2019 Breakout Sessions

IPTV has great programming, right? But did you know we have a fully staffed education department that works full time rounding up the best resources from PBS and IPTV? Plus, it's all free! Come learn about what we have to offer.

Thanks to recent advances in science, we currently know more about the human brain than ever before. What does the latest research suggest about the nature of wrongdoing and how we should respond? What are the limitations of brain theory when we consider the Biblical narrative? How can we use our knowledge of God’s Word and God’s world to guide wayward students?

This hands-on simulation shows a video and then stop at points where the audience chooses from options on how to respond. Depending on the group’s choice, the simulation will lead to a different video (similar to those “choose-your-own-adventure” books). Throughout this simulation, the audience has time to share the experiences that have shaped how and why they made their decision. This specific simulation places you, a month into your new position as principal experiencing significant shifts in demographics, which in turn leads to challenges balancing needs and perspectives of long-time residents with those of newcomers. Your job is to uncover specific needs, and resolve discrepancies in treatment of students, wherever they may exist.

During this interactive session, participants will put on headsets and experience two different virtual reality platforms through multiple virtual experiences. We will have the FLEx program from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach which includes Oculus Rift and 360 camera resources as well as Google Expeditions provided for check-out by Cherokee and O’Brien County Farm Bureau offices. The Oculus Rift provides individuals with a high-quality, one-on-one VR experience while the Google Expeditions allows for an entire classroom to have a simultaneous VR experience. After experiencing these multiple technologies, participants will explore ways that they could use these materials in their classrooms to augment their current curriculum.

This session will give you ideas on how to have fun with your students while keeping their brains constantly going. We all have downtime in our classroom where we want to keep our students productive. This session will provide activities/games that engage the mind and help to build relationships in your classroom. This session will have different activities than last year.

Individual responsibility to save adequately for retirement is more important than ever. Whether you are 3 years away from retirement—or 30 years--in this session we’ll discuss the amount of income needed in retirement. The sources of and the ways to achieve that income will also be presented, as will be retirement benefits and features of the CSI Pension Plan.

When we're ready to make changes to our teaching practices, we often get hung up on the scope of the changes: "Do I have to scrap everything and start over?" Not to worry! There are many small changes we can make in our practices that have big impact on student learning--things you can start doing next Monday when you're back in class. In this session we'll explore ten tweaks that you might consider that can have a big payoff for your students' learning.

Attendees of this session will have the opportunity to: 1) gain awareness of the nine research-based instructional strategies for increasing student achievement, 2) develop an understanding of what meta-data and effect sizes are, and 3) focus our energies on what increases student achievement.

This session features a way to build vocabulary and writing skills for emerging readers. Ideas, tips, and practical lessons to teach emergent readers how to sound out new words, build word families, and engage in phonetic games with fun activities will be presented. Teachers will see how to help children use their skills to begin writing with the words they know. (For preschool through second grade.)

How can we best engage minds, hearts and imaginations in our Bible classes? What are the unique challenges and opportunities of our Gen Z students? Heidi Dean, Bible Specialist for CSI, works to gather best-practices in elementary and secondary Bible instruction through interviews and research. Come hear the stories of five Bible teachers, all working to improve their craft, and listen for the best-practices that emerge from their interviews.

His Armor will give schools and faith-based organizations the necessary tools to help prepare staff and volunteers for potential acts of violence.

Based on two best-selling books about student engagement, "Teach Like a PIRATE" and "Wild Card," this session will provide lesson planning ideas to open the lock to learning: student engagement!

The Iowa Core references "real world" 52 times but what does this really mean? Does providing a real context (aka dressed up math) make it real world? During this session participants will explore how to engage students in "real world" problem solving.

How do young students articulate and explain the "how" and "why" of their math thinking? How do they learn from one another and gather strategies to deepen their math thinking? Come and learn simple tips to get students talking 🙂

Experience a lesson using Writer's Workshop techniques. See a mini-lesson equipped with mentor texts that transfers to shared and independent writing. Integrated into this session, there will be a variety of assessment tools and publication ideas. Come ready to add to your writing instruction toolbox and create a classroom of writers.

