Taking Action Toolkit
The 2024 Annual Conference will shift your perspectives, power up your expertise, reimagine your practice, and ultimately improve student outcomes.
The 2024 conference theme Reach New Heights for Students continues a path that started two years ago. In 2022, the conference theme Reimagine was an invitation to educators around the world to take what we learned from the pandemic and reimagine how we might change and improve possibilities for educators and students alike. We followed in 2023 with Evidence into Action, speaking to the power of evidence-based practices and how Learning Forward bridges research and implementation to improve results for each student. We looked at how we apply our learnings to best practices in classrooms, teams, buildings, systems, and regions. In 2024, in Aurora, Colorado, we continue this upward trajectory by taking reimagined possibilities and leveraging them with evidence-based practices to achieve our ultimate goal to Reach New Heights for Students.
Purpose:
Provide a set of resources for individuals and teams to reflect on learning and plan after-conference actions.
Article about the toolkit: Make the most of conference learning
Read a blog post about the toolkit >> How the Transformation Toolkit can make your conference learning stick
Purpose:
Provide a set of resources for individuals and teams to reflect on learning and plan after-conference actions
How do we turn new learning into an actionable plan?
Educational conferences provide educators with opportunities to engage in rich conversations with like-minded colleagues, learn new strategies, and access resources and materials relevant to their role. Conference participants often experience feelings of excitement, hope, and a renewed sense of energy or passion; however, at the same time, feelings of anxiety, frustration, and a bit of fear creep in when trying to make sense of all that has been introduced to them. What do they do with all this newly acquired information and energy once the conference is over?
This toolkit is designed to support individuals and/or teams in organizing and making sense of everything learned at a conference -- from keynote speakers, session presenters, other educators, and vendors -- and provides a means for taking actionable steps.
Pre-conference goal setting & planning
Start with a clear purpose and outcomes
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- Use the Pre-conference goal setting and outcomes planning template to focus your thinking.
- Use your Conference session selection worksheet to select sessions to match your goals.
- Learn how to navigate this year’s annual conference by attending the Conference Overview & First Timers Orientation on Monday, Dec.9 from 7:30-8:00 am MST.
During the conference
4. Capture your thinking during sessions
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- Use the Session note catcher
5. Collaborate and learn from others
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- Meet educators from around the world when you attend lunch.
6. Share ideas
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- Schedule a time to meet and plan with your team before you lose those great ideas!
- Invite others to connect and share your thinking.
- Share using a Conference debrief protocol (can be done daily or at the end of the conference).
7. Reflect
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- How do we turn new learning (from a conference) into an actionable plan (see template page 2)?
Post-conference action planning
8. Commit to action from conference learning
9. Measure impact
10. Make a strategic implementation plan
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- Comprehensive strategic goals into actionable initiatives
- For a helpful video on how to use this tool, click here.
