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In this interactive keynote address, Dr. Douglas Reeves provides practical suggestions for teachers and school leaders to make effective and ethical use of artificial intelligence applications. “AI is a reality for students,” Dr. Reeves contends. “he challenge is not whether to use AI but rather to help students and faculty use AI in a thoughtful and ethical manner. Our students will be putting their knowledge on AI on their resumes, and it is our duty to help them to use it wisely.”
Dr. Reeves will address the factors that matter most for effective educational leadership. “Even when faculties, students, home environment, and socioeconomic status are the same, leaders make a profound difference for students.” This presentation will include national and international evidence on student achievement and engagement. There will also be opportunities for participants to engage in questions, challenges, and the sharing of success stories.
Topics to be considered include:
The latest evidence on how leaders and teachers influence student achievement
The seven elements of effective leadership in education
The power of focus in improving student results and teaching excellence
How schools promote (and sometimes undermine) creativity and critical thinking
The power of student engagement - and how schools can increase it
Fearless Classrooms is an interactive seminar that will equip teachers, instructional coaches, and leaders at every level with the tools necessary to encourage and sustain the professional practices of the fearless classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to practice giving and receiving feedback based on realistic classroom scenarios. Participants will receive reproducible forms, checklists, rubrics, and other tools so that they can engage in a process of continuous improvement in their journey toward a fearless classroom.
Fearlessness is essential to learning for students, teachers, and leaders. It is not possible for a school or district to successfully implement any initiative in teaching, curriculum, or leadership in a fearful environment. Fearless leadership is therefore the top priority for schools and districts that wish to make progress. In the fearless organization, students and adults can make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and share their learning with others without fear of embarrassment. In the fearless school and district, students, teachers, and leaders routinely take risks, express ideas, and accept constructive criticism without defensiveness. Everyone in the organization knows that a zero-risk environment is a zero-learning environment. Participants will understand the essentials of Fearless Schools and will apply that learning to authentic scenarios in classrooms, schools, and administrator meetings.
As the nation emerges from the ravages of the pandemic and school closures, changes in instruction, engagement, schedules, curriculum, and assessment will be essential. Schools that cling to the old model of change will be still attempting to make change happen five years from now. It is, therefore, time for a change in change leadership. The change model that educational leaders have used to create and implement change for the past fifty years is irretrievably broken. More than 70% of change efforts fail, and fewer than 10% are implemented as planned. In this interactive learning experience, participants will:
Evaluate and analyze existing change models
Synthesize the latest and best research on change
Apply the new research on change to current challenges at the school and district levels
With his usual mix of hard-hitting evidence and gentle humor, Dr. Douglas Reeves and his colleagues at Creative Leadership Solutions will help leaders at every level, from the classroom to the boardroom, leave with a new model of change. Deep Change requires a reconsideration of some of our fundamental beliefs about change, focusing on evidence of impact rather than the transient buy-in so often attempted in the early stages of change.
Grading is one of the most emotional subjects in education. In this interactive keynote address, Dr. Reeves shows educators and leaders how to avoid the unnecessary fights that have surrounded grading reform around the world. “Start with common values – accuracy and fairness,” says Dr. Reeves. Once we find common values, schools can avoid unnecessary fights that have derailed so many grading reform movements. The keynote will provide practice and evidence-based strategies to accelerate the pace of change and bring immediate improvements in achievement, behavior, attendance, and faculty morale within a single year. Most importantly, the keynote shows how schools can quickly create local evidence of impact, demonstrating that these ideas work with your schedule, budget, and bargaining agreement.
When Rick DuFour and Doug Reeves wrote the article, “The Futility of PLC Lite,” they ignited a discussion about the difference between the wonderful power of collaborative teams and the reality that interferes with implementing them well. In this interactive keynote, Dr. Reeves will examine the essential shifts required to change from PLC Lite to PLC Right. Participants will learn the most effective PLC norms, skills for redirecting PLCs that get off-track, and methods for effective PLC accountability. Most importantly, participants will focus on the essence of effective PLC discussions: improved teaching and learning.
In this interactive keynote, Dr. Douglas Reeves makes the case that equity and excellence are inseparable. “When our critics hear the word equity, they claim it is a code for low standards. When they hear excellence, they claim it is code for exclusion. Our research shows that schools can and must have both equity and excellence.” The research in this presentation updates the original 90 90 90 studies that had a major impact on education in high-poverty schools over the last two decades. New research confirms many of the early findings, especially the power of nonfiction writing and collaborative scoring. Most importantly, the evidence confronts the persistent stereotype that demography is destiny. The damage done to student learning especially hurt high-poverty schools, and now is the time for teachers and leaders to take decisive action to reverse the effects of the pandemic on student learning and educational equity.
Schools around the world have been devastated by trauma, stress, depression, and anxiety by students and staff members. Now is the time to support students and adults, and Fearless Schools can help. In this interactive professional learning, Dr. Reeves provides the latest and best research on fearless schools. Teachers and educational leaders cannot provide certainty in an uncertain world. But they can provide an environment that is physically and psychologically safe. The essence of fearless schools is psychological safety. In this interactive presentation, we explain how leaders and teachers build and maintain trust and psychological safety and how sometimes these ideals are inadvertently undermined. Participants will engage in rich discussion and reflection based on a large body of 21st Century evidence. Special attention is paid to resilience or bouncing back from physical, emotional, and psychological injury.
