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About Our Formats

We encourage you to design your session creatively, utilizing a format that most effectively engages your audience with your content and materials. Traditional lectures or demonstrations, workshops, and roundtables are longtime Annual Conference session formats. The panel is a newer introduction to the Annual Conference. We're eager to see what you make of them! 

Submitters will indicate their preferred session format in the proposal form. Read on to learn more about each.

A formal 50-minute session in which the speaker(s) shares a traditional, lecture-style presentation followed by a response to audience questions.

A 50-minute session that emphasizes hands-on experience with a concept or skill, audience collaboration, and one-on-one facilitator engagement throughout. 

A 110-minute session that emphasizes hands-on experience with a limited number of concepts or skills, sustained audience collaboration, and ongoing facilitator engagement throughout. Double-Block Workshops allow for a deeper dive and may not include a break. Because a double-block commits participants to a significant portion of their conference experience, these sessions require an especially strong value proposition. Proposals should clearly demonstrate why the extended format is essential to the learning outcomes.

A 50-minute structured conversation featuring a moderator and three to four panelists discussing a particular theme or topic. While there might be some room for audience questions in a panel format, attendees are primarily observers learning from the speakers.

Also a 50-minute structured and thematic conversation, roundtables are more relaxed and center the audience in the discussion. An effective roundtable might include a 20-minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of whole-group discussion around prepared, targeted questions posed by the facilitator. The goal of a roundtable is to dig deep into a particular topic, learning with and from everyone in the room.

Only 5-minutes long, an Ignite presentation is a fun and highly engaging presentation format where speakers prepare a presentation of only 20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds. The result is a dynamic and incredibly focused presentation that leaves the audience with an impactful message. We will accept eight Ignite presentations from a variety of topics, which will be given in rapid succession during a 50-minute session block on Monday, November 3rd. The Ignite format is particularly effective in highlighting impactful lessons or projects, classroom routines, school traditions, or teacher-support initiatives. Visuals might emphasize student work samples, photos, or muted video clips.

Birds of a Feather gatherings will be offered again this year as informal, peer-led conversations. These sessions are not part of the Call for Sessions and will not be submitted for review as part of the formal conference program. Information on how to facilitate a Birds of a Feather gathering will be shared in late summer—please keep an eye out for details.

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