2026 Elevated Teaching Summit

Come experience a math task lesson! We will be pulling ideas and strategies from the Building Thinking Classrooms book. We will then go over some of the strategies we have found useful in our 3rd grade classrooms.

This presentation focuses on how to get students engaged with content through partner, small group, and whole class discussions. I’ll share practical strategies to help students overcome the common obstacles that keep them from talking, along with teaching moves that help create a classroom environment where student talk and ideas are encouraged, valued, and rewarded.

Elementary social studies can be more than isolated activities and worksheets. In this interactive, 90s-themed session, participants will step into a pop-up inquiry museum featuring artifacts, source analysis, and discussion while experiencing how social studies strengthens literacy, critical thinking, and civic learning. Teachers will also explore new K–5 social studies lessons and resources designed to support engaging, inquiry-driven, standards-aligned instruction that brings social studies to life for students.

We will be presenting on how you can setup Structured Classroom Discussion in progression to go from partner talk to socratic seminar

Elementary social studies can be more than isolated activities and worksheets. In this interactive, 90s-themed session, participants will step into a pop-up inquiry museum featuring artifacts, source analysis, and discussion while experiencing how social studies strengthens literacy, critical thinking, and civic learning. Teachers will also explore new K–5 social studies lessons and resources designed to support engaging, inquiry-driven, standards-aligned instruction that brings social studies to life for students.

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 is geared towards new teachers, teachers who are struggling to implement structured classroom discussion, or those that just need a refresher in best practices. We will be focusing on four main components of discussion in our classrooms, and how to ensure student accountability for conversation.