2022 Virtual Conference: Free Webinars on ELA + STEM

March 21 at 6 p.m. EDT | PreK-12
AFT President Randi Weingarten
Join this special welcome session for an important update on the state of public education and help us kick off the 2022 Virtual Conference. It’s also the last day to enter the self-care giveaway.

March 22 at 3 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
Journeys in Film
Prepare your Earth Day lessons now. Join Journeys in Film for this invigorating panel discussion with climate educators and scientists as they demonstrate the power of using Climate Emergencies: Feedback Loops, a series of five short films, in the classroom to engage and inspire students to build a sustainable future through increased understanding of forests, permafrost, etc.

March 22 at 3 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
Random House Children’s Books
How will you use poetry to encourage student voices this Poetry Month? Join Random House Children’s Books authors to discover how poetry can be used in the classroom to validate student experience and offer a creative outlet. Learn strategies for familiarizing students with reading, writing, and performing poetry.

March 22 at 4 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
Folger Shakespeare Library
In the chaos and pain of today, do you ever miss the sparks that first drew you to teaching? Do you want to breathe fresh life into your classroom? Do you want to help every student do hard things on their own, but sometimes struggle to make complexity fun? Do your students need more tools for interacting energetically with texts, ideas, one another and the world? There are specific, classroom-tested strategies that address these needs. Join the Folger Shakespeare Library for this session to learn how these strategies work so you can use them right away to transform any literacy lesson.

March 22 at 5 p.m. EDT | K-12
Immigrant Learning Center
Thousands of Afghan and other refugees are being resettled across the U.S. Join the Immigrant Learning Center in this session to learn how to elevate refugee students’ experiences and gain strategies for using graphic novels as teaching tools in the classroom. Using a graphic novel about a family of Syrian refugees, we will model a culturally responsive, trauma-informed approach to storytelling that centers on students’ experiences.

March 22 at 5 p.m. EDT | Grades 5-12
Next Gen Personal Finance
In this session, NGPF will share its most popular games, activities and lessons that can be used with students in grades 5-12, both virtually and in person, to teach personal finance topics, including financial algebra, the history of racism in finance, budgeting, paying for college, careers, investing, managing credit, insurance, taxes and more!

March 22 at 6 p.m. EDT | PreK-3
Nickelodeon, Noggin and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels
Join hip-hop legend Darryl McDaniels, founder of the iconic Run-DMC, and author of the best-selling children’s book Darryl’s Dream, along with Nickelodeon’s vice president for Digital Consumer Insights, Makeda Mays Green, author of Makeda: Moving Up in Media, for a compelling fireside chat. They will discuss how spoken-word, interactive media content can be an asset to educators. The session will feature Noggin’s new early literacy and vocabulary music video series, “What’s the Word?” which promotes early literacy skills for all children.

March 22 at 8 p.m. EDT | PreK-8
TeachRock
This session will feature the band LADAMA who were the central focus of the TeachRock lessons: LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community of South America, which was an SML Resource of the Year for 2021. The session will include hands-on activities and arts-integration best practices.

March 23 at 2 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
University of Delaware Partnership for Public Education
This session from the University of Delaware Partnership for Public Education features a free instructional toolkit co-designed by researchers and algebra teachers to help you support your students to become fluent and flexible problem-solvers and to better understand the “why” behind the concepts.

March 23, 2022 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT | Grades K-12
National Indian Education Association
Culturally responsive instructional approaches in the classroom benefit all students and are easily adaptable across content areas. However, culturally responsive literacy is a more complex approach as it relies on the literacy practices and history of students’ cultures to engage the brain to perform the act of reading. For many Native American students, literacy is grounded in oral tradition, Native languages, and centuries of storytelling which are not typically reflected or valued in Westernized literacy education and standards. This session from the National Indian Education Association will provide an overview of Native literacy history and best practices with an emphasis on oral literacy and storytelling and their alignment to literacy standards. While this session is Native-specific, oral literacy and tradition is deeply rooted in many Indigenous communities and is beneficial for all students.

March 23 at 5 p.m. EDT | Grades 9-12
Library of Congress
Understanding the science behind disasters can help us prepare for and even mitigate future disasters. In this session, we’ll take a look at examples of historic disasters using maps and photographs at the Library of Congress. We will use primary source analysis tools to explore these artifacts and consider opportunities to make connections with oceanography, chemistry, and human impacts on ecosystems.

March 24 at 1 p.m. EDT | PreK-12
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
In this three-segment session, presenters from CMNH and Tree Pittsburgh, an environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the city’s urban forest, will share lessons learned about engaging neuro-atypical learners in virtual space, overcoming the challenge of gaining and retaining the attention of scattered remote audience members, and how the primacy of authentic objects in learning is not diminished through a virtual interface.

March 24, 2022 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT | K-12
ADL
Join this engaging webinar on how books can be used to kick off a social studies unit, provide the groundwork for both historical and literary analysis, build empathy, and identify questions for further research. These compelling picture books can be used for children of all ages. This session will provide information, context and teaching ideas for using these books in the classroom and will also explore the impact of anti- CRT state legislation on these works of literature.

March 24, 2022 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT | K-12
Common Sense Education
How do you teach your kids to stand up for their beliefs, but keep their actions civil? Students will have strong views about banned books, but it is up to educators and parents to guide these conversations. This session with Common Sense Education will demonstrate the thinking routines and media literacy skills used to debate controversial issues. Learn how to encourage critical thinkers who engage with civility.

March 24 at 6 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
Journeys in Film
Join Journeys in Film for this exciting panel discussion about teaching the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated documentary film Summer of Soul (.. .Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Summer of Soul is a powerful, transporting documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 featuring performances by Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.

March 24 at 6 p.m. EDT | Grades 6-12
AFT members Kimberly Bigelow and Jean Hribar
Our teaching standards set high expectations for student learning, whether it is in mathematics, science or history. Join us to explore five research recommendations to improve students’ reading comprehension in the content areas.