Pre-Conference, Full Day Workshop

Spencer Kagan - Mastering Memory: 
Instructional Strategies for the Brain’s Five Memory Systems

The brain has five distinct memory systems. Instructional strategies that are excellent for putting content into one memory system completely fail for another. To be efficient educators, we need to match the instructional strategy we use with the type of memory we want to create. For example, a teaching strategy that is excellent for creating a semantic memory fails to create a procedural memory. Dr. Kagan leads us through the five memory systems and has us experience instructional strategies tailored to each. When we match strategy to memory system, our teaching becomes more efficient. Students find learning easier and more enjoyable. They are more energized and engaged. We accelerate achievement, reduce the achievement gap, and side-step discipline problems. We are not as tired at the end of the day, because we are teaching the ways brains love to learn. All teaching is creating memories: the trick is to understand which kind of memory we are attempting to create and use a strategy designed to create that type of memory. Come learn about the brain and come away from this high-powered, hands-on, interactive workshop empowered with a whole new way to think about memory and equipped with tools to revolutionize your teaching.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 12

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Conference Keynote

David and Roger Johnson - Why Cooperative Learning Will Never Die

Cooperative learning is one of the most remarkable examples of theory, research, and practice in education. In the past three decades, cooperative learning has become a widely used instructional procedure at all school levels, in all subject areas, and in all aspects of learning. When students work together to accomplish shared learning goals, it affects many different learning outcomes from achievement to psychological health. While other educational "innovations" come and go, cooperative learning continues. In this interactive session, David and Roger will share the research from their current meta-analyses and reflect on how the practicality and effectiveness of cooperative learning ensure that it will never die.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 12

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101, Spencer Kagan - Developing Character Virtues and Emotional Intelligences As Part of Every Academic Lesson

Without changing our curriculum, changing only how we deliver the curriculum, we can develop fifteen character virtues and five dimensions of emotional intelligence as part of every lesson. How? By using instructional strategies in which the virtues are embedded. We don’t change what we teach; we change how we teach. And then, paradoxically, we have dramatically changed what we teach. Join Dr. Kagan as he leads us through his fifteen virtue model and shows how that model develops not only character but also emotional intelligence. You will learn how to deliver a differentiated Character Education curriculum without changing the content of your existing lessons, through an easy to learn and implement instructional approach. The differentiated character virtue approach has a double benefit: not only do students acquire virtues like respect, responsibility, and perseverance; but also, they apply those virtues to improve academic outcomes. Kagan Structures for Character and EQ will provide you with tools to address one of the most pressing problems among today’s youth.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 12

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102, Jim Craigen and Chris Ward - The Brain… The Heart of Cooperative Learning

It is reassuring in times of rigid curriculum requirements to have not only the academic and social evidence of the benefit of cooperative learning activities, but also to have the objective neuroscientific data to support the use of cooperative learning. This interactive session will demonstrate how insights gained from brain research can support the use of cooperative learning to make the schooling experience more enjoyable, rewarding and satisfying for educators and students. Cooperative learning strategies will be modelled in this interactive session to illustrate brain compatible practices.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 12

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103, Jill Eason - Deepening Text Comprehension through Cooperative Learning

During this interactive workshop, teachers will explore ways to include cooperative learning structures into daily literacy lessons while providing authentic and meaningful opportunities for listening, speaking, reading and writing. Many of the structures will use rich literature as a springboard. This workshop will include Numbered Heads Together, QuizQuizTrade, All Write Consensus and more. Teachers will leave the session empowered to begin implementing cooperative learning structures right away.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 8

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104, Melanie Riddell and Lori-Ann Leigh - Using TRIBES in the Classroom

Want to know a secret? TRIBES is the missing ingredient that makes teaching with cooperative learning easy and effective. The TRIBES TLC Learning Process is an approach that develops a positive environment for growth and learning. Students enjoy inclusion and on-going membership in a learning group or "tribe". All feel of value to others, and a sense of belonging and feeling of community prevail as a class moves along the TRIBES trail. Join us for an interactive and energizing look at a variety of strategies that build inclusion and community within the classroom, as you experience the TRIBES process yourself!

Beginner to Advanced / General

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105, Lauren Wilson and Catherine Brunet - Encouraging Reluctant Communicators Through Cooperative Learning

This workshop will model and discuss structures and strategies that have been successful in developing confidence and skill in reluctant communicators. Team-building and class-building create community, simple oral communication structures allow students a safe starting point, and the addition of details such as think-time and write-time allow all students to have something to share out loud when called upon to do so. Character development and the growth of an inclusive, accepting classroom culture are the unanticipated bonuses. All teachers of intermediate students will add to their repertoire of pedagogy that they can use “tomorrow”.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to 12

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201, Spencer Kagan - Silly Sports and Goofy Games to Nourish and Stimulate the Brain

Come play and explore brain science! Come learn what happens in the brains of your students when they take a few minutes to play one of the 202 Silly Sports and Goofy Games. Discover the various ways that “brain breaks” foster learning. Learn how to release neurotropic hormones that actually foster brain growth. Experience Silly Sports that radically increase nutrients to the brain and boost achievement. Different types of classroom energizers stimulate different parts of the brain: Challenges develop the prefrontal cortex; Balance Games develop the cerebellum; Tag Games create vascular development; Helping Games result in quiescent amygdalae, fostering thinking, impulse control, problem solving, and rational decision making. In this extraordinary workshop, Dr. Kagan leads us through a range of games any of us can play with our students tomorrow — with no special preparation or equipment. We then make the brain links: we deepen our understanding of the unique roles different 202 Silly Sports and Goofy Games play in nourishing and stimulating the brain.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 1 to 12

