UCET 2025

Join us to explore the neuroscience behind burnout and discover research-based strategies to recharge and renew. Learn about mindfulness and compassion practices as effective interventions and experience a guided mindfulness session. Leave equipped with practical tools to combat burnout and thrive in your career.

Poster Location: Table 2 (map)

As leaders, you will learn how to enhance your strengths to build teacher capacity using Google Sites. The presentation will highlight elements of Adult Learning Theory and how leaders can leverage them to create a culture of continuous learning within your building. During the presentation, you will see various examples of how Google Sites have been used to onboard new hires, structure new school initiatives, and strengthen school culture. After each section, you will have time to reflect and develop your own individualized action plan that can be implemented in your building. You will collaborate with peers to refine your ideas to address your specific school needs. At the end of the session, you will have created a draft Google Site. This session will be ideal for school stakeholders, administrators, instructional coaches, mentors, department leads, and teacher leaders.

Discover how to create a thriving school culture with insights from Daniel Coyle's best-seller, The Culture Code. This presentation is designed for educators, instructional coaches, and school leaders who want to improve their leadership skills. By understanding the importance of safety, vulnerability, and purpose, you can create an environment where people feel comfortable taking risks, sharing ideas, and working towards a common goal.

Poster Location: Table 1 (map)

In today’s digital world, teachers have become more than classroom leaders; they are influential figures online. InstaTeacher explores how educators can use social media to build their professional identity, advocate for their roles, and strengthen connections with the broader school community. This session dives into key strategies for: Self-Advocacy & Self-Presentation: Learn how to create a professional online presence that reflects your teaching philosophy and promotes your leadership. Community Guidelines: Understand the importance of establishing clear boundaries to protect yourself, your students, and your school in the social media space. Community Outreach: Discover how to engage with parents, students, and fellow educators through social platforms to foster collaboration and support. Digital Literacy: Equip yourself and your students with the skills to critically analyze and create content online. Healthy Student-Teacher Relationships: Explore how to build safe, respectful, and professional online interactions with students while maintaining clear boundaries. Whether you're new to social media or a seasoned pro, this session provides practical insights and tools to help you lead confidently in the digital space. You'll leave ready to enhance your online presence, advocate for your profession, and connect meaningfully with your community.

Educators continue to feel the increasing challenges and pressures of our current education system. Unfortunately, this can at times lead any one of us - once inspired and hope filled - to feel burnt out, question our purpose and ability to impact those we strive to support, and overlook the opportunities right before us. There is another way. We can begin to shift our perspectives. Taking on paradigms of possibility can allow us to remain solution-oriented and see beyond the surface while staying true to ourselves and our students. We don’t need to ignore reality or simply accept toxic positivity, rather we can hold fast to ourselves, our values, and our reason for entering the profession while finding sustainable solutions and making the difference we held tight as we entered this important profession.

In an era where technology is integral to education, implementing a one-to-one device program can be met with skepticism. This session will equip educators and school leaders with strategies to address parental concerns and foster a supportive community around technology use. Learn how to effectively communicate the educational benefits of technology, such as personalized learning and real-world skill development. We will explore practical ways to involve parents in the digital journey by providing them with tools to help their children develop healthy digital habits. Drawing on evidence-based practices, attendees will leave with actionable strategies to create a balanced digital environment at home and school. Join us to ensure that technology becomes a bridge, not a barrier, in your educational community. (Session description written with support of schoolai)

Transforming student learning outcomes requires more than just great programs—it demands systemic change driven by evidence-based practices, strategic leadership, and the effective use of digital resources. In this interactive session, we’ll explore the science of implementation, uncovering why only 14% of initiatives succeed over 17 years—and how districts can achieve an 80% success rate in just 3 years with intentional action.

We’ll leverage the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) to help district leaders focus on the high-impact 20% of efforts that drive 80% of results in technology adoption, instructional implementation, and leadership decision-making. Special emphasis will be placed on how digital tools can support fidelity of Science of Reading implementation, streamline data-driven decision-making, and enhance teacher effectiveness.

Join us to gain practical strategies for moving from vision to action, ensuring that research-backed initiatives take root and thrive in your district.

Navigating the comprehensive USBE Framework for mentor training can be overwhelming. \"Growing a Mentor: Developing Mentor Training using the USBE Framework\" offers practical strategies to simplify and customize it for effective use in school districts. Led by Amy Wood, NBCT, this session focuses on integrating adult learning principles by offering personalized options through a choice board. Participants will learn to distill key components, prioritize essential skills, and tailor content to their district’s unique needs. With over ten years of mentoring leadership experience, Amy’s insights will guide educators in creating impactful training experiences that empower mentors to support peers effectively. Discover how to transform the USBE Framework into a user-friendly format that fosters a thriving educational community. Gain strategies to elevate mentorship programs and teaching standards, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement through engaging, choice-driven learning.

JSD Mentor Playbook Link

When I accepted the position as curriculum specialist 4 years ago, I wasn't aware of how much time I would spend digging through data from so many different sources. Whether I was looking at fancy premade reports or digging through a 214-column .csv file (cough...Acadience...cough), I felt the struggle of providing timely, relevant, and easily digestible data to my teachers in a fragmented environment where every data source looked and behaved so differently. In order to remedy this, I have created a system for aggregating all of our student assessment, attendance, and demographic data into one place--one sheet (or better, database) to rule them all. This allows me to access, sort, filter, and present the data in many different ways depending on need, and it means that as a district, we spend more time discussing the data and what it means than we do gathering it. Join me as I walk you through the process we went through as a district to create this database and present some strategies for dealing with massive amounts of data that I have learned over the last four years. If you are interested in the technical side of being a more data-driven school or district, this session is for you.

During the last five years, educators have confronted a number of systemic challenges, including pandemic learning loss, accelerated adoption of educational technology, increased public scrutiny of educational programs, rising student absenteeism, and the emergence of artificial intelligence. Now more than ever, it’s vital for educators to set a clear vision for the future of education that centers systems for promoting authentic student engagement and belonging. As Alberto Ríos might say, together we “can build a house called tomorrow” by cultivating within our students a deeper sense of autonomy, a greater sense of empowerment, and a lasting belief in the power of learning.