This one-day session focuses on patterns and relationships among numbers and objects in different types of expressions, equations, and inequalities through different representations. Participants will explore student-invented strategies, analyze evidence of student understanding to inform planing of next instructional steps, discuss the importance of sense-making, and explore the impact of concrete, semi-concrete, and abstract learning opportunities on the development of conceptual understanding and connection to the ACT assessment.
Private session for preregistered participants. The AMSTI Math Foundations is a prerequisite course. Participants must attend both part 1 and part 2. AMSTI is not able to provide materials and supplies following the training.
Relay Day is an exciting and action-packed event where individuals or teams come together to participate in a series of relay races, fostering a spirit of teamwork, competition, and community. It’s a day dedicated to practicing ACT skills/strategies while having fun and bonding with others. The event typically features a variety of relay races, each designed to challenge participants in different ways, including practicing testing skills while competing against their peers. Relay Day encourages collaboration, sportsmanship, and healthy competition, leaving participants with a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie, as well as good fun practice for the ACT.
Looking for a game-changer to streamline your classroom routines, boost engagement, and save your sanity? Come see why Classroom Screen is every teacher’s favorite digital sidekick! This all-in-one tool helps you manage transitions, timers, noise levels, and more—with just a few clicks. Whether you're teaching littles or teens, this session will have you saying, "Where has this been all my life?"
Warning: May cause extreme excitement, classroom calm, and jealous coworkers. 😎 Come scream (with joy) about Classroom Screen with us!
Are your students engaged in deep thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration—or are they just waiting for answers? In this dynamic session, we’ll explore Building Thinking Classrooms strategies that shift students from passive receivers of information to active thinkers and doers. Rooted in Peter Liljedahl’s research, these strategies empower students to take ownership of their learning while fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and perseverance.
What You’ll Learn: ✅ Strategies for forming randomized, collaborative groups that increase participation and accountability ✅ Techniques to reduce student dependency on direct instruction while increasing engagement ✅ Practical ways to shift classroom norms so students take risks, share ideas, and develop persistence
Why Attend? Expect an interactive, hands-on experience where you’ll engage in thinking tasks just like your students would. Walk away with ready-to-use strategies that can be implemented immediately in any secondary classroom—whether you teach math, science, or humanities.
English learners have to juggle learning math and a new language at the same time. In this session, we’ll look at easy, practical ways to weave language supports into your daily math routines using the WIDA language standards. Walk away with ready-to-use strategies and examples to boost both math and language learning.
In this session, participants will learn strategies to engage students in critical thinking and inquiry with Gizmos. Participants will also discuss best practices for using simulations, how to incorporate literacy and develop a deeper understanding to support student learning in a standards-based science classroom.
Tiffany Christian is an Area Implementation Coordinator with ExploreLearning in the Mid-Atlantic region. She has 17 years of experience in public education as a gifted math and science teacher, an academic coach, and a district K-12 science instructional lead. She currently lives... Read More →
Monday July 21, 2025 10:00am - 10:50am CDT Room 93
When your class gets out of hand. You need a break! Your students need a break! But what do you do?!?!? Come to this session and obtain useful mini lesson plans that will give you the tools to provided your class easy to execute artistically mindful brain breaks. Brain Breaks are short structured activities designed to help students or even teachers to reset, refocus, and re-energize the mind. These breaks often incorporate movement, mindfulness, or sensory activity to improve focus and learning. They are quick and effective to reduce fatigue, boredom, and frustration. Just a few examples: altered book prompts and postcard sketches. But these are just a few....come to find out MORE ideas!
Hello!I am excited to be returning to GRITC as a presenter!I graduated with my bachelors of fine art and master's of education from the University of Montevallo, which is located in Montevallo, AL.I am married and we live in Loxley. I teach elementary art and I absolutely love it... Read More →
Oral assessments are essential for measuring language proficiency—but let’s be honest, they can be time-consuming and tricky to grade, which makes them easy to avoid. In this practical and encouraging session, world language teachers will explore ways to make oral assessments more accessible, efficient, and student-friendly.
Learn how to:
Give quick, clear feedback that answers every student’s favorite question: “What grade did I get?”
Grade multiple students at once—whether in pairs, small groups, or individually
Use ACTFL-aligned rubrics designed to be simple, clear, and non-intimidating for students
Empower all learners to succeed while saving yourself time and energy
Walk away with ready-to-use tools, grading strategies, and renewed confidence in incorporating oral assessments into your classroom.
Imagine cutting hours off your planning time while delivering more engaging, personalized lessons—sounds like magic, right? Magic School AI is the ultimate AI-powered tool designed for all teachers, in all subjects, at all grade levels! From generating lesson plans and assessments to providing instant differentiation and feedback, this platform does the heavy lifting so you can focus on what truly matters—your students.
Join this session to see how AI can streamline your workload, spark creativity, and supercharge student learning. Whether you're a tech newbie or an AI enthusiast, you'll walk away with practical strategies to make AI your most powerful teaching assistant!
Let’s work smarter, not harder—because teaching should be magical!
This session is also offered on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tired of teaching in a silo? This session will show you how to build meaningful cross-curricular connections that engage students and reinforce key skills across all content areas. Whether you're in math, science, CTE, ELA, social studies, or the arts, you’ll explore easy ways to collaborate, design relevant lessons, and bring real-world learning into your classroom. From using parables in math, to novel circles with STEAM, to workplace readiness through technical writing and soft skills—this session offers practical, tested examples that can inspire your next unit and energize your instruction.
