Deeper Learning 2026

What if every story leapt off the page and onto the stage? In this energetic workshop, discover how drama can transform literacy learning. Through movement, voice and imagination, students build confidence, expand vocabulary and strengthen communication skills. Participants will experience process drama strategies using quality texts, exploring how arts-rich pedagogy deepens understanding, empathy, and intercultural awareness. Learn practical ways to weave drama into your teaching from Primary to Middle Years - making learning more meaningful, memorable and alive!

In this session, participants will learn about the student experience through the coping process. Whether you're a school leader, classroom teacher, parent/caregiver, or student this session will offer fresh insights and strategies to help navigate stress, foster well-being, and enhance engagement. Participants will leave with concrete ways to support adaptive coping at home and at school. Come learn from what students are saying in our national data and how coping impacts their ability to thrive in our schools!

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.

Solutions to complex systemic challenges already exist within the “local genius” of our communities.  This interactive deep dive explores how to shift from designing for communities to designing with them.

As we will build a community in real time, we'll explore the attributes of thriving communities and the conditions necessary for true co-creation. You will identify a specific challenge from your own context and work collaboratively to discover the missing voices and perspectives traditional data often misses. We will then explore ways to authentically build the trust required for meaningful partnership and practice the listening skills required for true collaboration. Participants will leave with concrete tools and a clear plan to integrate community voices into your design process—not just as a strategy, but as a restorative act of shifting power to those most impacted by decisions.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

In Crafting Hope in Challenging Times, diverse participants from across the educational ecosystem are invited to engage in a shared, reflective experience focused on how today’s social and political dynamics are felt and lived in schools. Blending design thinking, narrative inquiry, and accessible hands-on making (no artistic background required), participants will translate lived experiences into small quilt-square artifacts using mixed media as metaphor, assembled into a collaborative installation representing collective experience, hope, and imagined change. In a moment of heightened polarization, the session treats craft as a tool for connection, sense-making, and pedagogical imagination.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

When given the gift of someone's attention, what do you choose to do with it? Join Magician Sky King (www.SkyKingMagic.com) and educator Carolene King for a deep dive on attention where you will craft the scripting for and confidently perform a magic illusion for an audience by the end of your experience. Learn about a framework on crafting engaging experiences and put it into practice through this magic show experience. Reflect on how you will apply this framework in your work, whether you are teaching leadership skills to your staff, or science principles to middle schoolers, or creative writing to high schoolers. Use the magic of crafting engaging experiences to playfully engage your participants' attention to effectively deliver your content.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

In this interactive deep dive led by Creating Creators, Santa Ana Unified School District’s Saintly Films, & What School Could Be facilitators, participants will reimagine a favorite lesson by embedding narrative filmmaking strategies aligned with academic standards. Using a PBL framework & AI tools, they will explore the creative process from brainstorming driving questions, scriptwriting, storyboarding, filming, & editing to produce a one-minute video artifact & lesson outline. The session offers firsthand experience with creative media to elevate learning, foster belonging, & engage diverse learners.

Participants will leave with tools, templates, & a replicable framework to integrate filmmaking into classrooms across grade levels & subject areas. This session is designed for teachers, instructional coaches, & school leaders seeking equitable, student-centered practices that make learning more meaningful & engaging.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

More than ever, schools need cooperative learning environments where students feel a sense of belonging and know their voice matters. This workshop is a hands-on professional learning experience that equips educators with practical, rhythm-based strategies to strengthen engagement, focus, and classroom community across all grade levels and subject areas.  We will explore how these approaches help students build focus, self-regulation, nonverbal communication, collaboration, and confidence.  These strategies channel energy in positive, focused ways, align with SEL goals, and can be used immediately—no music or dance background required.

Participants will experience stepping and body percussion activities and learn how to adapt them for classroom use as warm-ups, mindset training, focus resets, and collaborative learning tools. Each strategy is clearly connected to classroom application, with guidance on facilitation, differentiation, and classroom management—making the session valuable for general classroom teachers, arts specialists, and administrators alike.

Participants will also take part in a short step performance inspired by collegiate step traditions and examine how its structure can be scaled for different ages, spaces, and instructional goals.  Come ready to clap, stomp, and laugh your way into tools for creating a classroom where every student feels seen, valued, and part of the rhythm.



Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

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!

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.

The Power of Play for Pupils is a workshop where we discuss, play games, and learn about the importance of how the developing mind reacts to play in classrooms. Together, we will learn why play it’s important to adolescent development and why play is important in school. This workshop is intended for all teachers, school leaders, and empowered students who are open to sharing with a group.

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.