CATCA 2023

Has your district moved to using Schoology? Is your district considering the move to Schoology? Suzanne used the program for approximately five years in her junior high and high school classrooms. She will provide an overview of how she used the program and her thoughts on the program. She is also willing to share any resources she has.Suzanne's daughter (a grade 12 student) will also share her experiences with the program.

Have you ever ignored that little voice, or gut feeling, that tells you to grab an item on your way out the door, then wished you’d listened, because, “Darn! That would’ve been handy to have right now!” That inner guidance was your intuition. Intuition is like a muscle – exercising it makes it stronger. The practical exercises presented in this session build the ability to trust intuition to assess children’s situations, or best course of action, bring greater ease into life and the classroom.

As our world has been turned upside down, how do we effectively assess students through a growth mindset? Dave has successfully removed grades from his own high school and middle school math classes. He has then lead entire schools on this transition. Moving away from a fixed mindset around assessment and towards a growth mindset. Come and learn how to lead this transition in your school community. Dave will discuss 5 simple changes you can make that will transform your assessment practices.

Jason has spent the last eight years perfecting turning his classroom into Hogwarts for an entire unit of chemistry. In this session Jason will explain how he sets up the game, sorts the students, keeps it fair, and maximizes engagement! A good game done right is something students will talk about for days. You'll learn what not to do from Jason's humorous failures, and the exciting highs of just how amazing gamification is when it's done right. Wingardium Leviosa!!! THIS SESSION WILL BE HELD AT École Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School (4204 58 St, Red Deer, AB T4N 2L6) in room 1208.

Hour one workshop explores the science of interpersonal trust (three pillars) and institutional trust (two pillars) and how these are foundational to the health of any organization and then introduces the concept of Academic Trust, the kind of trust that must exist between a teacher and their students for optimum instructional impact to take place in every classroom. A definition, conceptual framework, and model of Academic Trust (six things all teachers control and three significant influences) is introduced and developed, along with an exploration of what is described as the teaching trust distrust dilemma, and the level of authentic instructional complexity that is present in every classroom everywhere, that is largely misunderstood and consequently ignored when it comes to system, school, and classroom change.
Hour two of Creating Academic Trust In the Classroom focuses on the practical support of how to close the achievement gap in every classroom. It examines, in detail, the six practical things every teacher can do in their instructional practice to build academic trust with every student they instruct and then explores the three major influences each teacher can have on supporting the development of creating enough critical mass to positively impact school wide improvement as measured by student achievement. A systematic approach to teacher team capacity building is offered.

How to plan for differentiation is based on the modification of three elements. Teachers in this session will learn more about the differentiation framework based on the work of Carol A Tomlinson. AAC will share tools and templates to make differentiation planning easier for teachers.

Are you looking for strategies to use in your classroom that will enhance student learning and provide you valuable feedback about your teaching practice? Formative assessment provides information on what, how much and how well students are learning. This information can guide instructional practice and will benefit all students; however, it will particularly have a positive impact on low-achievers. This would be a valuable session for you because it will introduce you to a range of formative classroom assessment techniques, how to use them, how to analyze the data that they gather, and how to share that data with students. The takeaways from this session are very practical and could be smoothly incorporated into your classroom regardless of teaching situation or teaching style.