2026 GOCSD Innovation Summit

How can you teach students to communicate effectively while also making it relevant to the digital environment all around us? Podcasting! In this session, attendees will hear one teacher's experience bringing podcasting into her classroom and how it can be adapted for other ages or subjects. Participants will leave with materials to help them supply, plan, and teach podcasting in their own classroom.

Students often spend hours listening and reviewing curricular content, yet 70% of new information is forgotten within 24 hours. This isn't a lack of effort; it's a lack of retrieval. This session empowers 7-12 educators to move students from "looking over" material to "pulling it out," making learning stick for good. Groundbreaking research by Roediger & Karpicke (2006) reveals that retrieval practice produces significantly higher long-term retention than repetitive reading, regardless of student ability. Based on this research and the research of others, we offer a toolkit of “Power Ups” —quick, evidence-based habits that turn every lesson into a lasting memory.

According to John Hattie’s research, teacher clarity is a top-ten influence on achievement. Without it, students are 50% less likely to invest the mental energy required to stay on task. Constantly responding to “Why do I have to learn this?” is exhausting! In today’s distracted secondary classrooms, clarity is a lifeline. In this interactive presentation, you’ll gain a ready-to-use toolkit to frame every lesson so students can confidently answer: What am I learning today, why does it matter, and how will I know when I have learned it?

Teachers often feel pressure to do more to increase engagement with more activities, more worksheets, and more noise. Research shows rigor and engagement come from thinking, not workload. In this interactive session, participants will experience simple engagement protocols that increase thinking, discussion, and productive struggle without adding planning time. They will use these protocols to transform low rigor tasks into rigorous learning experiences and redesign one of their own lessons. Attendees will leave with ready to use protocols and a practical framework for creating rigorous learning experiences where less teacher work produces more student thinking.