DTAL Conference 2025

Are your students bored of the same activities and routine during your math block?  If so, come hear how you can enhance math instruction by incorporating choice boards, so you can leverage technology and balance off-screen activities to meet the diverse needs of your students. Learn how to organize resources efficiently using Canvas or Seesaw and provide students with meaningful options for independent tasks. We’ll explore how preassessment data can drive instruction, strategies for accelerating vocabulary development, and ways to flip instruction to maximize learning time. Whether you're looking to refine your differentiation strategies or implement new ideas, this session will equip you with practical tools to create a more student-centered math classroom.

Resilience, critical thinking, and collaboration are essential to prepare students for future success. In this interactive session, participants will explore how the principles of Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) align with AVID strategies in all content areas to foster resilience, perseverance, and independent thinkers in a student-centered environment. Participants will leave with practical tools, structures, and routines that cultivate organization, collaboration, and inquiry-based learning. Join us to learn how to empower every learner to face challenges with confidence and curiosity!

Have you heard about Building Thinking Classrooms and want help managing the flow of learning? Are you looking for ways to bring more structure to student collaboration and note-taking? In this interactive session, participants will experience a model Algebra 1 lesson from start to finish—beginning with a student-centered task, moving through small group thinking and consolidation, and ending with personalized, focused note-making. Along the way, you'll explore classroom-ready routines for assigning leveled tasks, guiding collaborative learning, and helping students capture meaningful notes. Leave with ready-to-use tools and templates to deepen engagement and strengthen learning in your Thinking Classroom.

We have learned about the Simple View of Reading, but what about the Simple View of Writing? In this session we will explore SVW and how accurate and automatic foundational writing skills are just as important as composition. We will take a deep look at the importance of handwriting fluency, spelling, and sentence structure as they relate to overall skilled written expression. Participants will dive into how foundational writing skills and composition skills are taught and developed so that they are able to use data and address student needs in writing instruction.

Do you know how much vocabulary impacts a student’s reading comprehension? In this session, we will learn about how the brain processes and stores vocabulary as it builds a semantic network. We will explore the brain research about vocabulary and share evidence-based best practices that can be incorporated with the HMH curriculum to further develop the semantic networks in the brain. These best practices will include how to reach all students, including our most reluctant readers, our students with disabilities, and our English Learners.