Empower EDU

As literacy evolves, we say YES to both the enduring power of print—books, interactive read-alouds, and time-honored practices—and the possibilities of digital texts, multimodal storytelling, and creative tools that expand thinking and understanding. In this session, Kristin will share thinking strategies to enhance comprehension, communication, and critical thinking across print and digital texts. She’ll provide ready-to-use lessons that personalize learning, build background knowledge, grow vocabulary, and support deeper reading. She’ll show you how to tap students’ natural curiosity with print and digital resources, resulting in learners who are inspired and empowered to develop expansive literacy skills for today’s world.

Discover the power of Self-Directed Learning (SDL) to boost student engagement! Based on units developed in the Innovation Cohort, this interactive session walks you through a model SDL lesson. You’ll step into your students' shoes to experience a guided self-assessment and an abbreviated choice board, learning firsthand how these tools empower students to take ownership of their learning paths. Along the way, we’ll break down our pedagogical design choices and share real classroom observations demonstrating the significant spike in engagement we’ve seen since bringing SDL into our own rooms.

Learn what a Micro-credential is and how it will benefit your teaching. I want to share my experience as a physical education teacher. As a non-core teacher, finding meaningful professional development can be difficult. Learn how micro-credentials give you agency in your learning, allowing you to focus on your areas of need. Micro-credentials move us from a one-size-fits-all approach to discovering where we can grow as teachers. I want to share what micro-credentials are not, for example, they're not a quick fix to fill your CEU needs. They require buy-in from teachers and, in turn, create lasting impact. Discover how micro-credentials have benefited me as a physical education teacher. Strategies that helped me discover which micro-credentials to complete, along with tips and tricks to be successful. If time allows, we will explore Digital Promise and how to successfully navigate the website. My goal is for teachers and stakeholders to understand the impact Micro-credentials have had on my teaching and the long-term benefits that other types of traditional professional development could not easily fulfill.

In many math classrooms, students are doing the work but not truly owning their learning. In this session, I will share how I intentionally shift my 8th grade Math and Math 1 classroom from a teacher-led environment to one where students take an active role in problem solving, discussion, and decision making.Participants will experience and explore practical strategies that build learner agency in math, including structured collaboration, meaningful problem-based tasks, and opportunities for student choice. I will share real classroom routines, examples, and scaffolds that support students in becoming more confident, independent thinkers while still maintaining rigor and alignment to standards.This will not be a sit-and-get session. Attendees will engage in a model activity, reflect on their own practice, and leave with concrete strategies they can implement immediately to increase engagement and shift ownership of learning to their students.

Schools are under pressure to respond to concerns about screen time, but minutes alone do not tell the story. This session helps educators and leaders move beyond outdated binaries and toward a more useful question: what kinds of digital experiences develop agency, critical thinking, belonging, and well-being? Participants will explore how to evaluate digital media use through instructional purpose, cognitive engagement, equity, and student ownership. Grounded in the OECD Learning Compass, NC Portrait of a Graduate and classroom practice, this session offers a future-ready framework for making better decisions about technology use in learning.

This presentation will begin with my experience with micro-credentials and self directed learning, and we will dive into learning about the implementation of the use of choice boards in the classroom. We will learn about what a choice board looks like, with a few examples provided, and we will create a choice board during the session! Come ready to learn more about student agency and why it is so important at any grade level and come ready to create a lesson that can be used in your classroom!

Educators often juggle the demands of lesson planning, differentiation, and productivity—leaving little time to design fresh resources for every learning need. Enter Gemini Gems: a powerful AI tool that allows teachers to build reusable templates and tap into premade Gems for instructional and organizational support.This interactive session will have participants explore how Gems can streamline productivity while unlocking opportunities for differentiation. Users will generate task cards and rubrics to customize premade Gems, such as Storybook, for multiple reading levels, and attendees will discover practical ways to adapt content for diverse learners with just a few clicks. Whether creating reusable planning templates, engaging student choice boards, or quick formative assessments, Gems offer a flexible, time-saving solution for the classroom.Participants will leave with hands-on experiences exploring Premade Gems, designing their own Gem, and strategies for tailoring Gems to meet student needs. Before they leave, participants will have a collection of ready-to-use ideas that can be adapted across grade levels and subject areas.

Join us for an overview of the Empowering Teacher Learning project and the framework that made it a success with educators throughout western North Carolina. In this workshop, we will reflect on the accomplishments of this five-year investment in teacher-directed professional learning (TDPL) across rural western North Carolina. What began with a pilot year shaped by pandemic disruptions has grown into a dynamic, research-informed model centered on teacher agency, coaching, and competency-based micro-credentials. Over the course of the project, teachers have expressed strong appreciation for the ETL model’s support of the re-professionalization of teaching. We welcome you to apply our micro-credential, Introducing Self-Directed Learning to Students, in your own classrooms!

Teachers don’t need more strategies. They need a shift in structure. This session models how to move from teacher-directed instruction to student-driven learning through phenomena, engineering practices, and a strategic use of AI while still honoring standards and accountability. This session will give attendees tools to shift from compliance laden classrooms to limitless learning environments.