English learners have to juggle learning math and a new language at the same time. In this session, we’ll look at easy, practical ways to weave language supports into your daily math routines using the WIDA language standards. Walk away with ready-to-use strategies and examples to boost both math and language learning.
Gizmos is a STEM interactive learning tool used to provide opportunities for students to make connections, discover concepts, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Teachers can create deeper and meaningful lessons integrating academic standards and technology with Gizmos activities. Come ready to see how Gizmos can help support you and your students as we model lessons, share Gizmos and academic standard correlation lists, discuss experiences, and provide time to support you in exploring specific Gizmos for implementation in your classroom.
In this session, participants will learn strategies to engage students in critical thinking and inquiry with Gizmos. Participants will also discuss best practices for using simulations, how to incorporate literacy and develop a deeper understanding to support student learning in a standards-based science classroom.
Tiffany Christian is an Area Implementation Coordinator with ExploreLearning in the Mid-Atlantic region. She has 17 years of experience in public education as a gifted math and science teacher, an academic coach, and a district K-12 science instructional lead. She currently lives... Read More →
Monday July 21, 2025 12:00pm - 12:50pm CDT Room 93
The Alabama Science and Engineering Fair provides an amazing opportunity for your middle and high school students to showcase their independent STEM Research Projects. Students perform research that they choose, collect data, interpret results and then communicate their findings at local, regional, state, and national competitions for top dollar prizes.
Coordinator, Alabama Science and Engineering Fair, Auburn University
Hi! I'm helping coordinate the state of Alabama Science and Engineering Fair (ASEF), which will be held at Auburn University on Saturday, April 5, 2025. Let me know how I can help start up or improve Science Fair at your school!
Come see how Discovery Education’s Learning Platform can support your learners anytime, anywhere. We will review how to search and filter through multimodal content to find the best resources to support your students’ learning journey. We will explore how to use instructional strategies that maximize the effectiveness of digital content as well as incorporate the use of Discovery Education’s Studio & AI Assessment Teacher Tools to show how students can communicate their learning.
I want to give educators an overview of what my role is as a career coach and how I can help assist students with plans after high school. This can be done through resume workshops, mock interviews, and 1 on 1 sessions to link students with community contacts we have created in our role. It often creates a reachable goal for a student and can sometimes spark motivation that wasn't there prior.
I also want to highlight the different ways that we can infuse industry contacts from the community into what is being taught in the classroom through guest speakers and field trips. Exposing students to industry professionals I often find it creates links to the content that are valuable in fostering engagement with the material being used.
This session will prepare teachers to meet troublesome topics head-on and teach more effectively with Gizmos. This session will support middle and high school math teachers as they grapple with the modern requirements from fractions to ratios and proportions to functions instruction in state standards. Participants will gain specific strategies for leading students to a conceptual understanding of math concepts and learn techniques for differentiating instructions for students.
Tiffany Christian is an Area Implementation Coordinator with ExploreLearning in the Mid-Atlantic region. She has 17 years of experience in public education as a gifted math and science teacher, an academic coach, and a district K-12 science instructional lead. She currently lives... Read More →
Come learn about tie-dye. Learn how easy it would be to do tie-dye for yourself, a group, a class, a club, or even the entire school! Let's tie-dye Baldwin county!!!!
Bring a 100% COTTON T-shirt the morning of your session, drop it in the bucket, and then come back and tie-dye a beautiful creation!!!!
Hello!I am excited to be returning to GRITC as a presenter!I graduated with my bachelors of fine art and master's of education from the University of Montevallo, which is located in Montevallo, AL.I am married and we live in Loxley. I teach elementary art and I absolutely love it... Read More →
Join this Discovery Education session where we discuss how to bring meaningful conversations to your classroom through a wide span of diverse people and industries that power our world. Career Connect is a new tool that helps prepare students for career readiness and cross-curricular connections in an easy-to-use and accessible environment. With this tool you can connect your classroom to real professionals with real stories, in real-time. Spark engagement in your classrooms, no matter what subject you teach!
Get ready to bring the excitement of March Madness into your Spanish classroom—with music! In this energizing session, world language teachers will learn how to implement Locura de Marzo, a classroom-friendly music bracket competition featuring 16 Spanish-language songs.
You'll discover:
How to create and organize a song bracket for students to vote on their favorites
A variety of engaging activities to accompany each song, including quality resources, including lyrics, artist info, and cultural context
How to incorporate language learning through vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and lyric analysis
This activity offers students a fresh and fun break from the usual grammar and vocabulary drills while introducing them to the vibrant world of Spanish-speaking music and culture. It’s a student favorite that builds cultural awareness, listening skills, and vocabulary—all through the power of music.
This interactive Learning Lab is your one-stop shop to achieve your Kami Level 1 AND 2 certifications. Our expert navigator will guide you through hands-on exercises and collaborative explorations, ensuring you deeply understand Kami's core features and unlock more advanced functionalities. From annotation essentials to collaborative document design and interactive assignments, you'll leave this session with the skills and certifications to confidently integrate Kami into your teaching and engage your students. Prepare to elevate your Kami prowess and cast off towards enhanced learning experiences!
Mantha Camacho is a Teaching and Learning Coordinator with Kami. Before joining Kami, she taught for 18 years in public education, with most of those years in a DAEP setting. She is a Google Level 2 Certified educator, was voted Teacher of the Year in 2008, and served in several leadership... Read More →
Building an engaging classroom community might be easier than you think! By facilitating cooperative learning opportunities and advocating for student choice, engagement and community build on one another.
