CREATE ENGAGING SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE

Neuroscience and technology are merging to transform schools, eliminating rows of desks, teacher-centered instruction, and bored students. The learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, are merging with teaching and technology for evidence-based curriculum and assessments; with virtual reality games to improve student engagement and learning experiences; with robotics to teach coding and create future ready students; and with gaming, makerspaces, and design thinking to transform classrooms into engaging, collaborative, learning spaces.

Find out how you can transform your school, classroom, and curriculum for the future and increase engagement by merging neuroscience, virtual reality, robotics, makerspaces, and classroom redesign.

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Using robotics to teach STEM, coding, and 21st Century skills

Create engaging spaces, schools, curricula, and classrooms

How virtual reality improves empathy, learning, and engagement

Using evidence-based research with teaching, technology, and testing

Teaching reading, writing, and language arts with gaming and making

Rethinking times, schedules, structures, spaces, learning and leadership

Incorporating ideas from "hacking” and “flipping” to change education

How physical and virtual environments affect brains and achievement

Engaging students by redesigning learning, maker, and virtual spaces

Promoting empathy and changing behaviors with virtual experiences

Effects of job automation and ways to prepare future ready students

Rethinking teachers' roles, grades, assessments, and homework

Improving Literacy in the Digital Age

Featured Speakers

The Rise of Personal Robots in Classrooms: Implications for Education

Cynthia L. Breazeal, ScD

Neuroscience Meets Technology: A Vision of the Future of Classroom Learning and Assessments

Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD

Director, Neuroscape; Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; Co-Founder and Chief Science Advisor, Akili Interactive Labs; Creator of VR games, such as NeuroRacer, and the Glass Brain, a 3D brain visualization that combines neuroimaging technologies of MRI and EEG to display personalized, real-time brain activity while learning; Host, PBS special "The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley"; Co-Author, “Enhancing Attention in Children Using an Integrated Cognitive-Physical Video Game” (2023) and The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World (2016)

From Augmented to Virtual Learning: Affordances of Different Mixes of Reality for Learning

Eric D. Klopfer, PhD

Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow's Schools, Today

Eric C. Sheninger, MEd

Hacking the Old School: Reimagining Schools and Classrooms

Mark D. Barnes, MAEd

3.0 - Teaching, Learning, and Leading in Unprecedented Times

Jonathan Bergmann, MAEd

Bold Moves for Schools: Creating Modern Learning Spaces, Schedules, and Curriculum

Heidi Hayes Jacobs, EdD

Conference Chair

David B. Daniel, PhD

Short, Conference Chair: Professor Emeritus of Psychology, James Madison University; Former Executive Director and Founding Board Member, International Mind, Brain, and Education Society; Former Managing Editor, Mind, Brain, and Education Journal; Winner of the 2013 L&B/IMBES “Transforming Education Through Neuroscience” Award; Recognized in the “Top 1% of Educational Researchers Influencing Public Debate” in the US; Co-Author, “Toward an Ecological Science of Teaching” (2021, Canadian Psychology), “Educational Neuroscience: Are We There Yet?” (2019, Wiley Handbook on Education) and “Promising Principles: Translating the Science of Learning to Educational Practice” (2012, Applied Research in Memory and Cognition)

Keynote Panel Moderator

Joseph South, PhD

TRANSFORM SCHOOLS: CREATING ENGAGING LEARNING SPACES, SCHEDULES, & CURRICULUM

Transform Schools, Curriculum, and Assessment to 4 Dimensions for Future Ready Students

Gravity Goldberg, EdD

Educational Consultant; Former Assistant Professor of Education, Iona College; Former Instructor and Staff Developer, Teachers College, Columbia University; Author, Teach Like Yourself (2018) and Mindsets and Moves: Strategies That Help Readers Take Charge (2015); Co-Author, Active Learning: 40 Teaching Methods to Engage Students in Every and Subject (2023), What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? (2017), and Conferring With Readers (2007)