Luke 6:40 says that when a student is fully formed, he will be like his teacher. Today’s educators face the caregiver’s dilemma more than ever: will we give out of our essence or out of our overflow? When we give out of our essence, it leads to burnout, demoralization, and ultimately disengagement, and that has a profound impact on the students no matter how much we might try to mask it. In short, if we are, they are. In this workshop, we’ll look at the greatest factors impacting teacher wellness and what schools can do about it.

The 5 Practices framework will be modeled as it would happen in a classroom. Teachers will understand the 5 Practices teaching framework, how the framework supports teachers in their planning, and explore lessons using the framework.

What do you do with the student who consistently and accurately finishes his/her work 15 minutes before the rest of the class? Or what about the student whose creativity overflows everywhere? This session will address why differentiation is needed for high-ability students and provide you with many resources to promote their growth.

This session will give participants helpful tools and provide activities to guide them in clarifying their thinking and conceptual understanding. This session is also about creating opportunities for teachers and students to demonstrate their learning with conceptual or disciplinary depth. Participants will engage in learning activities throughout the session to help them understand the difference between teaching conceptually vs by topics. Through these activities, participants will be able to self-reflect on their understanding of conceptual learning and how to best give teachers and students learning opportunities to learn conceptually. Participants will walk away with an understanding of how to take a learning opportunity that is focused around topics and turn it into a conceptual learning opportunity.

Whether we have been teaching for a year or thirty years, all of us can benefit from sharing our best practices. This sectional will discuss what you want to cover, whether that's novel suggestions, balancing writing/grading, use of technology or how you connect projects to your teaching. Come ready to share. Come ready to take away some great ideas!

We can all admit it, tech tools are those shiny, new objects we love to toss at our students to keep them engaged and excited about learning. However, without you, the teacher, these tools quickly become discarded, overused, or a thorn in your flesh as students continually gravitate to them at inopportune times. The goal of this session is to provide a number of "use it tomorrow" tech tools, examples of how/when they could be used, and teaching/reflective practices with each that will provide more deeper meaning for your students.

We will have a round table conversation to talk about the successes and challenges that come with flexible seating. We are starting our first year of full implementation. Come join us to share ideas and learn from each other.

Writing can be intimidating for our youngest learners. Through this workshop we will collaboratively discuss new ideas and engaging activities that will build confidence in how you teach your kindergarten students to write. Please be ready to share and learn from other kindergarten teachers.

Just as we were all created to learn differently, we may also appreciate being exposed to different ways to lift up a prayer to God. Please join us to learn about prayer in color, to see it modeled, and to practice it yourself.

Screen recordings (screencasts) are great for creating explainer videos that have the visual of the computer screen and the audio of the narrator. Join me in this session for hands-on practice to help you envision the use of screencasts for flipped lessons, student presentations, audio feedback on assignments, and more!

This session consists of evaluating the tension between a dominance mindset and a posture of humility in competitive sports.

ADHD is a complicated disorder that is often labeled as a "focus" problem. Students with ADHD are often labeled as distracted or hyper, but they also often struggle with aspects of their behavior. In this session, we go beyond the focus factor and examine the complexities of ADHD and the effects that this disorder has on a student learning and well-being. The focus of this session will be to develop a better understanding of the behaviors and characteristics of a student coping with ADHD, and how we as educators can help students compensate for their deficits and capitalize on their God given strengths. This session will examine the regulartory issues that a student with ADHD may face and the ways those issues may impact not only their learning but their emotional health, social interactions, and prospects for the future.

Jackie reads words accurately, but she doesn't understand what she reads. Words seem to "go in one ear and out the other" and she struggles with following directions. Her parents express frustration about her weak short term and long term memory. Her teachers think she is not trying, and she has been labeled as having ADHD. If this sounds like a child you've had in your classroom, come join our session to learn strategies to help Jackie be more successful!

In this session, we will review updated curriculum from the Council for Economic Education, do a "dry-run" through one of the lessons, and learn some fun ways to engage students and extend the concepts.

Celebrate the Apollo missions while teaching science principles that help students to think and act like engineers. This will be a fun, hands-on, space-themed seminar. You will receive handouts, resource suggestions, and techniques to implement inquiry-based STEM and engineering design challenges in your classroom.

