Wednesday, November 29, 1:30 p.m.
Potential Realized: Creating a Classroom Culture that Drives Student Success
Andrew Sharos
Culture is like the oxygen of your classroom or team. You cannot see it, but without it, you can’t survive. In this MasterMind session, we will explore the intentional ways that teachers create a unique culture that encourages high expectations, collaboration, and honors “who students are” to achieve the ultimate goals of the course. What is your mission? What language do you use? What do students do for fun? How did they internalize expectations? If a student came back to your class in 10 years, what would they remember most? By being more intentional about creating classroom culture, we can drive successful student outcomes and complement the skills and content we are teaching.
About Andrew Sharos
Andrew is an educator, author, speaker and consultant. He has taught at West Leyden High School, winner of the College Board’s 2014 AP District of the Year award and one of the first schools in the nation to adopt “1 to 1” Google Chromebooks in 2012.
He was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman History Teacher of the Year Award in 2014. In 2018, Andrew was named the winner of the College Board’s “Distinguished Service Award,” given to a forceful spokesperson for educational and societal goals.
Released in March 2018, Andrew’s book, “All 4s and 5s: A Guide to Teaching and Leading Advanced Placement Programs” is the first published book written specifically for the Advanced Placement community and debuted on the Amazon best seller list.
Thursday, November 30, 9:15 a.m.
A New Moment in Education Afforded by Advances in Spatial Computing
Anurupa Ganguly
In this MasterMind session learn from Anurupa Ganguly as she shares her journey with STEM education reform, from her time as a practitioner leading up to the genesis of Prisms, the world’s first spatial learning platform where kids learn core math and science in VR, and beyond. Learn how recent advances in spatial computing are enabling us to scale how we’ve always wanted to teach – through great, real-world problems that mean something to our students. Her life’s mission is to empower an equitable workforce in STEM.
About Anurupa Ganguly
Anurupa Ganguly is the founder & CEO of Prisms. She founded Prisms to scale a new world teaching model where students learn core math and science concepts spatially, physically and steeped in important real world contexts. Prisms targets bottleneck topics that are often memorized in lieu of deeply understood — leading to huge gaps and drops offs over time in STEM. Anurupa and her team are transforming math education in the US by rapidly deploying the next generation of spatial computing devices across US K-12 districts, training teachers to integrate problem-driven learning with VR into core curriculum, and working with district leadership to rapidly improve joy, confidence and proficiencies in the modern math and science classrooms. She began her career as a math & physics teacher and later served in leadership roles across the Boston Public Schools, NYC DOE, and Success Academies. She holds degrees in EECS from MIT, and an EdM from BU. Her life’s mission is to empower an equitable workforce in STEM.
Friday, December 1, 10:45 a.m.
Teaching Students to Dream Bigger: You Can’t Be It If You Don’t See It
Dr. Michael J. Sorrell
As the president of a college in which 90% of the student population has known nothing but poverty, Michael Sorrell knows that, without game-changing interventions, “we become the things we’ve seen.” “If you go to an under-resourced high school and you ask the students, ‘What do you want to be?'” he says, “the valedictorian may tell you, ‘I love science and I want to be a nurse.’ Ask the same question at a private high school or one in an affluent public district and you’ll hear, ‘I really love science. I want to be a doctor.’ It’s not that both kids don’t have the same potential. It’s that one of them has been coached to dream small and one has been encouraged to dream boldly.” In this inspiring keynote, Sorrell shares real world stories of lives changed by exposing students to what’s possible. “We must inspire our students to see their potential, dream big and truly believe that it’s not where you start—it’s where you finish.”
About Dr. Sorrell
Dr. Michael J. Sorrell is the longest-serving President in the 149-year history of Paul Quinn College. During his 14 years of leadership, Paul Quinn has become a nationally regarded institution for its efforts to remake higher education in order to serve the needs of under-resourced students and their communities. Included among Paul Quinn’s numerous accomplishments during President Sorrell’s tenure are the following: winning the HBCU of the Year, HBCU Student Government Association of the Year, and HBCU Business Program of the Year awards; achieving recognition as a member of the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll; creating the New Urban College Model; demolishing 15 abandoned campus buildings; partnering with PepsiCo to transform the football field into the WE over Me Farm; achieving full-accreditation from the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS); creating the College’s first faculty-led study abroad program; and rewriting all institutional fundraising records. Paul Quinn College is also home to the innovative Early Talent Identification Program (ETIP), which provides rigorous enrichment experiences for academically gifted students in order to prepare them to thrive in highly competitive primary and secondary school environments.
https://www.pqc.edu/about-the-president/
