Deeper Learning 2026

Our workshop gives a window into an innovative tri-party collaboration between a school district, university and nonprofit designed to address gaps in access for kids to game-changing opportunities to learn, love and consider futures in STEM fields. The program, called Beyond Possible, is an afterschool community-based dual enrollment program for high school students designed to develop STEM and durable skills and position young people to enter in-demand careers leading to economic mobility.

In this session, participants will walk through the development journey of this partnership, examine data sets to pinpoint crucial issues of equity, engage in community asset mapping to identify strong values-driven collaborations and gain perspective from lessons learned by the partners as they built and adjusted the innovative partnership.  Through the process, participants will have the opportunity to engage with others, apply the thinking protocols to their own challenges and bring curiosity and planning focus to dilemmas of equity in their own contexts.

What does it take for every student to feel they truly matter? In this interactive session, inspired by the Odyssey Leadership Academy model, participants will engage in hands-on activities, reflective dialogue, and collaborative design to explore how belonging drives deeper learning. Together we’ll practice strategies for centering student voice, amplifying agency, and embedding equity into everyday learning. Through playful community-building and guided reflection, participants will experience the practices that foster mattering—connection, visibility, and care. By the end, you’ll leave with practical tools to cultivate classrooms and schools where belonging is not a byproduct, but the foundation of flourishing.

This session is for teachers, school leaders, and district teams seeking concrete, equity-centered strategies to create joyful, inclusive ecosystems of learning where every student is seen, valued, and essential.

Moving beyond the rhetoric of "student-centered learning," this interactive workshop provides participants with concrete strategies and frameworks for building sustainable teacher leadership systems that genuinely transform classroom instruction. Through a combination of collaborative reflection, authentic teacher testimonials, School District of South Milwaukee Principal led practical planning sessions, and expert consultation from Brian Delgado of Blue Dot Education, attendees will leave with actionable steps to create learning environments where students consistently engage in problem-solving, collaboration, and communication while mastering both academic and social-emotional learning competencies.

Note: This DL session also invites attendees from the National Summit on Improvement in Education to participate. Summit is a gathering and rallying point for a vibrant and diverse community of improvers who are working to create educational systems where all young people learn and thrive. In 2026, we're bringing together the powerful Deeper Learning and Improvement communities through select crossover sessions, culminating in a joint closing keynote. You are invited to dive deeper and make new connections at DL26. Check out our Summit and DL26 comparison to learn more.

Build a values-first story kit students will join: a clear story, tagline, and simple visual. Works for classroom projects, school culture efforts, or community partnerships. Learn a step-by-step process you can teach tomorrow to help students and staff communicate for impact. Leave with a completed workbook kit plus an elementary/middle/high adaptation guide.

In this hands-on workshop, educators and school leaders experience the Movement Communications Design Framework (MCDF) using a printed workbook and a simple peer-feedback protocol. You will move through four short sprints—Values, Storyboard, Visual Motif, and Tagline—then assemble your mini communications kit.

Bring a real initiative (class project, student-led effort, school-wide priority, or community campaign), or choose a ready-to-use prompt if you are starting from scratch.

Are you ready to play? This session invites participants to reconsider the crucial role that play has in learning—not just in early childhood, but throughout adolescence. Together we will explore the research on adolescent learners, examine the impact of play on their engagement, creativity, and social-emotional development, and identify ways play can be meaningfully woven into middle school practice. Designed for teachers and school leaders, this session is both hands-on and practical, ensuring participants walk away empowered to play—with adolescents in mind!

What if your block was the best classroom you’ve never used? Drawn from the WPS Institute’s partnerships with urban schools in Massachusetts, this session introduces Neighborhood Walks as a powerful entry point into community-connected, place-based learning.

We’ll begin by engaging with student voices from Salem and Boston that highlight the learning, connection, and engagement that emerge when young people step outside the classroom. Participants will then experience a Neighborhood Walk near the conference site, guided by lenses such as Making a Living or Being in Community. Along the way, they will practice slow observation, photo documentation, and reflection protocols that scaffold student confidence for learning in the wider world. Together, we will identify the skills and mindsets students develop through these immersions and leave with tools to design neighborhood walks for their own schools and communities.

Note: This DL session also invites attendees from the National Summit on Improvement in Education to participate. Summit is a gathering and rallying point for a vibrant and diverse community of improvers who are working to create educational systems where all young people learn and thrive. In 2026, we're bringing together the powerful Deeper Learning and Improvement communities through select crossover sessions, culminating in a joint closing keynote. You are invited to dive deeper and make new connections at DL26. Check out our Summit and DL26 comparison to learn more.

In this workshop, you won’t just learn about social and emotional leadership skills—you’ll practice how to teach them. You’ll take part in activities that model strategies for helping students develop self-leadership skills like self-awareness, accountability, resilience, and integrity. Through focused protocols and collaborative exercises, you’ll experience how to guide students in building the skills for leading with others, including collaboration, communication, active listening, respect, and consideration. You’ll also design and test out lesson activities that encourage students to expand their leadership impact by cultivating visionary thinking, motivation, encouragement, and confidence. By the end of the session, you’ll leave with practical tools, ready-to-use strategies, and hands-on experience to bring back to your classroom.

In this Workshop, educators become listeners, then learners, then makers. Drawing on a student-produced album as a primary text and hip hop’s own pedagogical traditions—sampling, the cipher, call and response, and storytelling as testimony—participants design lesson-ready structures for inviting their own students into authentic, safe, and culturally grounded conversations about mental health and wellbeing.  Hip hop has always been a technology for processing pain, building community, and speaking difficult truths out loud. This workshop asks: what if we let students show us how it’s done? No prior music production experience is needed. The only prerequisite is a willingness to listen.


* Tune In Speak Out is a student-produced album released through Another Level Records, the student-run label at the High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) in St. Paul, MN. Written, recorded, and produced by young people, the album documents the mental health realities facing their generation with candor, artistry, and care. It is not a curriculum about young people—it is a curriculum by them.