2025 GOCSD Innovation Summit

This session will provide attendees the ability to work smarter, not harder, when designing common formative assessments. AI can be an excellent addition to any professional's toolbox. Presenters will show attendees how to use AI effectively and carefully to increase the rigor and quality of assessments, while maintaining coherence with district curriculum, standard expectations, and even standardized testing format. At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to create their own common formative assessments quickly and easily using AI as a thinking partner.

A panel of Southwest Missouri schools will showcase real world experiences through Registered Youth Apprenticeships and discuss the processes and experiences they have experienced with program implementation. Panelists will share their perspectives of helping students achieve success in obtaining a market-value asset with occupations that they have been able to utilize within their career pathways, the related-training instruction required and the industry partnership experiences that they have encountered. This session will define the basic concepts of RYA and some quick easy steps to begin implementing this into local school districts.

In today's classroom, educators face the challenge of competing with distractions and students' limited attention spans. This session provides strategies to capture and maintain engagement through effective hooks, engagement techniques, and the importance of repetition and review, supported by the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Additionally, we will explore the key prerequisites for achieving cognitive engagement. At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to implement engagement hooks, sustain student attention, incorporate effective reps and review, and identify prerequisites for cognitive engagement in the classroom.

Meeting the academic needs of all students can be exhausting. Teachers need high-quality tools to utilize in order to expedite this process. This session will explore Joplin School District's journey to support SPED educators with quality tiered instruction. Participants will gain insight and ideas needed to elevate tiered instruction in their district. Samples of instructional tools used by Joplin staff will also be provided.