CATCA 2023

Engagement begins with building relationships with and among your students. Doing ‘with’ students instead of doing ‘to’ or ‘for’ also contributes to increased levels of engagement. These are two cornerstones of restorative practice. This session will focus on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. Participants will leave with practical strategies to strengthen relationships and ‘do with’ students. This session is appropriate for all grade levels.

It is believed that when two people are grieving, they cannot support each other. If this is true, then how can we best support each other in a time when we are all grieving? Your health, thought processes, and well-being may be reflected in the success or failure of your students. Since recent world events have challenged our personal well-being, it is even more relevant today to examine how we are dealing with our own traumas and losses.
Ensuring we can identify the struggles experienced by those we are committed to leading first requires an internal awareness of self. This is not just experienced on an emotional level – it is a multi-dimensional process. The brain and nervous system are impacted, the mind is involved, and the body responds, then our spirit lights up or shuts down. Trauma, loss, and grief can be identified and addressed by our having a keen awareness of body language, word use, and medical conditions. This proactive approach will provide you with learning, joy, and fun while discovering simple tools available to help you excel more effectively and efficiently each day. You are more than your condition.

Low student engagement has always been a pain point for educators and is increasingly concerning in the post-pandemic environment. In this session, CDI Spaces classroom design experts will teach you how to transform your educational spaces to generate optimal student engagement for all learners. This interactive session features real classroom examples where you will discover flexible and agile physical setups using your current furniture solutions. You will learn about trends in student-centered classroom design and learning zones that accommodate independent and group work and support an inclusive learning environment. Ultimately, you will walk away from this session inspired and confident to create a learning environment for your students that will visibly impact their engagement and success.

Why does it matter that women’s voices still account for well less than a third of those who hold power, set agendas and exert influence? And what can educators do about it? When a country's public conversations fail to accurately reflect the experiences and priorities of a big portion of the population, everybody suffers. In this keynote presentation, Shari Graydon marries research, humour and stories to illuminate the causes and consequences of the gender gap, and to inspire educators to speak up to make the world we share more equitable.

Did you know that anyone who thinks they're "not a math person" typically has math trauma they haven't worked through? Ready to dig deep? This crash course in math therapy is for you! Through teaching math we can empower students to believe they are capable of anything and that everything is possible - starting with math. Add "Math Therapy" to your list of teachable and change the lives of your students far beyond the classroom!

While we can maintain our connections with the past, we must always find ways to pull away from it and move towards a healthier and more hopeful future. In this conversation Dr. McRae will explore what we are learning in the field of education through the global pandemic, a current pulse of the profession of teaching in Alberta, and how teachers and school leaders might draw on these experiences to create more hopeful futures for Alberta schools, our students and communities of learning.

Cognitive Science has uncovered numerous practices that have been proven to help with deep and durable learning in any subject and for learners of every age. Participants will explore these practices as they implement new curricula into their classrooms to maximize learning and will leave with numerous specific strategies for implementing them in their classrooms. Practices included are: retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, feedback-driven metacognition, elaborative interrogation, concrete examples and dual coding

In this workshop participants will explore concepts and terminology regarding gender and sexual diversity. We will look at best practices for teachers to create a safer and more welcoming school for all students as well as strategies for addressing homophobia and transphobia in their classroom. Teachers will also discuss methods for developing allyship skills within their school as well as the community at large.

This presentation is geared towards those working with elementary and middle school-aged children, but the information can be adapted to high school-aged students as well. Information will be presented, some tools will be practiced, and there will be time for discussion. The focus will include: • Common types of anxiety in children • Ways anxiety manifests in children • Understanding the anxiety cycle • On-hands strategies/tools for managing anxiety o Shifting Self-Talk o Mindfulness Practice (Focus/Awareness) o Body Relaxationo Breathing o Externalizing o Empowering o Anxiety Toleranco Retraining/Relearning through Exposureo Positive Reinforcement • Determining what is helpful and what is enabling• Working with the parents

Now, more than ever, there is a need to look at practices and systems that nurture the social and emotional health of all members of the school community. This workshop was developed to enhance the social-emotional skills of adults within a school environment so that they can more effectively model and teach SEL to their students. This interactive workshop can be facilitated over a series of sessions in which participants will learn and apply practical, powerful strategies to enhance social and emotional competence within themselves and their students.