Time, Space, and Activity: Redesigning College Classes for Flipped Learning Experiences

Robert Talbert, PhD

Transforming the High School Experience: Learning Reimagined

Robert W. Dillon, EdD

Hacking the Old School: Reimagining Schools and Classrooms

Mark D. Barnes, MAEd

3.0 - Teaching, Learning, and Leading in Unprecedented Times

Jonathan Bergmann, MAEd

Assessing, Impacting, and Engaging: Using Technology to Meet Diverse Student Needs

Eric M. Carbaugh, PhD

Bold Moves for Schools: Creating Modern Learning Spaces, Schedules, and Curriculum

Heidi Hayes Jacobs, EdD

Transforming Schools with Learning Science and Technology Rich-Learning Environments

Jennifer S. Groff, EdM

Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Design Tomorrow's Schools, Today

Eric C. Sheninger, MEd

Massachusetts State Coordinator, Educator Rising, PDK International; Student and Family Advocate; Chief Operating Officer, Partner, Mastery Portfolio, LLC; Author, Student-Led Assessment: Promoting Agency and Achievement Through Portfolios and Conferences (2024), Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways To Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (2022, 2nd Edition), Assessing with Respect: Everyday Practices That Meet Students’ Social and Emotional Needs (2021), and From Teacher to Leader: Finding Your Way as a First-Time Leader without Losing Your Mind (2019); Co-Author, Solving School Challenges: The Everything Guide to Transformative Change (2025) and Hacking Learning Centers in Grades 6-12 (2021)

FormativeTech: Meaningful, Sustainable, and Scalable Formative Assessments

Monica Burns, EdD

EdTech and Curriculum Consultant; Apple Distinguished Educator; Founder of ClassTechTips.com and Blog; Host of the “Easy EdTech” Podcast; Author, Using AI Chatbots to Enhance Planning and Instruction (2023), EdTech Essentials: The Top 10 Technology Strategies for All Learning Environment (2021), and Tasks Before Apps (2017)

Unleash the Science of Learning: Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies to Transform the Classroom

Pooja K. Agarwal, PhD

Cognitive Scientist; Associate Professor of Psychology, Berklee College of Music; Founder, RetrievalPractice.org; Former K-12 Teacher; Editor, Smart Teaching Stronger Learning (2025); Author, "Retrieval practice: A Power Tool for Lasting Learning (2020, ASCD) and "Retrieval Practice and Bloom's Taxonomy: Do Students Need Fact Knowledge Before Higher Order Learning? (2019, Journal of Educational Psychology); Co-Author, "Retrieval Practice Consistently Benefits Student Learning: A Systematic Review of Applied Research in Schools and Classrooms" (2021, Educational Psychology Review), Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning (2019), and "Benefits From Retrieval Practice Are Greater for Students With Lower Working Memory Capacity" (2017, Memory)

TRANSFORM READING & WRITING: TEACHING FOR DIGITAL LITERACY

Learning Vocabulary from Educational Digital Media: The Role of Pedagogical Supports for Low-Income Preschoolers

Susan B. Neuman, EdD

Make Writing: A Writing Workshop Redesign with Making in Mind

Angela Stockman, MS

Connected, Digital, Different: Teaching Adolescents to Read and Write in a Digital World

Kristen Hawley Turner, PhD

Professor, Caspersen School of Graduate Studies; Director, Drew Writing Project and Digital Literacies Collaborative; Director of Teacher Education, Drew University; Director, Contemporary Learning and Interdisciplinary Research (CLAIR), Fordham University Graduate School of Education; Consultant, National Writing Project; Lead Editor, "Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care" Blog; Co-Author, Argument in the Real World: Teaching Adolescents to Read and Write Digital Texts (2017) and Connected Reading: Teaching Adolescent Readers in a Digital Age (2015)

The Hero's Journey: World of Warcraft and Tolkien Drive EPIC Learning for ELA

Peggy Sheehy, MLIS, MALS