Please Note:

• Stipends/honorariums will not be provided.
• Notification of acceptance by Friday, September 1.
• Deadline to submit or modify proposals is Tuesday, August 15.
• One free conference registration will be provided per session, no matter how many presenters.
• You will be expected to provide session resources by posting them to the conference website.

Conference Partners:

• South Dakota Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (SDASCD)
• South Dakota Education Association (SDEA)
• Technology and Innovation in Education (TIE)
• South Dakota Department of Education (SD DOE)
• South Dakota Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (SDACTE)

This year the conference is also inviting proposals from beyond the conference partners to include the entire educational community.

Strands:

The conference will lead off with a keynote presentation from Tony Frontier about Five Levers to Improve Learning. These five levers (structure, sample, standards, strategies, self) will serve as “strands” for the breakout sessions during the conference. There will also be a strand for “book talks” highlighting professional literature and a strand for “other” for topics addressing current efforts and challenges involved with systemic change. Please designate which strand(s) your proposal addresses.

• Structure: Logistical components of districts, schools, and classrooms such as schedules, staffing, and administrative processes.  Examples includes changes to school size, class size, annual calendar, and daily schedule.
• Sample: Grouping of students in any classroom or program at any given time.  Examples include heterogeneous/homogeneous grouping of students, gender separate classes, access to accelerated programs and coursework.
• Standards: Expectations for quality and articulated pathways for growth related to student learning.  Examples include: state content standards, school-level criteria for student performance, teacher expectations for quality work.
• Strategies: The practices teachers use to help students deepen their understanding of content and improve student’s ability to use important skills.  Examples include: whole class instruction, individualized instruction, curriculum compacting, technology integration, efforts to empower students as partners in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
• Self: Beliefs that teachers and students have about their capacity to be effective.  Examples include teacher efficacy, autonomy, and support, student confidence, learned helplessness, growth mind-sets.
• Book Talk: Sessions highlighting professional books.  Selected sessions will have their books featured at the conference, available free with the registrant’s coupon.
• Other: Topics could include mentoring programs, certification changes, teacher leadership, instructional coaching, testing, data analysis, etc.

After you have read through the above information, we welcome you to SUBMIT A PROPOSAL TO PRESENT by creating an account, logging in and filling out the submission form.