STLinATL

A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades
To be effective, writing instruction starts in elementary school. Good writing starts with explicit instruction, deliberate practice, and revision.  Let’s write together and discuss a roadmap to provide clear, coherent, evidence-based instruction no matter what subject or grade level you teach. 

In today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape, securing research funding is critical to driving innovation, supporting student- centered learning, and sustaining transformative teaching practices. Yet, many educators and school leaders find the grant-seeking process daunting, time-consuming, or inaccessible. This session will demystify the research grant process, providing actionable strategies to help educators identify funding opportunities, craft compelling grant proposals, and effectively manage awarded grants to maximize their impact.

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to:
✅ Identify grant opportunities that align with their educational initiatives and research interests.
✅ Structure a compelling grant proposal using proven frameworks that increase funding success.
✅ Integrate student-centered, research-backed innovations into grant applications.
✅ Leverage data to demonstrate impact and secure continued funding.
✅ Manage awarded grants efficiently to ensure long-term sustainability and meaningful outcomes.

Becoming a Junkyard Dog involves unlearning and relearning. It’s the process of deprogramming and reprogramming. PityCat culture lives inside our vocabulary, protocols, processes, and paradigms. This session will calibrate your lenses so that you can avoid the destructive seduction of PityCat Culture.

If teachers are the most important factor influencing student learning outcomes, then Independent Schools need an effective way to continually develop and grow teachers. Instructional Coaching is a job-embedded model for improving teacher effectiveness and efficacy. Independent Schools who do not have an Instructional Coach on staff can train department chairs to provide Instructional Coaching to teachers. In this session, you will learn about the benefits of Instructional Coaching and how to implement coaching practices using the faculty you currently have.

How can we help students identify and focus on important skills and content? Elementary school scientists often struggle to filter the information they receive and focus their answers. By embedding leveled learning objectives into their lab experiments, the task objectives become transparent, and students are empowered to identify their work level and how they can improve. Come see how learning progressions can clarify and enrich scientific writing and empower students to level up.

Discover how to make math come alive through hands-on data collection and function modeling! This interactive session is designed for math teachers eager to create interdisciplinary connections with science. You'll engage in real-world experiments to collect data and use technology—TI-84, TI-Nspire, or Excel—to model the resulting functions.
Learn practical strategies to integrate data analysis and function modeling into your classroom, empowering students to see the beauty of mathematics in action. Whether you’re a tech-savvy educator or just getting started, this session will equip you with ready-to-use activities and insights to inspire your students.
Come prepared to explore, experiment, and elevate your teaching!