workshops
aligning instructional practices with school values
Instructional design is our most powerful tool for creating the learning environments we actually want. When we design the way students interact with the content and each other, we shape the experiences, behavior patterns, relationships, and values that emerge in our classrooms.
Professional Learning Workshops
Choose a focus area — or let’s build one together. What do you want to design for?
Designing Prompts
for Authentic Engagement
How can we structure interactions so students authentically connect with the content and invest in their learning? We’ll begin this session by collaboratively defining “authentic engagement.” We’ll do this work using connective prompts: verbal cues that help learners engage authentically with the content by relating it to themselves or themselves to it. Then, we’ll look at how connective prompts were used in the first part of the session to help us connect with its content, and we’ll learn how to write our own connective prompts to help our students connect with the content of our classes.
Designing Lessons
for Focus & Flow
How can we structure lessons so students understand where they are in their learning, where they’re going, and why it matters? In classrooms, students often move from one activity to another without understanding how today’s task connects to yesterday’s, how the various tasks are building towards a larger understanding, or why their understanding even matters. In this workshop, we’ll discover simple classroom rituals to mark transitions between topics so students feel more oriented within their learning.
Designing Learning Tasks
for Student Agency
How can we help students make meaningful choices that reflect what matters to them, as opposed to choosing the most comfortable option? Values activation is the process of noticing how our current situation offers opportunities for us to do things we find important, affirming, and fulfilling. In this session, we‘ll learn to use values activation protocols to help students notice opportunities for them to do work they find important, affirming, and fulfilling — and choose to take advantage of those opportunities.
Designing Assessment Tasks
for Meaning & Purpose
How can we invite students to create work that provides both evidence of their learning and opportunities to explore what matters to them? We’ll start this session by exploring what it means to connect authentically with our work and how an assignment can help students connect with theirs. We’ll then learn tools and strategies for individually and collaboratively designing assignments that not only serve as assessment evidence but also have students create things that matter — to them personally and in the world.
Designing Work Processes
for Intrinsic Motivation
How can we structure the work process so students find personally meaningful reasons to do it — and do it well? Even when an assignment invites students to do work they could potentially find meaningful and fulfilling, the fact that it’s still a school assignment means they might complete it just to meet obligations and get a good grade. But what if the process of doing the work made students want to engage deeply — not because they had to, but because they had their own reasons to care? In this workshop, we’ll explore how to structure the work process so students connect with their assignments in ways that feel meaningful, fulfilling, and self-driven. We’ll look at design strategies that help students discover a personal connection to the work, make decisions in accordance with their values, and develop the motivation to refine the product — not just for a grade, but because it matters to them.
Designing Feedback
for Student Empowerment
How can we provide feedback that not only guides students in improving their work but also affirms their values and fosters personal growth? In this session, we will explore how feedback on student work can help them grow — academically and personally. After assessing how our own experiences with feedback have influenced our learning and self-perception, we‘ll distinguish between evaluative and responsive feedback. We‘ll discuss how both kinds of feedback can help students improve their work and feel affirmed in who they are. We‘ll practice using responsive feedback tools that can be used for teacher-student, student-student, and caregiver-child feedback that honors and empowers the student. By the send of the session, participants will be equipped to transform their feedback practices, fostering a learning environment where students feel seen, supported, and motivated to engage deeply with their learning.
Designing Class Discussions for Belonging
How can we structure discussions so every student feels seen, heard, affirmed, appreciated, and supported? We‘ll begin this session by reflecting on some of the times when we felt (and did not feel) a sense of belonging in environments where we were the learners. Then, we‘ll practice a discussion process that enables all students to make meaningful contributions, listen to and value one another‘s contributions, and build community in the process of learning together. We‘ll see how the process can be used for whole-class, small-group, and partner discussions, as well as how teachers can modify or scaffold the process so all students can participate.
Designing Group Work
for True Collaboration
How can we structure group work so students really listen to each other, share the workload, and create something meaningful together? Doing meaningful work together is an ideal context for students to develop meaningful relationships. However, giving a collaborative task doesn’t guarantee that students will listen and communicate skillfully, build on each other’s strengths, or create better work than they could have created alone. In this session, we’ll discuss how to maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks of a collaborative task. We’ll distinguish two types of collaboration—collaborative projects and collaborative inquiry—and practice using protocols that help students succeed at both.
Designing Academic Units
for Values-Based Action
How can we embed opportunities for students to discover and develop their values into every stage of an academic unit? Every day in every class, students make decisions as to how they approach lessons, discussions, assignments, and interactions. As they make these decisions, students aren‘t only choosing how they participate in class. They‘re also building patterns of how they live their lives. In this workshop, we‘ll practice using strategies that make students more aware of the qualities they‘re choosing to bring to their actions, how they feel as a result of bringing those qualities to their actions, and what they can do to build patterns that feel fulfilling and change patterns that don‘t. Participants will leave with tools and protocols they can use to help students bring their own values to their learning at every stage of a unit.
Designing Reflection
for Self & Community Building
How can we guide students to reflect on their performance in ways that deepen self-understanding, highlight the significance of their achievements, and acknowledge how the community contributes to their success? Appreciative reflection is about more than just noticing what we’ve done—it’s about understanding how our actions shape who we are, why our accomplishments matter, and how the people around us support our success. It helps us widen our lens and use our insights to help us choose actions that reflect our values. In this session, we will explore three dimensions of appreciative reflection: valuing their own learning experiences, recognizing the significance of and impact of their work, and acknowledging their peers' contributions to the learning community. After trying out these methods ourselves, we’ll discuss how to use appreciative reflection to foster a classroom culture grounded in shared values and meaningful action.
Workshop Lengths & Options
Each workshop is designed to be interactive and practical. Participants don’t just hear about the topic; they experience strategies firsthand and see how they work across various subjects and grade levels.
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The full-day nerdathon (6 hours) allows for the deepest impact. Participants explore instructional design deeply, experience multiple strategies, reflect on how to apply them in their classrooms, and begin designing those applications so they leave with actionable plans.
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The half-day nerdquest (3 hours) offers a strong balance of learning and application. Participants experience and debrief key instructional design strategies, and they see examples of how to use them across subjects and grade levels.
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The 2-hour nerdjam gives us just enough time to clarify the challenge and experience one core strategy in action. This format allows for discussion, debriefing, and practical examples. If you’re looking for more than a quick inspiration boost, a longer session is where the real transformation starts to happen.
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The 1-hour nerd plunge (like a cold plunge, but not as cold unless you’re at one of those schools with overactive A/C) includes either exploring the challenge or experiencing a strategy, but not both. This format is best for teams looking for a preview before the full faculty commits to a longer session.
This isn’t about adding programs to build your school’s brand.
It’s about bringing your school’s values to life every day.
If that’s the work you’re ready to do, let’s talk.