2026 Elevated Teaching Summit

Ready to power up your instruction and take your training to the next level?
In this pop-culture themed interactive session, step into a model lesson that demonstrates how to maintain grade-level rigor in secondary classrooms while increasing access for all learners, especially Multilingual Learners (MLs).
Through structured interaction, guided inquiry, and collaborative meaning-making, participants will explore how all students can engage with complex texts and experience a higher level of academic success. Walk away with effective instructional moves to power up learning and build a stronger toolkit of strategies for your classroom.

What if AI could help students talk more, not less? In this hands-on model lesson, participants step into a student role and experience a collaborative simulation set in the world of "The Giver". Each person takes on a secret role in a town hall meeting and uses AI guided prompts, hidden memories, moral dilemmas, and character motivations to spark live student to student discussion. Built around the QTEL PIE framework: Prepare, Interact, Extend; this session invites educators to experience the lesson and then debrief how the chatbot supports engagement, peer collaboration, and standards based instruction.

Although the example uses "The Giver," the approach can be adapted across grade levels and content areas, from science debates to historical simulations to collaborative math problem solving. Participants will leave with a practical model for using AI as a behind the scenes facilitator that amplifies student voice, supports purposeful talk, and deepens engagement with content, with one another, and with complex ideas. Ideal for classroom teachers, instructional coaches, and leaders looking for student-centered ways to integrate AI into instruction.

This session explores how Tier 2 academic vocabulary—high-utility, cross-disciplinary thinking words—can act as a hidden barrier to student success when not explicitly taught. Participants examine how students may understand content but struggle with the language of tasks, and learn practical strategies for embedding, modeling, and reinforcing Tier 2 vocabulary to improve clarity, equity, and student performance across disciplines.