WYTeacherCon25

This session samples three lessons from the Wyo Wonders Minerals & Energy curriculum, designed for grades 2-5. We will engage in and discuss three activities that relate to Wyoming's natural resources, everyday products we all use to make the impact of minerals more relevant, and conservation.

Learn about one school’s journey of joining forces with the UW Literacy Research Center and Clinic to develop and implement a school wide approach to literacy instruction. This session gives an overview of 3 years worth of collaboration from think tank sessions selecting which strand of literacy has the most immediate need to have researched based practices modeled by LRCC team members in actual classrooms, and then teachers implementing those best practice strategies.

Too often, the focus is placed on the final product rather than the critical learning that happens along the way. In this session, we’ll flip that mindset and explore how emphasizing the process—research, synthesis, argumentation, and reflection—leads to deeper learning, stronger student engagement, and better critical thinking skills.

This session stands out because it goes beyond theory and delivers immediately actionable strategies that educators can implement the very next day. Attendees won’t just sit and listen—they’ll engage, reflect, and leave equipped with tools and ideas that transform everyday lessons into purposeful, high-impact learning experiences.

What makes this session unique? We focus on learning pathways, a proven approach to naturally differentiate instruction, increase engagement, and deepen student understanding. Educators will gain insights into how purposeful content instruction can be woven into dynamic classroom experiences that capture students’ curiosity and sustain engagement.

Unlike other sessions that might focus solely on engagement or instructional strategies, this session bridges the two, showing educators how to design experiences that are not only engaging but deeply rooted in content mastery. If you want to leave with practical, field-tested strategies that elevate your teaching and student outcomes, this session is a must-attend!

This collaborative idea-building session focuses on a perennial problem: the lack of time to teach science in elementary classrooms. There are so many demands on teachers to support their young learners including character development, and engagement of all learners. This session will provide participants with new ideas for using age-appropriate science crosscutting concepts (CCCs) to pose morning meeting and bell ringer prompts that will engage students while building their science understanding.

Children learn what they attend to--but how do we ensure they are attending to what we want them to learn? In this session, participants will engage in cognitive-science-informed classroom routines that will maximize student engagement and learning. Applicable to K-12 and for all content areas, these simple routines have a huge impact by checking students are listening, allowing for 100% participation, and maximizing student attention and retention of the lesson. Participants will have the opportunity to rehearse and engage with the routines and easily adopt them into their teaching practice.

The purpose of the Wyoming Resilience Youth Project is to create a community of practice for Wyoming educators to empower youth voices through curriculum and applied practice. As a response to Governor Gordon’s Reimagining and Innovating the Delivery of Education (RIDE) Initiative focused on youth life skills and community involvement, the project proposes to work with teachers to help their students to be engaged citizens. The goal is to partner with 25 teachers to collect youth perspectives about barriers and opportunities in educational attainment, employment, and community resilience that will be showcased locally and on a public interactive map. The project employs PhotoVoice – a research methodology designed to capture people’s perspectives of their lives through photography and narrative. By capturing Wyomingites’ experiences, in their voices, the project adds a rich context and texture to economic and behavioral data, which can be used in Wyoming college & K-12 classrooms, to inform community and state economic development priorities, and to develop a deeper understanding of what resilience means in different Wyoming communities. This session will provide information about the overall project, provide participants with an understanding of the PhotoVoice method, share curricular resources to support teacher participation, and discuss specifics about how teachers can partner with the UW Wallop Civic Engagement Program across 2025-26 in this project.

This session will engage educators by demonstrating effective student strategies that create relevance and boost engagement in high school. Participants will learn how to connect today's curriculum with students' future goals and dreams, fostering a smoother transition to adulthood.