We all want to create a classroom that is engaging while also maintaining behaviors that allow for learning. Love and Logic is the perfect method to get this done. In this session, participants will be introduced to tried-and-true methods that can be implemented in the classroom tomorrow. They will have an opportunity to practice these methods as well as work to update/change their classroom rules and procedures to better align with this methodology.

What if every student had a “backpack” filled with books they could access anytime, anywhere? In this session, we’ll explore practical, budget-friendly strategies for expanding access to high-quality texts for all learners. From free digital libraries to creative classroom solutions, you’ll discover how to remove barriers and ensure every student has meaningful reading opportunities.You’ll also see how Google Gemini can be used to generate personalized “backpack books” and read-alouds tailored to students’ identities, interests, and experiences. By creating custom stories that act as mirrors and windows, educators can ensure every learner sees themselves reflected in what they read while also exploring new perspectives. Whether you’re working with limited resources or looking to reimagine literacy through AI, you’ll leave with ready-to-use ideas that make reading more inclusive, engaging, and accessible for all.

From Compliance to Self-Direction: Democratizing Learning for Agency, Mobility, and OpportunityThe U.S. learning ecosystem was largely designed for standardization, sequencing, and compliance—optimizing for scale in an industrial-era model of education. While this system expanded access, it positioned learners primarily as participants in predefined pathways rather than active agents in shaping their own learning journeys. Today, this model is increasingly misaligned with the rate of technological change and a labor market that demands adaptability, continuous skill development, and the ability to navigate complex career pathways.This session explores a paradigm shift from compliance-based learning to self-direction as a foundational design principle (Boyer, 2020). Drawing on the International Society for Self-Directed Learning’s definition (2020), self-direction is framed not as an individual trait, but as a system-enabled capacity—one that can be intentionally designed for and supported at scale.We examine how three critical enablers—personalized learning pathways, competency-based frameworks, and digital credentials—collectively provide levers for enhancing and cultivating environments that embrace self-directed learning. Personalization allows learning experiences to adapt to individual goals and contexts, in real time, with relevance and meaning; competency frameworks make skills explicit, measurable, and tied to mastery rather than seat time; and digital credentials (both degree and non-degree based) render those skills visible, portable, and actionable across education and employment systems.Together, these elements shift learning from static pathways to dynamic navigation, empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their education and careers. This transformation has significant implications for social mobility, enabling more equitable access to opportunity by equipping learners with the tools to understand, articulate, and leverage their skills in a rapidly evolving economy.Participants will leave with a conceptual framework for designing self-directed learning ecosystems and practical insights into how institutions, employers, and intermediaries can operationalize this shift.Additional citations and references available as required.

We will discuss and review different strategies for slowly incorporating agency into your instruction in order to promote more self-directed learning in your classroom.

Are you looking for standards alignment, inquiry-based design, and student agency all built into units?  Curriculum Genie can grant that wish by harnessing AI to help educators build brand-new lesson plans and full units, or revise existing ones, in minutes, with built-in support for North Carolina learning standards and Portrait of a Graduate competencies. Come explore how smart prompting can generate and refine differentiated, self-directed learning experiences that meet students where they are and move them forward.

In this session, we’ll explore how school leaders can leverage digital tools such as Curriculum Genie, CommonLit, and Project PBL to support microcredentialing and strengthen teacher capacity in differentiation across core subject areas. Aligned with our school-wide PDP goal of differentiation, participants will learn how to guide and encourage teachers as they earn targeted microcredentials that recognize their growth in designing personalized and engaging learning experiences for every student.We’ll also highlight how strategies like brag tags can motivate staff, celebrate progress, and create a culture where professional growth is visible and valued. Participants will leave with practical ideas, digital resources, and practical strategies to implement microcredentialing within their schools—empowering teachers to refine their practice while making professional learning engaging, meaningful, and impactful.

This session highlights a competency-based micro-credential offered through the Office of Rural Promise titled “Leveraging the Arts to Identify and Characterize Emotions.” Participants will explore how creative expression can be intentionally designed to strengthen emotional vocabulary, support social-emotional development, and improve learner engagement.Attendees will review the structure of the micro-credential, including the supporting research base, clearly defined outcomes, and evidence requirements that ensure measurable application of skills. The session will also examine how performance-based artifacts and reflection are used to demonstrate competency rather than seat-time completion.Participants will leave with adaptable lesson frameworks, practical templates, and clear “do’s and don’ts” for effective arts integration. Emphasis will be placed on designing learning experiences that are human-centered, competency-driven, and scalable across diverse learning environments.

Are you ready to harness the expertise of a professional learning community to create competency-based micro-credentials for teacher professional development? Join us to learn how the Empower Teaching Learning research project equips and supports teachers in transforming their content-area knowledge and classroom experience into high-impact micro-credentials through a scaffolded research, writing, and peer review process.

Key takeaways include:

• Developing a structured project plan and workflow that result in polished products mapped to educator interest and district focus
• Unpacking the conventions of micro-credential writing and design
• Providing support for subject matter experts in research best practices
• Building community through a positive peer review process

Speakers will share tips and tools for bridging skill gaps and applying feedback for continuous improvement and capacity-building. Attendees will leave with adaptable examples, templates, and a research‑informed process model that they can implement to develop meaningful, peer-driven professional development with the potential for expansive reach.