Deeper Learning New York

Creating engaging and effective classroom practices that connect academic learning and life-long skills can be challenging. Come explore how learner-centered instructional strategies enable teachers to seamlessly integrate academic content with essential skills development (such as communication and collaboration). In this session, participants will experience and create meaningful and equitable student-centered lessons aligning NYS content standards with the skills identified in the NYS Portrait of a Graduate.

Creating engaging and effective classroom practices that connect academic learning and life-long skills can be challenging. Come explore how learner-centered instructional strategies enable teachers to seamlessly integrate academic content with essential skills development (such as communication and collaboration). In this session, participants will experience and  create meaningful and equitable student-centered lessons aligning  NYS content standards with the skills identified in the NYS Portrait of a Graduate.

This will be a follow-up to the keynote presentation. In this session, Yong Zhao will work together with the audience to dive deeper into the new learning paradigm and explore how personalized learning can be realized in the classroom.

As this tumultuous school year ends, many educators feel the pull toward scarcity, retreat, and self-preservation. This Den Talk invites participants to resist that urge and instead explore what it means to design forward—rooting change in shared purpose, equity, and bold collaboration.
Drawing from his unique role as both a systems leader and connector for eight school districts in Ulster County, Jonah Schenker will share how his team is reimagining education—not through cutbacks, but through expansive, values-driven transformation. From co-creating the Ulster County NY Inspires Playbook to elevating every voice across the educational ecosystem, this conversation will surface concrete examples of how communities can align around human-centered, future-facing design—even in politically and financially uncertain times.
Participants will be invited into a candid dialogue about:

• Reframing professionalism as courageous, inclusive leadership
• Building trust through local context and co-design
• Cultivating cultures of belonging, relevance, and possibility
• Leading with hope and action in the face of disruption

This is not just a conversation about education policy—it’s an invitation to imagine what we can build together that none of us can build alone.