This digital program is for all things DL2026! Session selection is LIVE. Only registered attendees will be able to select sessions starting March 3rd. Click this link to REGISTER.
Physical, temporal, and technological contexts of schooling constitute the "third teacher" in education. Too often, these environments work against our learning goals. Authentic learning doesn’t respect the constraints of classroom walls. Community learning experiences get stymied by bureaucracy. Collaboration collides with regimented teacher and student schedules. Efforts to design active learning within traditional school structures face constraints of time, space, and technology. In this interactive workshop for teachers and school leaders, participants will explore creative strategies to break down these barriers. Drawing on XQ Design Principles and inspired by student testimonials and artifacts of learning, we engage in an intensive design process to uncover opportunities to adapt even the most rigid learning environment. Participants will leave with a plan to create space for innovation in any school.
Edward Montalvo is the Director of the Educator Network at the XQ Institute, overseeing XQ’s Community of Practice and educator engagement strategy. He writes about education and its intersection with AI and authors the XQ Xtra newsletter. He is based in Washington, DC.
In a world obsessed with numbers, we ask you to join us in the fight to excavate and unearth the stories that hide behind the data. This interdisciplinary, hands-on exploration includes math, visual arts, literature, and social sciences. We will collect real stories, extract data, and transform our findings into meaningful visuals. Experience the Design for Deeper Learning Kaleidoscope PBL Essentials in action as you collaborate, create, and make learning visible. You’ll leave with adaptable PBL design strategies, and tools for designing data experiences that center empathy.
Sarah Strong loves creating spaces for her children and adult students to share their math stories, and collectively rewrite stories where everyone in the community can flourish. She also finds joy in supporting new teachers in falling in love with teaching. She taught math to students... Read More →
Professional Learning Designer, High Tech High GSE
Creatively non-compliant and embracer of wild ideas, I am a Professional Learning Designer with the High Tech High Graduate School of Education with 15 years of teaching experience in both a comprehensive NYC public school and PBL classrooms at High Tech High. Inspired by bell hooks... Read More →
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.
