Durham Public Schools PL

Presenters: Emma Refvem | emma_refvem@dpsnc.net | 6-12 Science Specialist
Location: Hillside High School Room 107
Description: After a full year of implementing North Carolina’s new science standards, this session offers science educators a space to reflect on their teaching experiences, analyze instructional alignment, and collaborate to refine their practice. Through structured reflection, analysis of curriculum resources, and hands-on design time, participants will identify successes and challenges from the past year and co-create materials to better support rigorous, equitable, and student-centered science instruction. This session builds teacher capacity to use Durham Public Schools curriculum resources to plan and deliver differentiated, standards-aligned instruction while fostering curiosity, professional collaboration, and sustained impact into the next school year.
Subject Area(s): Science
Topic(s): Curriculum and Instruction, Student-Centered Learning
Targeted Instructional Grades: 7th Grade, 9th Grade, 11th Grade, 6th Grade, 8th Grade, 10th Grade, 12th Grade
Targeted Roles: Teachers

Presenters: Delphia Daniels | delphia_daniels@dpsnc.net | Literacy Coach; Latoya Johnson | latoya_judd@dpsnc.net | Teaching and Learning Coach
Location: Hillside High School Room 107
Description: This session gives teachers tools to increase student engagement using five of Hattie’s highest-impact strategies. We’ll focus on helping students show their thinking in visible ways—through discussion, feedback, reflection, or peer teaching. Teachers will learn what covert engagement and overt engagement look like, and why both are important in every classroom. We’ll walk through each strategy with real examples, build understanding, and give teachers space to plan lessons using what they’ve learned. Activities like the “Apply It!” planning challenges will help teachers match engagement strategies to their own content. The session also includes a reflection and exit ticket to help teachers decide what to try first and what they might still have questions about. We’ll start by sparking curiosity and making connections to what teachers already do, then build new learning in a way that’s clear and usable. Strategies are modeled, discussed, and practiced with support—and teachers will leave with next steps they can use right away. Teachers will need access to the curriculum materials (HMH, ARC, Eureka2, etc.) for planning purposes.
Subject Area(s): Mathematics, Science, Social Studies
Topic(s): Curriculum and Instruction, Effective Feedback Strategies, Explicit Teaching
Targeted Instructional Grades: 1st Grade, 3rd Grade, 5th Grade, Kindergarten, 2nd Grade, 4th Grade
Targeted Roles: Teachers