The first of John Milton Gregory’s "Seven Laws of Teaching" is the Law of the Teacher. It states, “Know thoroughly and with familiarity the lesson you wish to teach; teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.” If students are going to behold the glory of God in every subject area, the Christian teacher must first be captivated by that glory. Tools and techniques are helpful, but there is no substitute for Christian educators with robust, biblical worldviews. In this session, we’ll renew our minds by exploring foundational biblical principles that shape the unique way Christians think about subject areas like history, government, language, literature, math, science, art, and technology. Recommended resources for further study and exploration will be presented.

Three Biblical reasons for studying a foreign language will be presented, as well as how to help students have a Biblical perspective on foreign language.

It is difficult to know how to respond to children/teens in our classrooms that tend to create disruption and difficulty for others. This presentation will help teachers and leaders understand how child adversity impacts social/emotional/neurological development. Participants will receive applicable suggestions for reaching and teaching these children effectively while helping them develop their gifts and potential both inside and outside the classroom.

This session is an opportunity to learn about the current initiatives of the Dordt University Teacher Preparation Program and provide input on what you believe are the key elements of teacher preparation that should be included in future initiatives. As teachers in the field, we value your input!

Students want to share what they know but sometimes they are limited with the avenue in which they have to share. As technology continues to develop, student voice is no longer limited in the classroom. Seesaw is an online digital portfolio, and Flipgrid is a video discussion tool meant to foster a community of learners. Come see different examples of how teachers can use Seesaw and Flipgrid to empower student voice, build an online portfolio, and hear ideas and thoughts from everyone in their class.

Fun, active, and educational. The Money Game teaches personal finance more in-depth and with more flexibility than any other game we've found. Join us as we play a rapid version of the game. You'll see why we think this is the most fun way to teach personal finance!

This March will be the third Data Analytics Battle held in cooperation between Dordt and the Iowa Center for Interdisciplinary Training. The competition uses data from previous NCAA college basketball tournaments to create an algorithm which selects the teams. Students then watch how their algorithm and teams compete against classmates, and students across the state (and region). Come to learn more about the competition and how it promotes using data to make informed decisions.

Hear how citizen science provides your students with an established outlet for real scientific practice and authentic opportunities to be stewards of God's creation. You will leave this seminar with handouts and projects that you can easily incorporate in your classroom.

Students enjoy the challenge of a good scavenger hunt, and there are lots of skills that can be learned during those hunts. Incorporating these “hunting” skills into a classroom lesson can be an added bonus to the curriculum topics that are being taught! Join me in this session to get hands-on experience with the “GooseChase EDU” app, learning how it works to allow educators to create digital scavenger hunts for individuals and/or teams that will require participants to submit answers and evidence in the form of short answers, videos, and/or photos.

This session will give you ideas on how to have fun with your students while keeping their brains constantly going. We all have downtime in our classroom where we want to keep our students productive. This session will provide activities/games that engage the mind and help to build relationships in your classroom.

As a new teacher, you prepared your first classroom with great care and detail. You resolved to be the best teacher you could be, a model to others in the school. You imagined your students... kind, smart, eager to learn. And then the first day arrived and you realized... this is not what I ordered!? Learn how we can not only accept the students & colleagues we are given, but we can learn to LOVE and appreciate them!

Good behavior isn’t magic… it’s a skill, just like anything else! We don’t get to decide whether we have children with challenging behaviors in our classrooms and centers, but we do get to decide how we will respond to them. Through a combination of lecture, discussion, and interactive small groups, participants will discover helpful tools, strategies, and techniques for handling challenging behaviors. Participants will learn simple strategies to eliminate longtime negative behaviors, manage new challenging behaviors, and prevent future behaviors.

Creative Living Center's Trauma Education Team, comprised of three Licensed Mental Health Counselors with much combined experience who also have education degrees and substantial classroom work in their backgrounds, will share with educators across all levels, from elementary through high school. This 90 minute session will be filled with strategies to use to help traumatized students in the education setting, with recognition that 80-85% of the strategies benefit all students. The session follows the general trauma session that included limited strategies which has been presented the prior two years at the Heartland Convention. Come and gain strategies for your educational setting trauma reduction toolkit!

