NCTE 2023

If we’re going to live sustainably on our planet, it’s important that students learn what it means to be a global citizen. We need to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers and there are no better role models than those who are on the frontlines of researching, documenting, protecting, and exploring our planet.
Every scientist and explorer can remember when it happened, when their passion for their choose pursuit was ignited. It may have been meeting someone, seeing a documentary, reading a book, or being inspired by a dynamic educator. You can spark these ‘aha’ moments for your students by bringing the world into your classrooms through virtual connections with leading scientists and explorers around the world, and it’s easier than you think!
As educators, we strive to bring meaningful and relevant learning experiences to our students each day, to connect the dots between what we’re teaching and how it applies to the real world. Join educator and National Geographic Explorer Joe Grabowski as he shares the story of the unexpected turn his education career took when he began engaging his students through the stories and adventures of scientists and explorers around the world. Dive into the exciting resource that can have your students virtually exploring outside their classroom walls within the week and learn tips and tricks for engaging your students before and after these unique experiences.

If we’re going to live sustainably on our planet, it’s important that students learn what it means to be a global citizen. We need to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers and there are no better role models than those who are on the frontlines of researching, documenting, protecting, and exploring our planet.
Every scientist and explorer can remember when it happened, when their passion for their choose pursuit was ignited. It may have been meeting someone, seeing a documentary, reading a book, or being inspired by a dynamic educator. You can spark these ‘aha’ moments for your students by bringing the world into your classrooms through virtual connections with leading scientists and explorers around the world, and it’s easier than you think!
As educators, we strive to bring meaningful and relevant learning experiences to our students each day, to connect the dots between what we’re teaching and how it applies to the real world. Join educator and National Geographic Explorer Joe Grabowski as he shares the story of the unexpected turn his education career took when he began engaging his students through the stories and adventures of scientists and explorers around the world. Dive into the exciting resource that can have your students virtually exploring outside their classroom walls within the week and learn tips and tricks for engaging your students before and after these unique experiences.

Our students sometimes struggle with instructions and completing them autonomously. What if we could improve how we design instructions from the start so that we can cater to various student needs and support autonomous work? In this session, Martha proposes the design of instructions with a flipped learning approach as a means to achieve differentiated learning in remote, face-to-face, or hybrid teaching scenarios. Martha will walk us through a step-by-step design with clear actions, resources, times, and student roles, among others. Several real-life examples will be shared along with recommendations for effective application using different tools.

Our students sometimes struggle with instructions and completing them autonomously. What if we could improve how we design instructions from the start so that we can cater to various student needs and support autonomous work? In this session, Martha proposes the design of instructions with a flipped learning approach as a means to achieve differentiated learning in remote, face-to-face, or hybrid teaching scenarios. Martha will walk us through a step-by-step design with clear actions, resources, times, and student roles, among others. Several real-life examples will be shared along with recommendations for effective application using different tools.

“It can hardly be a coincidence that jazz first emerged shortly after the rise of the record business: in a previous era, improvisations could hardly have been preserved...”
–Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz

Whatever else can be said about the past few years, they have set the context for an explosion in new uses of technology for learning. The COVID pandemic thrust educators into Emergency Remote Learning, and then further provided a test bed for exploration of innovations in hybrid teaching modalities. Access to broadband and associated cloud technologies has become enshrined as a fundamental human right. And in recent months, generative AI for both image and text has taken the worlds of work and education by storm, overturning established roles for humans and machines in the creative process. With all of this change at hand, it would be tempting to try to freeze things for a while, and to come up with a simple rule book for the new toolsets. However, as we shall see, there is a far better approach available, one that - much like jazz - references improvisational practice, while being grounded in clear objectives and models. Indeed, also like jazz at its birth, this approach only becomes fully feasible in the context of new technologies. And in particular, we shall see that language instruction acquires new dimensions in this environment, both in how it is executed, as well as in its impact on the surrounding world.

“It can hardly be a coincidence that jazz first emerged shortly after the rise of the record business: in a previous era, improvisations could hardly have been preserved...”
–Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz

Whatever else can be said about the past few years, they have set the context for an explosion in new uses of technology for learning. The COVID pandemic thrust educators into Emergency Remote Learning, and then further provided a test bed for exploration of innovations in hybrid teaching modalities. Access to broadband and associated cloud technologies has become enshrined as a fundamental human right. And in recent months, generative AI for both image and text has taken the worlds of work and education by storm, overturning established roles for humans and machines in the creative process. With all of this change at hand, it would be tempting to try to freeze things for a while, and to come up with a simple rule book for the new toolsets. However, as we shall see, there is a far better approach available, one that - much like jazz - references improvisational practice, while being grounded in clear objectives and models. Indeed, also like jazz at its birth, this approach only becomes fully feasible in the context of new technologies. And in particular, we shall see that language instruction acquires new dimensions in this environment, both in how it is executed, as well as in its impact on the surrounding world.