiding the Emotional Life of Children in the Time of COVID
Helping children navigate the emotional terrain on the path to adulthood is challenging for both parents and educators. Doing it in the time of COVID increases the degree of difficulty tenfold. Join Ben Liston, Director of Counseling at the Rivers School, as he identifies the issues he is seeing and hearing as he helps students and families negotiate the emotional aspects of remote learning; estrangement from friends; reduced privacy and independence; and the loss of end-of-year rituals. Ben will also draw on his own experience as the parent of two school age children. The conversation and Q&A will be facilitated by David Torcoletti, Head of EXPLO Boston, and former Dean of Students at Milton Academy and Northfield Mount Hermon School. This webinar is for educators, parents, and caregivers of children.
10a EST | FRI, May 8, 2020
Evolving Through Feedback
Come hear from Shauna Hobbs-Beckley, Elevate member and Director of Analytics, Innovation, and Research at Graded, The American School of Sao Paulo. She will discuss Graded's process of gathering feedback from stakeholders around virtual learning, share sample survey questions, and reflect on key takeaways in these first weeks.
10a EST | FRI, MAY 1, 2020
Agile Design: Making Courses Work Online and Face-to-Face
In a world where teachers may need to toggle back and forth between online and face to face, designing for both modalities is important. Join Adam Lavallee, teacher at Episcopal Academy, former EXPLO faculty member, and Learning Design Coach with Global Online Academy, to discuss practical structures to help teachers develop courses that have the flexibility to be taught both online and face-to-face. He will share best practices in creating learning opportunities for students and how to support teachers who are creating or converting courses for a completely online experience.
11a EST | FRI, APR 24, 2020
Building Resilience in a Time of Loss: Strategies for Children, Parents, and Faculty
Join grief and resilience expert, Maria Trozzi, as she helps us understand the opportunities for strengthening families, amplifying children’s coping skills, and promoting resilience in a time of crisis. She will share lessons on living with the changes associated with feeling isolated and “too together” all at once. What are the questions to ask? What can we do? Maria is the co-founder of the Good Grief Program at Boston Medical Center, former Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and author of: Speaking to Children About Loss (Penguin-Putnam). She has worked with schools across nation.
8pm EST | Wed, APR 15, 2020
Hope from the Other Side: Surviving Covid and Reopening in China
Join Anders Hjelm, Elevate member and Executive Principal, Wahaha International School, who will present on lessons-learned from China during remote learning and how they are approaching reopening their school and a return to normal.
10a EST | FRI, APR 10, 2020
Grading in a Crisis and Beyond
Join Dr. Barry Fishman, Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Michigan and Faculty Innovator in Residence at the UM Center for Academic Innovation to discuss: why going Pass/Fail is a wise choice for independent schools during this time; other grading models in addition to, or in lieu of, Pass/Fail; implications of going Pass/Fail for the upcoming school year; implications of going Pass/Fail for access to college and career. Following a short presentation, participants are invited to ask questions, to discuss, and share ideas for how we might best assess student work.
COVID-19 ANNOUNCEMENT
Due to the evolving nature and impact of COVID-19, we are putting our annual conference (scheduled for the fall) on hold and will reschedule at a later date. In the meantime, please join our weekly virtual gatherings for short presentations and Q+A with Elevate school leaders and other content experts.
Elevate Annual Conference
FALL 2020 | On Hold due to COVID-19
Leading Through Ambiguity and Change
