Attendees will explore how to support staff, students, and families to use an agile and resilient mindset during uncertain times. We will examine an existing K-College hybrid learning model, discuss how to model a flexible mindset, and re-examine our current challenges through a "silver linings" and "leaning in" lens.

Are you tired of hearing, "these are unprecedented times"? How might we take the opportunity we find ourselves in to re-tool, evolve, and better design school for ALL kids! To do so, we are going to have to tend to school culture, talent, and design! This session will give a snapshot into the process our public middle school is taking on to come out of these times as the next best version of what we aspire to for all kids. Do we have answers for you? Depends how you look at it. We will tip the lid on what we focus on and believe about organizational culture, how we leverage talent and are actively utilizing design as we work to be better than ever!

“Often, when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else,” Fred Rogers once said. That’s exactly where we find ourselves now — what “something else” will look like is largely up to us. So, what might we do today to make Tomorrow better for every learner? And, in particular, how might we prioritize deep and caring relationships among learners and the caring adults in their lives. That’s what we aim to find out, together.

There are plenty of logistical obstacles and scenarios for how schools will reopen and just like our approaches to emergency remote learning varied, our approaches to next year will as well. In any scenario, you will have to leverage guiding principles to make decisions. We have an opportunity, and obligation to design for powerful learning that meets the needs of learners. In this workshop, we will think about how to redesign and optimize for learning that recognizes the strengths, challenges, and opportunities for each learner.

Entrepreneurial learning has the potential to help young people connect their internal brilliance with the challenges around them. But what happens when the challenges are pandemic-size and the classroom is online? Join us for a design session to explore how we might integrate entrepreneurial learning into virtual spaces as a way to connect students and provide opportunities for authentic learning and empowerment.

Feedback is essential to growth and in distance learning environments our educators have the opportunity to think differently about how they provide the routine and timely feedback our students crave. Join us for a design session as we dig into the question: How might we provide meaningful feedback for our students in remote learning environments? Together we will examine our values as parents, educators, and learners and how these values impact our planning for Fall. Participants will have an opportunity to share their thinking and imagine possibilities as we embark on a new future of learning in Fall, and beyond.

The century-old traditional education model is no longer serving today's students. Students lack both soft and hard skills to thrive in an increasingly turbulent environment. In this session, the presenter will discuss five missing links in today's education and suggest an alternative model that can help future-proof the next generation.

Leading superintendents will describe their systemic efforts to transform the learner experience.

COVID-19 is changing the face of human interaction, not just in schools, but out of schools as well. Big Picture Learning, which has long held the importance of building strong learner-adults relationships through mentorships, is already rethinking how internships can evolve in a distance-learning environment. Additionally, without knowing what “school” may look like in the fall, we see internships as a potential pressure release for administrators seeking ways to keep students engaged, both together and apart. Join this panel as we grapple with these issues in real time.

Join four leaders who will illuminate the opportunities state and district education leaders can take to meet the unique needs, interests, and aspirations of all young people in public education during and beyond this pandemic. This is an unprecedented moment to reassemble the ways we support, organize, finance, and credential learning that work unmistakably for each of our learners and their communities.

This synchronous workshop will explore our current context and possibilities for what lies ahead, through the lens of the learner experience. Using interactive protocols we will collectively consider project-based learning as a way to move us forward.

In this learner-led session, two Harbor Freight Fellows share about their learning experience pre- and post-COVID, and how the fellowship has built their resilience to tackle whatever life throws their way. This engaging session will invite participants to ask the learners about their experience and take part in a ten-minute design challenge that will open up once unknown possibilities. Harbor Freight Fellows offers apprenticeships for youths and young adults who show significant potential and passion for the traditional and contemporary trades.

Join four powerful youth leaders for a provocative conversation about why we must transform our country's education system now. Hear their first-hand stories of how learner-centered education has equipped them with a clear sense of agency and a commitment to contributing to their community and world. Leave inspired about what you can do to start or embolden your communities' shift toward learner-centered education, no matter your role.

Learn how you can cultivate learner agency and unleash the superpowers within every participant in your learning community (adults and young people alike). In this session, Learning Experience Designers from Design39 will invite you to ponder: What are you energized by? This question drives Design39’s culture of radical connectivity, a pillar that has allowed them to transform learning for every young person they serve.

Profession-based learning knocks down the walls of a conventional classroom and places young people side-by-side with industry professionals. In this session, join practitioners from the CAPS Network to learn what profession-based learning looks like and how these leaders have pivoted to the "new normal" of virtual learning. Examples will include the inaugural Virtual Career Week and "Team COVID" professional skill modules. Attendees will be invited to share best practices of their own and imagine new possibilities and experiments for deployment in the fall.