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202, Cindy Kline and Paul Vermette - The Dual Objective Model of Cooperative Learning: From “Well-Meaning and Intuitive” to “Intentional and Systematic”

Three decades of formal research and practice suggest that cooperative learning is the most powerful teaching strategy to develop a host of positive results: from personal development to social skills to conceptual growth to respect for diversities. A variation of CL developed by the Cindy and Paul, the Dual Objective Model, attempts to have students work simultaneously to create products of understanding while using social and emotional skills as the process. In this model, a main function of the teacher is to provide assessment and feedback on both process and product. The workshop will explore the model, as participants work collaboratively, reflectively and intentionally to create a unit of study for a real classroom, while sharing their insights, feelings and observations.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to Adult

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203, Marie Geelen - Using Cooperative Learning to Create the Caring Classroom

This interactive session will focus on the use of cooperative activity to facilitate the development of a caring classroom. Cooperative learning facilitates involvement by all: when everyone has a voice, we care about each other. The workshop will stress the importance of teaching appropriate behaviours through social skills, monitoring and tracking respectful behaviours, developing a consistent language, and involving students throughout the whole process. Schools participating in this process, already in place in many schools, have seen a decrease in bullying and other disrespectful behaviours.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades Pre-K to 5

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204, Cynthia Chiupka-Jozin - Cooperative Learning in the Language Classroom

Cooperative and brain-compatible classrooms offer emotional safety and an environment that is both challenging and engaging. In this interactive session, Cynthia will engage participants in considering how students learn through a variety of cooperative learning strategies that work well in second language classrooms (as well as first language). She will also show how performance assessment can be a useful resource in collecting information about student achievement. Participants will experience CL techniques in the process of evaluating and constructing performance strategies.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to Adult

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205, Don Plumb - Cooperative Learning and Effective Lesson Design

Do you ever feel like the hardest working person in the classroom? All of us have a tendency to teach the way that we were taught, and that teacher-centered approach continues in many classrooms, even if PowerPoint has replaced the overhead projector. Most teachers could increase their effectiveness with a more intentional approach to lesson design. The Learning Cycles approach recognizes four commonsense steps in effective lesson design and uses cooperative learning structures at each stage. If you are looking for ways to make your classes more energetic and your students more successful, come to this highly interactive workshop. Content from Science and Math will be featured but the approach can apply to any subject area.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to 12

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301, David and Roger Johnson - Academic Controversy in the Classroom

Creating intellectual conflict to improve academic learning is a powerful and important instructional tool. Academic controversies require a cooperative context and are an advanced form of cooperative learning. They allow the teacher to engage students in controversial issues (i.e. environmental questions, historical decisions, and current societal problems). Participants in this interactive workshop will learn the basic format for structuring academic controversies in their classrooms and experience the cooperative learning procedures that make them successful.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 5 to Adult

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302, Neil Davidson - Learnings from my 47 Years of Experience with Cooperative Learning

Research from the late 1960s to the present has shown powerful outcomes for cooperative learning. In this experiential presentation, participants will explore the rationale for cooperative learning, learn the main research outcomes, experience a variety of CL procedures, reflect on their uses, and address effective techniques for classroom management. They will also explore the critical elements of different CL models and reflect on the connection between cooperative learning and critical and creative thinking. The presenter has been involved in the development of cooperative learning for the past forty-seven years, and will share some of his learnings during that time period through story-telling, striking examples, and cooperative activities.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades K to Adult

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303, Mitch Zeltzer, Dynamix - Teambuilding with a Twist!

Bringing teamwork into your school will create an environment with less conflict, and more acceptance, inclusion and fun. Join us to play some exciting, hands-on, interactive teambuilding activities that you can bring into your school. Help your students think less “me” and more “WE”!
Already participated in a Dynamix workshop? Good news – this year's workshop brings a whole new set of activities for your classroom!

Beginner to Advanced / General

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304, Michael Alex and Krista Hunt - Now What? Engaging Students through Action Projects

It has been said that cooperative education can change the world. Our contention is that this will only happen if students explicitly learn how to make change in their lives and communities. In this workshop, participants will learn about how we use action projects in our own high school and university teaching to get students actively engaged in politics within and beyond the classroom. We will look in depth at the challenges and rewards of these projects for students and teachers. Participants will work cooperatively to apply this method to their own classrooms.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to 12

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305, Mark Miller - Reaching At-Risk Students Using Cooperative Learning

The challenge of reaching at-risk students will be a defining factor in the 21st century classroom. School boards and universities are working at the system level to provide resources, but how can an individual classroom teacher implement tactics and strategies that will create an environment where these students will thrive? Using cooperative learning as a pillar of classroom practice, combined with graphic organizers and alternative assessment practices, at-risk students (in particular, boys) find an environment where their ideas and approaches to learning are not only understood but also admired. In this hands-on workshop, educators will have an opportunity to interact with student work and establish an approach that they can take with them and begin to apply in their own classrooms.

Beginner to Advanced / Grades 7 to 12

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