Grace presents a tender drama that speaks directly to the heart. She combines her skills as a potter and a storyteller to show how God has molded us, each His unique creation. Her potter's wheel has become a means to share God's own work in her life, and she will take you on a journey to the heart of God. You will be shown the unconditional and extraordinary love that God has for you. Grace's ministry will help you see yourself as God sees you and move you to become the vessel He created you to be.

This session is designed for teachers new to the TfT journey. What is a good storyline? How can we invite our students to live out our storyline in our classrooms from week to week? How can we grow our storylines through the use of Doc Panels? Teachers will share their storyline implementation to date, and be given time in this sectional to work on continued storyline development by collaborating with others.

In this session we will consider the question, What is a flourishing community, and hear from teachers who have designed Formational Learning Experiences(FLEx) that connect curriculum and standards while transforming hearts. Seeing how others have connected real work, real needs and real people to their classrooms will be a springboard to begin designing these experiences in the next session.

This session is a “Part II” of the 1:15 PM FLEx session. Now that we know the basics of what Formational Learning Experiences are, we will spend time planning and designing your first FLEx. You will spend time designing ways to encourage your students to be peculiar people through learning experiences that engage in real work, with real people, meeting real needs.

Attendees of this session will have the opportunity to: 1) gain awareness of the nine research-based instructional strategies for increasing student achievement, 2) develop an understanding of what meta-data and effect sizes are, and 3) focus our energies on what increases student achievement.

Thanks to recent advances in science, we currently know more about the human brain than ever before. What does the latest research suggest about the nature of wrongdoing and how we should respond? What are the limitations of brain theory when we consider the Biblical narrative? How can we use our knowledge of God’s Word and God’s world to guide wayward students?

As a school leader, you must know the signs of child abuse and neglect, and know how to act sensitively, accurately, and legally toward all parties involved. When accusations are made, you need to act promptly and appropriately, as well. This simulation gives you practice recognizing and responding in a variety of situations, and also provides you with an application tool for assessing and mitigating risk.

During this interactive session, participants will put on headsets and experience two different virtual reality platforms through multiple virtual experiences. We will have the FLEx program from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach which includes Oculus Rift and 360 camera resources as well as Google Expeditions provided for check-out by Cherokee and O’Brien County Farm Bureau offices. The Oculus Rift provides individuals with a high-quality one-on-one VR experience while the Google Expeditions allows for an entire classroom to have a simultaneous VR experience. After experiencing these multiple technologies, participants will explore ways that they could use these materials in their classrooms to augment their current curriculum.

Let's be honest, great communicators are a dying breed--and in this age of technology and social media, many teenagers struggle to develop empathy, self-awareness, healthy emotional expression, and the ability to get their point across! How do we teach young people to communicate their thoughts, ideas, and emotions? How can we encourage these budding Christians to express themselves? This session will focus on using theater and speech to develop excellent communication skills in every area of a student's life. And you might learn how to communicate and express yourself to students a little better too!

This hands-on simulation shows a video and then stop at points where the audience chooses from options on how to respond. Depending on the group’s choice, the simulation will lead to a different video (similar to those “choose-your-own-adventure” books). Throughout this simulation, the audience has time to share the experiences that have shaped how and why they made their decision. In this simulation you are a principal responding to a few instances of cyberbullying. You must identify and successfully deal with challenges associated with cyberbullying and its impact on school learning environment, students, faculty/staff, parents, and the community in general. You will become acquainted and comfortable with applying the growing body of law and court cases addressing cyberbullying and first amendment rights.

This session includes an Introduction to and review of the events of 1968 in the U.S. The poetry that will be shared will express my feeling and emotions during the Viet Nam experience. A reporter's view of my infantry platoon will be communicated using entries from my personal diary. A short slide show will be shown as well.

This session is open to ALL teachers and school leaders of every grade and experience level interested in learning more about TfT. Come and learn about the TfT journey that Sioux Falls, Sioux Center and Unity Christian have taken. Why did we join the TfT movement? What have the past 5-6 years been like? What changes have taken place and what lies ahead for us as TfT schools?

His Armor will give schools and faith-based organizations the necessary tools to help prepare staff and volunteers for potential acts of violence.

