Amazing Dragon Race @ the 4th Annual MTSS Symposium - August 5th, 2025

Explore how you can use Gemini and SchoolAI to support your professional responsibilities. Learn how to build lesson plans, give you strategies for improving teaching, develop project based learning lessons, and uncover new ideas for differentiation. AI is not just for your professional role, but learn how to put AI in kids hands with our new district license to SchoolAI.

Participants will walk away with actionable and practical ways to integrate AI into their classroom planning and instruction. They will also be able to use AI with fundamental literacy and knowledge of potential concerns and biases.

Empower students to become confident readers with evidence-based strategies from Lindsay Kemeny’s ""7 Mighty Moves"". This interactive session provides educators with seven classroom-tested strategies, grounded in the Science of Reading, to build strong literacy foundations in K–3 classrooms. Participants will walk away with practical, actionable strategies to implement the 7 Mighty Moves in their classrooms, along with tools to enhance students’ decoding, fluency, comprehension, and long-term literacy success.

Have you been hearing all the buzz about Total Participation Techniques and Building Thinking Classrooms? Are you interested in seeing what these are all about and getting a feel for what it means to have a thinking classroom with total participation? This session is intended for teachers who are interested in 'dipping their toes' into these sessions before committing to further exploration. 

Play isn’t a break from learning—it is learning. This session explores how playful, hands-on experiences can boost academic, social-emotional, and cognitive growth for students of all ages. Inspired by Purposeful Play and The Playful Classroom—and aligned with the NYSED Literacy Briefs—educators will discover how to make learning more joyful, rigorous, and meaningful.
In this session, participants will:

• Develop a playful mindset to bring more joy, creativity, and engagement into instruction
  
• Use structured play to support comprehension, collaboration, and critical thinking
  
• Balance different types of play to support literacy and curiosity across the curriculum
  
• Create classroom environments that support student voice, equity, and emotional growth
  

Participants will break into elementary and secondary groups to explore grade-specific strategies.
Elementary Focus:
Educators of kindergarten and first grade will dive into playful learning with LEGO® bricks. This hands-on segment will go beyond free play, showing how LEGO® can support reading, math, science, and social-emotional learning through intentional, purposeful activities.
Secondary Focus:
Middle and high school educators will explore how to embed play, creativity, and student choice into academic learning. From simulations and debates to design challenges and inquiry-based projects, participants will learn how playful approaches can enhance critical thinking, engagement, and real-world application in older learners—without sacrificing rigor.
Because learning doesn’t start after play—it starts through it. 

Participants will walk away with skills to integrate LEGO® bricks into reading, skills and SEL learning experiences

This session focuses on the cognitive processes involved in sensemaking, exploring how individuals and teams interpret ambiguous information, construct coherent narratives, and develop shared understanding. Participants will learn practical frameworks and techniques to enhance their students' capacity to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, and generate actionable insights from complex situations, ultimately fostering more effective problem-solving and strategic thinking.

In this interactive session, educators will uncover powerful, student-centered strategies that boost engagement, spark curiosity, and make learning more meaningful for all students. Through academic games, collaborative learning structures, and tech-enhanced activities, participants will explore practical ways to create interactive, participatory classrooms that keep students invested.

At the same time, this session will challenge educators to reflect on their role in fostering culturally responsive teaching practices. Anchored in the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CRSE) Framework, participants will explore its four guiding principles and discover how to honor the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities of all learners—including Multilingual Learners.

Participants will walk away with ready-to-use engagement tools, technology integrations, and equity-driven practices that foster inclusive, energized classrooms and build stronger school communities.

Explore the real story behind the Millennial generation through the lens of Malcolm Harris’s Kids These Days. This engaging session challenges the common stereotypes and takes a deeper look at how economic pressure, rising expectations, and changing social systems have shaped today’s educators.Participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of the challenges Millennial educators face, along with practical ideas to support staff well-being, engagement, and resilience in today’s schools. This session is ideal for school leaders, coaches, and anyone working to build supportive, inclusive work environments.

How do you get the learning to stick? What evidence-based practices help students retain knowledge AND apply critical thinking skills? This full day workshop explores cognitive science research on how our brain learns, processes, and stores information. The research will be connected to instructional practices that are can be integrated into any classroom and subject area.

Participants will leave with an instructional playbook that increases teacher effectiveness and student learning.

Unlock the power of play to transform your math classroom! This dynamic professional development session will equip you with practical strategies and ready-to-use math games that seamlessly integrate into your daily routines. Move beyond rote memorization and empower your students to develop crucial 21st-century skills through engaging gameplay.

In this interactive session, you will:

* Play fun math games that help students solve problems, think logically, and work together.
* See why games are great for learning: They make math interesting and help students understand it better.
* Find easy ways to use games in your daily lessons – for warm-ups, quick activities, and more.
* Choose the right games for your students and what they need to learn.
* Get kids working together and talking about math through games.
* Take away simple game ideas you can use right away.

This session is perfect for elementary and secondary math teachers, special education teachers, curriculum specialists, and anyone looking to inject excitement and deeper learning into their math instruction.

Join us and discover how to "level up" your math class, one game at a time!

What's next? You completed one or both of the study groups on Building Thinking Classrooms and Total Participation, now what? This session is for those colleagues who are ready to collaborate and extend their knowledge while embedding these strategies into their classroom.

Congratulations, you've completed your Amazing Race for professional growth! Now, it's time to gather at The Amazing Synthesis: Ideas for the Road Ahead. This isn't just a finish line; it's a launchpad. In this dynamic session, we'll synthesize the insights, innovations, and inspiration gained throughout our professional development day. You'll have the opportunity to share your key takeaways with colleagues, collaboratively brainstorm solutions, and map out concrete plans for applying your new knowledge and skills. Get ready to transform individual breakthroughs into collective progress as we chart our course for the exciting journey ahead.