Speakers: Rachel Pedler, Donna Pyatt, Susan Higdon, Michelle Simpson

Room A: Joiner Room 3000 (3rd Floor)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, McDowell County educators joined the 2025–2026 WNC Resilience Project to explore how place-based learning can foster student engagement, resilience, and community connection. This session traces their journey from analyzing engagement through the Notice > Reflect > Learn > Redesign process to envisioning a district-wide, multi-grade-level watershed initiative focused on improving the Catawba River and Lake James. Participants will discover practical strategies for designing standards-based, community-connected learning that strengthens student ownership, belonging, civic responsibility, and leadership while transforming individual classroom experiences into a shared legacy of environmental stewardship.

Speaker: Lily Dancy-Jones 

Room B: Joiner Room 3202 (3rd Floor)

How do you bring authentic, hands-on laboratory science to students through a screen? From 2021 to 2026, BioNetwork’s STEM Outreach division partnered with NC Cyber Academy to deliver physical lab kits and live virtual instruction to more than 1,500 eighth-grade students across North Carolina. In this interactive session, presenters will share the logistical and instructional lessons learned from this five-year initiative. Participants will receive standards-aligned curriculum resources, material lists, and adaptable strategies for virtual and traditional classrooms—and experience one of BioNetwork’s signature hands-on laboratory activities from a student’s perspective.

Speaker: Tess Nielsen

Room C: Joiner Room 2201 (2nd Floor)

As AI rapidly reshapes middle and high school education, how can teachers ensure it does not deepen existing digital inequities? This session examines North Carolina’s broadband and device-access landscape and the systemic barriers contributing to gaps in students’ digital fluency. Through discussion and collaborative planning, participants will explore bias, inclusion, and strategies for designing curricula that neither penalize nor reward students based on their home digital environments. Teachers will leave better prepared to help all students move beyond simply accessing technology toward using available tools confidently, responsibly, and with inclusive digital agency.

Speaker: Wes Davis

Room A: Joiner Room 3000 (3rd Floor)

In this interactive design sprint, participants will work in teams to create a community-connected learning experience rooted in student interests, local assets, and academic standards. Inspired by relationships strengthened across Western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene, teams will explore their communities as learning ecosystems and consider how schools, families, organizations, businesses, and community members can support meaningful student learning. Participants will design a lesson, activity, field experience, or short project that gives students an authentic community role. Each team will leave with a prototype, a community asset map, and a practical design process to use with students and colleagues.

Speakers: Virginia Arrington & Amber Everett

Room B: Joiner Room 3202 (3rd Floor)

Meeting diverse student needs through differentiated instruction is essential—but often time-consuming. “Design, Differentiate, Deliver” explores how generative AI can serve as an educator’s collaborative partner, reducing the workload of differentiation without sacrificing the human element of teaching. Participants will learn practical, actionable strategies for adapting instruction across content, process, and product. They will discover how to quickly modify existing materials to support neurodivergent learners, English language learners, and advanced students, transforming a single lesson into a responsive, multi-tiered learning experience in minutes.

Speaker: April Bell 

Room C: Joiner Room 1202 (1st Floor)

Discover how to use The Henry Ford Museum’s free educational resources to engage Pre-K–12 students in the Habits of an Innovator. Participants will explore strategies for guiding students through the invention process—from identifying problems and developing ideas to creating and refining solutions. The session will also introduce opportunities for students to showcase their creativity through the National Invention Convention, with support from Kaleideum in Winston-Salem.

Speaker: Jennifer Pieratt

How can AI enhance project-based learning without replacing student thinking or teacher expertise? In this interactive session, middle and high school educators will explore how to use AI as a thought partner throughout the PBL cycle—from developing driving questions and conducting research to providing feedback, supporting reflection, and creating public products. Participants will examine human-centered strategies that preserve student voice, intellectual rigor, ethical decision-making, and authentic problem-solving. Attendees will leave with classroom-ready co-design protocols, leveled prompting strategies, reflection questions, and planning tools for integrating AI intentionally while keeping curiosity, collaboration, and human connection at the heart of learning.

Speaker: Trena Fletcher 

This session offers practical strategies for building positive relationships with students who display challenging behaviors, resistance, disengagement, or emotional barriers. Participants will explore how looking beyond behavior and understanding the whole student can foster trust, accountability, and engagement while maintaining high expectations. Through school-based examples, educators will examine restorative conversations, active listening, positive reinforcement, de-escalation, emotional regulation, and culturally responsive interactions. Attendees will leave with immediately applicable tools for strengthening student-teacher relationships, improving classroom interactions, and creating supportive learning environments that shift the focus from managing behavior to building connections that encourage growth and long-term success.

Speaker: Michelle Ellwanger 

Coaching and teaching have been connected since the days of Socrates. In this highly interactive workshop, participants will experience three practical coaching tools designed to increase student engagement and make learning more enjoyable. Educators will leave with strategies they can immediately incorporate into their classrooms to encourage participation, strengthen connections, and create more dynamic learning experiences.