Effective teaching requires being able to support students as they work on challenging math tasks without taking over the process of thinking for them. By analyzing student work, teachers will have the opportunity to develop assessing and advancing questions. Teachers will also develop characteristics of each question to distinguish the purpose of each type. (Note: This session is an extension of the "5 Practices Framework" so participating in that session first is highly recommended.)

How can we best engage minds, hearts and imaginations in our Bible classes? What are the unique challenges and opportunities of our Gen Z students? Heidi Dean, Bible Specialist for CSI, works to gather best-practices in elementary and secondary Bible instruction through interviews and research. Come hear the stories of five Bible teachers, all working to improve their craft, and listen for the best-practices that emerge from their interviews.

Based on two best-selling books about student engagement: "Teach Like a PIRATE" and "Wild Card," this session will provide lesson planning ideas to open the lock to learning: student engagement!

Instructional Math Routines such as "Notice and Wonder," "Number Talks," and "Which One Doesn't Belong," offer teachers a structure to elicit mathematical ideas, facilitate productive discourse, support the Standards of Mathematical Practice, and place an important focus on student voice in the math classroom. For students, these routines are equally valuable. These routines give all students access to the mathematics, build on prior understandings, and encourage peer-to-peer discussions. Participants will then get an opportunity to plan and practice these routines.

Collaborative inquiry is based on the work of researchers Fisher & Frey and is a lesson framework created to get students working and learning together. In this session, participants will learn the four-part model for daily lessons and how it can be used across all grade levels and content areas. Add a 'collaborative hum' to your learning environment!

Do you know what the research says is the single most important activity in preparing students for reading success? It’s not phonics, curriculum, drills, or testing. Come learn the 10 most important facts about reading and how teachers and parents can work together to truly create a community of readers. In addition, you’ll learn the specific strategies used by one school to implement an effective reading initiative that got the whole school reading!

New or a veteran to serving as yearbook adviser? Come share ideas and learn some tricks from others. Whether your yearbook is put together as an extracurricular activity or in a class setting there are core elements to putting together your school's yearbook.

Google offers two great tools that incorporate storytelling and map skills … and these tools aren’t just for the Geography classes! Google’s “Tour Builder” and “Tour Creator” assist students and educators in sharing mapped locations, images, and information through the use of Google Earth, Google Street View, and Virtual Reality. Join me in this session to create your journey and imagine an adventure!

The move from paper to digital definitely has its advantages but there are still situations in which handwritten work is preferred. Join me in this session to learn how Rocketbooks and Think Boards can be used to collect, scan, and digitize handwritten work… and then cleaned off to be used again!

In this session I will present some basics of what the Bible says about culture, some applications of that perspective, a history of the term "culture," and what to ask our students when we study other cultures.

Break-out activities provide students with the opportunity to work together with others to solve puzzles, follow clues, and think creatively. We will examine the rationale and different types of break-out activities as well as how to create your own break-out using a Google form. Participants should bring their laptop or other device.

Are you curious about integrating technology into your classroom, but not sure what to use or how to go about it? I'll share some ideas with you and give you time to investigate some tools that interest you. Feel free to come with questions or ideas that have as well!

Dyslexia is a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. This session will give an overview of what Dyslexia is, myths about Dyslexia and information about what it might look like for a student to have Dyslexia. NOTE: This is an informational based class only and will not include strategies due to time constraints.

Join me to learn about the excellent resources available to teachers to get students to think critically! We'll review several resources, discuss how they fit into your classroom, and have time to explore!

We will discuss multi-sensory literacy routines used in K-3 classrooms. Two specific literacy routines that will be modeled and practiced within this session are vowel tents and syllabication. We will be able to see how these two routines will help us with formative assessment within the classroom and also how they help struggling readers.

This session is open to ALL TfT teachers of every grade and experience level as a time to design and collaborate on any of the core TfT practices. Whether you are interested in deepening your classroom storyline, want help reframing a new unit, or seek assistance in planning a new FLEx, TfT instructional coaches will be available to help you meet your goals. Come ready to collaborate, and leave with some concrete plans in hand!

As coaches we are always looking for activities to develop leaders as well create a unified group. This session will provide a number of activities that you can use to help develop your teams.