Access to high-quality academic support and enrichment opportunities remains uneven across urban and rural communities. In this interactive session, participants will explore practical, community-driven strategies for designing and sustaining tutoring and enrichment programs that address academic gaps, workforce readiness, and whole-child development. Drawing from real-world experience launching both nonprofit and LLC-based tutoring initiatives, this session will highlight how educators, school leaders, and community partners can leverage local assets—churches, nonprofits, families, and data—to expand equitable access to learning. Participants will examine scalable models that work in under-resourced settings, discuss barriers such as staffing, funding, transportation, and trust, and leave with actionable tools to implement or strengthen programs in their own communities. This session is designed for educators, administrators, nonprofit leaders, and community partners seeking practical solutions that move beyond theory into implementation.
This talk introduces PING, a scalable, AI-powered, web-based education platform designed to transform how students engage with learning. PING delivers modular, grade- and topic-based learning experiences centered on high-impact instructional pain points identified by practicing teachers. These modules are implemented as interactive, gamified activities that generate rich learning signals beyond simple right-or-wrong responses, including misconception patterns, strategy choices, and engagement trajectories. Embedded within these experiences are two intelligent agents. The Peer Agent questions, challenges, and reasons with learners, prompting them to explain, justify, and teach concepts back to the system, thereby fostering metacognitive reflection and learning-by-teaching behaviors. Operating alongside it, the Tutor Agent provides adaptive academic scaffolding in real time. Together, these agents address a key limitation of traditional digital learning systems: they support not only what students learn, but how they think about their learning — at scale.
Access & Equity in Urban and Rural Schools and how this is a social justice issue. More specific topics will include: Closing funding, equitable access to advanced courses, arts, and extracurriculars, and addressing broadband disparities.
Educator burnout and attrition continue to rise, particularly in under-resourced and high-stress educational environments where emotional labor, secondary trauma, and systemic inequities are prevalent. This conference session explores **mental wellness as a critical strategy for supporting teacher retention and long-term professional sustainability**, reframing wellness as both an individual and institutional responsibility. Grounded in trauma-informed and strengths-based approaches, the session examines how chronic stress impacts educator well-being, instructional effectiveness, and commitment to the profession. Participants will engage in reflective dialogue and practical application to gain actionable strategies that support emotional regulation, healthy boundaries, and psychologically safe work environments, leaving with tools that can be implemented immediately to sustain educators working in challenging contexts.
Dr. Charise Breeden-Balaam, EdD, LSW, is a higher education leader, licensed social worker, and Founder & CEO of Balaam & Associates, LLC. With expertise in student success, mental health, and equity-centered program development, she advances transformative initiatives that support... Read More →
Grounded in clarity and accessibility, our session introduces artificial intelligence in straightforward, understandable language, emphasizing practical understanding rather than technical expertise. Participants will explore: What AI is—and what it is not. How AI tools are already shaping education, work, and daily life. The opportunities and limitations of AI: Digital responsibility, privacy, and ethical considerations. How families and communities can discuss and use AI in healthy, values-aligned ways
This session is designed for K–12 science, STEM, special education, and ENL/multilingual learner teachers, as well as instructional coaches, department chairs, curriculum directors, building and district administrators, STEM leaders, superintendents, and chief academic officers who are passionate about improving student outcomes. Despite decades of effort, science achievement has remained largely stagnant, with national data showing that 60% of U.S. eighth-grade students perform below proficiency. At the same time, students in under-resourced schools continue to have significantly fewer opportunities for hands-on laboratory learning, while more than 3.7 million homeschool students and over one million microschool learners are often left out of conversations about educational innovation. This interactive session will explore practical, equitable, and forward-thinking strategies that expand access to high-quality STEM experiences, empowering educators to increase student engagement, strengthen science instruction, and prepare all learners for success in an ever-evolving world.
